Free The Art of Stealing Time: A Time Thief Novel by MacAlister Katie Page B

Mrs. Vanilla were placed in the matching cage. The guards didn’t manhandle them, I was relieved to note. Although there was a space of about six feet between our cages, I was comforted by the fact that they were nearby, and as safe as an unjustly incarcerated person finding herself in the Welsh afterlife could be.
    “No. Just very, very pissed. Hey, you, plate boy. My mothers are old, and Mrs. Vanilla is really elderly. Give them some food and water and blankets and stuff.”
    The guard said nothing, just lit a torch inside the entrance, and left, letting the tent flap drop as he went.
    “Bastard,” I muttered, and began to prowl the cage to look for weakness. The dogs accompanied me. “Sorry, guys. I’m not going to play right now. Maybe later, OK?”
    Oddly enough, the dogs seemed to understand, because they both turned and wandered out of the tent, leaving us alone. A few minutes later, another guard appeared, this one minus his helmet but with his arms full of blankets, with two carefully balanced jugs on top. A second guard carried a couple of long flat metal platters bearing bread, cheese, and what looked to be some sort of smoked meat.
    I wasn’t surprised to find a fresh company of hounds on his heels, evidently very interested in the food.
    The guards passed the food through the bars to us, ignoring my pleas to be taken to whoever was in charge so that we could clear up the situation. Thankfully, they shooed the dogs out before them when they left. So it was that a half hour later, fed, hydrated by ice-cold water that was actually very good, and with the warmth of a thick woolen blanket around us, we all settled down to get a little sleep.
    “Things will look brighter in the morning,” my always optimistic mother said as she curled up with Mom Two on one of the camp beds in her cage, Mrs. Vanilla having been settled on the other. “They always do.”
    I said nothing, but as I watched the torch sputter and finally die, my thoughts were as dark as the night outside the prison tent.
    •   •   •
    “See? I told you things would look brighter,” my mother said some seven hours later. I shot her a brief glare, and she had the grace to look abashed.
    “I wouldn’t call a bloodred sky brighter.” My attention was momentarily distracted by the fact that the sky was, in fact, deep, dark red and striped with dirty gray wisps of what I assumed were clouds. Smoke, thick and dark, wafted upward in long, lazy curls from some unknown—but nearby—source. Every now and then, a little rumble of thunder sounded in the distance, and twice my peripheral vision caught the sudden flash of lightning.
    There were no clouds in the sky.
    I took a deep breath, one of several that I had taken during the last ten minutes since we had been released from our prisons. We’d been given more water (which again was fresh and cold and almost sweet, it was so good), thick slabs of bread, a little pottery bowl of butter, and rough-cut slices of the best cheese I’d ever had. Three young-looking dogs who could have been siblings snuck in after breakfast was delivered and waited patiently outside my cell until I couldn’t stand their hopeful eyes any longer and handed over bites of bread and cheese. Two apples completed my food allotment, both of which I stuck in my hoodie pockets for later.
    Luckily, I’d just finished using what could only be described as a camping toilet, discreetly located in the corner and hidden behind a long blue curtain that was hung from the bars across the ceiling of the cell.
    “Say what you will about the accommodations,” Mom Two said as they settled in to their breakfast. I noticed somewhat jealously that they had also been given plump, juicy-looking grapes. “The food is delicious. Gwenny, don’t give those hounds any more cheese. It will give them wind. Is there more butter, Alice?”
    Mrs. Vanilla made happy little noises as she ate grapes.
    It was a good thing that we were all hungry,