Page 14 of Mirror of Malice
Earn? As in, they were actually proud of these names?
Wayfinder pointed to another woman with red wavy hair and thick red lips. “And that’s?—”
“Enough,” Penn said. “She’ll meet everyone in due time. For now, she needs to start her training. The queen has no doubt sent her Huntsman after the princess. We can’t afford to waste time, not with him looming ever closer.”
A chill skittered down my arms, and I frisked them. The Huntsman. He was a terrifying creature. After what he’d done to my father... Penn was right. He would be coming after me. Just another reason I needed to escape to find Jasper as soon as possible.
“What is the point of this academy? Why would you recruit and train people to steal?” I looked at all of them. “And why on this good green earth would you all agree to this?”
“I get to meet a lot of women,” Charming said. “You’d be surprised how many of them love the whole bad-boy thing I got going on.”
Penn rolled his eyes. “How do you think I’ve been able to steal from the northern reaches of the frost court to the blazing bowels of the fire court, all the way to the isles of the sky court?” He stepped closer, his forest-green eyes searing. “How do you think I’ve been able to thwart authorities in every court on this continent? Keep their descriptions of me muddled?”
It all made sense. My eyes widened. “That was all of you? You’re all the king of thieves?”
“They’re all working for the king of thieves,” Penn corrected. “They were trained by me, go on my missions, steal for me, and get a good cut.” He gestured to the treetop houses. “Not to mention a nice home.”
“And a chance to do some good,” Wayfinder said.
“Good?” I wanted to scream. “You think stealing from the courts is good?”
The thieves shot each other looks that I couldn’t decipher.
Penn sighed out an annoyed breath. I never even knew breathing could sound annoyed, but his did. Very distinctly. “I need you for a mission. To steal a weapon for me. Something only you have access to. In order to complete the mission, you have to train and learn a particular skillset, and you need to do it before the Huntsman arrives. Because he is coming.”
“You want me to steal something for you?” Horror washed over me.
“Yes,” Penn said through gritted teeth.
“So what is this weapon? Where is it?”
I didn’t have access to anything powerful like what he was referencing. In fact, I had no clue what he could be talking about.
Wayfinder shook his head, those black curls of his bouncing. “He doesn’t reveal our missions ahead of time. Too much of a chance that someone might be listening, spying, that the details could leak.”
“You don’t even trust your own academy members? That’s not very inspiring.”
My father had been the same. He hadn’t trusted his advisors, hadn’t trusted anyone, it seemed. I understood where the mistrust came from after the false king and queen had risen up and betrayed him, but my father had been stubborn whenever I’d brought up his lack of trust, whenever I’d told him that he needed to let people in. We’d had that same argument so many times over the years, and it never mattered. He wouldn’t listen.
“You’ll get the details when you need them,” Penn said, his tone dismissive.
He turned to leave the circle.
“And what’s your nickname?” I asked.
He stopped, his back still to me.
“Let me guess: Hardhead.” I snapped my fingers. “No, maybe Unpleasant? Or, perhaps, Killjoy would best be attributed to you?”
Everyone in the circle stared at me with wide eyes, their gazes darting between me and Penn.
“Oh, I definitely like her,” Charming murmured.
“We call him Boss,” Wayfinder said.
“Never would have guessed,” I replied. “So what’s my nickname to be, then?”
“You’ll get it when you start training, showing your strengths. You’ll get one when you earn it,” Penn responded, then continued on his way out of the circle.
