Free Time Thief: A Time Thief Novel by MacAlister Katie

good expression. However, Dalton is mad if he thinks that I’m going to discuss my talents, such as they are. I haven’t spent my entire life trying to get away from the time-thief label to have a lengthy discussion about what it is to be a Traveller.”
    “And yet, that is exactly what you are, is it?” Sunil said. “For if you were not a Traveller, then I would not behere, and we would not be having this grand adventure together! We really are most fortunate.”
    Peter sighed again, feeling the Eeyore cloud grow a couple of sizes larger. “You are the only man I know who is happier dead than you were alive.”
    “That is because my distant cousin Rajesh was a very great man, a Vaishya Vani, you understand, and did not have time for one such as me. Although it is true that he gave me a job at one of his very successful restaurants, for which I was most grateful.”
    “Sunil, what did I tell you?”
    “You have told me a great many things, Peter-ji, all of which I value highly.”
    “One of those things was that I don’t hold with the caste system. No one in the Otherworld does. It doesn’t matter that you were born to a lower caste than your snobbish cousin who couldn’t be bothered to give his own flesh and blood a better job than dishwasher. You’re a valuable person on your own.”
    “Yes, yes, you have told me this, and I am agreeing,” Sunil said quickly, his light bobbing earnestly.
    “Good. See that you remember it. I don’t want to hear any more about you being unworthy of anything but the utmost respect and honor. There is no such thing as the untouchable caste anymore.”
    “No, there is not, there is most certainly not, and we Dalits are most extremely grateful about this.”
    Peter gave up trying to make the Indian understand the idea of self-worth. He had centuries ahead of him in which he could instill that.
    The tiny ball of light buzzed around quietly in the seat as they drove.
    “I am thinking that I have angered you with my referenceto my death. For that, I am most entirely sorry,” Sunil said a few minutes later, his voice contrite and subdued. Peter hated the fact that the man whose death he had caused felt obligated to apologize to him.
    “There’s nothing to be sorry about,” he said brusquely. “I’m the one who was responsible.”
    “It was an accident,” Sunil said, and as penance, didn’t even comment on the petting zoo sign that loomed up on the horizon. Peter knew that the animus—what mortals would describe as a cross between a soul and a spirit—desperately wanted to see the petting zoo just as he had desperately wanted to see every other point of interest that they’d come across during their stay on the West Coast. To be honest, Sunil’s joie de vivre was one of his most endearing traits, if at times somewhat wearing.
    “At least you’ve been saddled with a cheerful person,” Dalton had told him when he announced three years ago that thereafter he would be accompanied by a tiny ball of light that had once been a teenage illegal alien in England. “Count your blessings. You could have been stuck with someone much less pleasant.”
    And for that reason Peter pulled off at the next sign indicating the route to the petting zoo. Instantly, Sunil’s light began blinking very fast, a sign he was filled with excitement. “We are going to the zoo of petting animals?”
    Peter shook his head. “We can’t stay long. And if there are others around—”
    “I will stay close to the ground so that no one sees me,” Sunil promised, chattering away happily. “The sign informs us that the petting zoo has alpacas! I’ve never seen an alpaca. Do you think they will try to eat me like that buffalo who tried to do so a few weeks ago whenyou kindly let me visit the ranch? Its tongue was most amazing. Ah, another sign, what a happy circumstance. Perhaps it warns us that alpacas eat shiny things?
‘Please keep your children at your side. Unattended children will be given a