Free Skybreaker by Kenneth Oppel Page B

say this was not just another trap. My knees felt wobbly and I wanted to sit. It was probably a good idea to get inside, in case anyone came looking for us.
    Inside the noisy café, Nadira led the way to a table near the back and asked the waiter for two coffees. She tried to gather her damp, wild hair into a braid. Long tendrils escaped and floated along her temple and cheek. I knew very few young women, and certainly none who wore leather overcoats. I shouldn’t have agreed to this. She was a gypsy. Everyone had warned me.
    The coffee arrived. I’d always liked the smell better than the taste, but I was chilled and shaken enough to appreciate the hot jolt of it down my throat.
    “I could’ve warned you about them,” she said. “If only you’d listened.”
    “So you know them?” I asked suspiciously.
    “I know who they are.”
    “That’s being evasive.”
    “I don’t work for them,” she said, “if that’s what you mean.”
    “Who do you work for, then?” I asked.
    “No one. Myself.”
    She was very pretty, and it made me uncomfortable. Was that why I was still sitting here? Or was I genuinely, dangerously, curious? I found the way she looked at me unnerving. Her gaze had a locksmith’s insistence. I didn’t know if her dark eyes held curiosity, wariness, or even hatred for me.
    “I thought you’d be bigger,” she commented. “All those stories about you in the newspaper.”
    “Well, they tend to exaggerate, don’t they?”
    “They certainly do.”
    I hoped she didn’t think me a paltry specimen. “How did you find me?”
    She took another sip of her coffee. “I’ve got a business proposition for you.”
    “You want us to team up and salvage the
Hyperion
?” I suggested.
    “That’s right,” Nadira said. “There’s a fortune on board, and I want it. You’ve got the coordinates, don’t you?”
    There was no risk of our being overhead in the din of the café. We had to lean across the table even to hear each other. Mingled with the damp odour of her leather overcoat was a warm, faintly spicy smell. Cumin, maybe. Working around Chef Vlad’s kitchen for years, there were few spices I wasn’t acquainted with.
    “I don’t think I’m interested,” I told her.
    “Is it because I’m a gypsy?”
    I did not answer.
    “You don’t know anything about the Roma, do you?” she demanded. “I mean, aside from the fact that we’re all pickpockets and brigands?”
    “No, not really,” I replied.
    “You shouldn’t believe every nasty rumour you hear.”
    “I’m sure you’re right.” I felt ashamed.
    “So, what do you think? Can we work together?”
    “I don’t even know you,” I said.
    “No, but you need me.”
    “I do?”
    Nadira reached a hand down through her collar and lifted out a thin leather case that hung around her neck. With her long fingers she snapped open the clasp and drew out a tarnished brass key. An ingenious-looking thing it was, and obviously quite old, with all sorts of prongs that folded out from the central shaft and revolved around it. It was as much a puzzle as a key. I’d never seen anything so intricate.
    “It looks like it could unlock the gates of heaven,” I said.
    “Almost.” She deftly folded it up and slid it back into theleather pouch. I tried not to look at the smooth, dusky skin of her throat. “It unlocks the cargo holds aboard the
Hyperion
.”
    “How do you know?”
    “I have it on very good authority,” she said.
    “Where’d you get the key?”
    She did not even blink. “That’s my business.”
    “Did you steal it from John Rath?”
    “No. He found out I had it and came looking for me. I did a little spying and overheard them talking about you. They said you had the coordinates. So I got passage to Paris as fast as I could. I wanted to warn you.”
    “Where are you from?” I asked.
    “London.”
    I’d suspected as much from her accent. She’d come all the way from Angleterre to find me. Had she travelled