Free Midnight Thief by Livia Blackburne Page A

determined to work hard. Laman doesn’t mind hiring her as long as she does the work and Lettie stays quiet. Are you sure about covering the rest of her lodging?”
    “I’ll be fine.” She checked again to make sure Idalee wasn’t listening. “James pays me plenty.”
    “Here, let me do the rest.” Bella took the knife and rolled the remaining turnips away from Kyra. “You’ve taken a liking to them two, haven’t you? I don’t see you renting rooms for any of the other gutter mice.”
    Kyra shrugged, self-consciously tracing the grains on the table surface. “I don’t know,” she said. “Lettie’s so small. I was that small once.”
    “I really don’t know how you survived out there by yourself. Lettie had Idalee, at least.”
    “Don’t remember much. Just really wanted to survive, I guess.”
    “From what I could gather, you had a tough time. You were a suspicious little mouse when we met. The first few times I fed you, you watched Flick eat half the bowl before you dared swallow anything.”
    “Really?” Kyra couldn’t decide which was more amusing—that she’d suspected Bella of poisoning her food, or that she’d been willing to sacrifice Flick as her taster.
    “And then there were the nightmares,” said Bella.
    Those, she did remember. The nightmares had followed her off the streets into her early years at The Drunken Dog. Flashes of bright heat. A woman’s dark eyes. Teeth. She remembered Bella coming into her room when she woke up screaming, holding her and stroking her hair until she stopped. That gesture, more than anything, was what had finally broken through Kyra’s walls.
    “I don’t have them as often anymore,” said Kyra. And she was better at suppressing her screams when she woke. Kyra supposed she was too old these days to run to Bella, but a selfish part of her still missed Bella’s touch.
    “I’m glad to hear it. And you’ve done well for yourself. You rented your first room with your own earnings,” said Bella.
    “I stumbled on a flush trade.” Kyra gave the cook a wry smile. “I could train Idalee….”
    “Please don’t. I’ve given up on straightening you out, but I still hold out hope for these girls.”
    “I’m surprised you’re at The Drunken Dog, Bella.” Bella didn’t speak much of her past, but Kyra knew that she and Flick’s mother had been merchants’ daughters. Not nobility by any means, but not the type to be spending time with thieves and gutter rats.
    Bella spun a turnip against her carving knife, peeling off the skin in a long spiral. Kyra grabbed the longer shreddings from the table as they fell. “About fifteen years now, sixteen since my husband passed. And if you’d told me seventeen years ago that I’d end up at the Dog, I would never have believed it.” She put the knife down. “It was hard. You’re old enough to understand now. My husband was gone. Who knows what had befallen my son in his eagerness to chase griffins and mermaids? Not many places would take a woman in, and I was lucky that Laman knew and respected my husband. I needed work and a place to stay. I couldn’t afford to be choosy.”
    Kyra had a sudden vision of a younger Bella, clutching her bags at the door of the tavern, jaw clenched in determination as she looked over the tavern’s rougher patrons. “I suppose it took some getting used to.”
    “It did.” Bella was looking off into the distance now.
    “Did it get better?”
    She looked thoughtfully at Kyra. “I got used to it. But what really made it better was finding Flick again. And meeting you.”
    “Really?”
    “Well, I’d given up on ever finding my sister. When she sent for me, and I found out she was dying…” Bella trailed off for a moment. “I see her in Flick sometimes. And the two of you gave me hope. Most of the patrons here are hard, jaded. The two of you still had some innocence about you, despite what you’d gone through.”
    Kyra gave Bella a crooked smile. “Innocence? Do you