The Dream Thief Read Free

the
tassels.
    “You
have to do both,” managed Rhys, into the sudden hush.
    Without
a word, Lia stuck her hand into the cage and retrieved the other wren.
    Another rush of invisible wind
sliced over them, clattering the leaves. She flung the second bird up after it,
where it flapped and fluttered and skimmed off in a drunken line, vanishing
into the night.
    Lia shot a look at Kimber, chin
tilted. “I suppose I’ll only ever be half as good as you, after all,” his
little sister said, and with her skirts in her hands she pelted down the path
that led back to Chasen Manor.
    Changeling, Kim thought, watching her go. Definitely.

    Once, years ago, Lia had asked
her mother if she heard the song.
    “The supper chime?” Rue Langford
had asked, tucking her daughter into bed.
    “No, Mama. The other song. The
quiet one.”
    “The quiet one. The music box
from your father?”
    “No. The other song.”
    And
Mama had gazed down at her with her lovely brown eyes, her head tilted, a smile
on her lips. She and Papa were hosting a fête that evening for the
members of the council and their wives. Her skirts were ivory and cream; she
smelled of flowers and soap and the silvery dust of hair powder. She wore
pearls that thrummed with a low, gentle melody, simple, like a hymn. Lia
reached out and ran her fingers over the bracelet.
    “I’m
afraid I don’t know what song you mean, beloved.”
    “That
one…” Audrey was already out of the nursery, but Joan was in the bed against
the other wall, sulking because she wasn’t yet old enough to attend the fête.
    “She
says she hears a song all the time,” said Joan in a very bored, grown-up voice.
    Mama’s
look sharpened. “What sort of song?”
    “A
quiet one. You know…like the wind in a meadow. Like the ocean.”
    Rue’s
expression relaxed. “Oh. Yes, I hear that sometimes too.”
    “You
do?”
    “I do.
Nature plays a wonderful symphony for us.”
    “No,
not nature. It’s a song. ”
    Rue placed the back of her
fingers upon her daughter’s forehead. Her skin felt very cool. “Can you hum
it?”
    “No.”
    “Does
it bother you? Does it hurt your head?”
    “No…”
    “It’s not even real,” said Joan
loudly in her bored voice. “If it was real, we’d all hear it. We can hear everything. ”
    “It is real to your sister,”
answered Mama, firm, and looked back at Lia. “You must tell me if it ever starts
to fret you. Come to me, and I’ll fix it.”
    Lia sat up in her bed, wide-eyed,
interested. Rue was powerful, the most powerful female of the tribe, but Lia
had no idea her mother’s Gifts were that strong.
    “How, Mama?”
    “Why, I’ll love it away, just
like this,” said Rue, laughing as she caught Lia by the shoulders and pressed
rose-petal kisses all over her cheeks.
    That was how Amalia knew that her
mother didn’t believe her either.
    When the dreams began to surface
a few years after that, Lia didn’t bother to tell anyone. The song, for all its
persistence, held a certain sadness and distance that made it seem almost
innocent. But there was nothing of innocence in the blind dreams. In them she
was another person…older. Enigmatic. She woke from them flushed and panting,
guilty and excited and miserable at once. She wouldn’t share those feelings
with anyone, not even her mother.
    At first they were fragments,
just voices and sentences that seemed strung together without reason. She could
hear herself speaking in them, but what she said made no sense. She could hear
the man’s voice, but it was as though he was far away from her, talking through
a rainstorm. She caught only snatches of words. Yet the dreams had grown
clearer. And clearer. And with them, a rising sense of danger, a warning that
pushed down on her chest and prickled the hair on her arms.
    Nothing truly terrible ever
happened in the blind dreams. At the same time, she knew that somehow they
meant everything terrible. She spoke of stealing and killing and the loss of
her parents