A Book of Spirits and Thieves (Spirits and Thieves #1)(24)

The guard hit him in the head with the hilt of his sword.



Darkness fell for what felt like hours . . . or perhaps it was only moments . . .

Slowly, very slowly, he opened his eyes.

Becca. Where is Becca? It was his first thought, but he couldn’t move enough to even search for her.

From his position flat on the ground, his cheek pressed to the dirt, he saw Livius ten paces away, gesturing at him and yelling something to a group of guards. The fat moneylender, Cena, stood much closer.

“Yes, he’s the one you’ve heard about,” Cena said, looking down at Maddox. “The witch boy who can talk to spirits. Information like this must be worth a nice reward, yes?”

“You’ll get a reward if your information is true.” A guard crouched next to Maddox, peering at his face with curiosity. “We won’t execute him just yet. The goddess will want to speak with him first.”





Chapter 7


CRYSTAL



Every other Sunday, from the time she was nine to the time she was fifteen, Crys and her father would go to the Art Gallery of Ontario. Becca never really cared about art the way Crys did, always preferring to stick her nose in a book and keep it there all day long. Even though most shops were open on Sundays, it was the day the Hatchers had decided to keep the bookstore closed so they could have family time.

Family time. It sounded so quaint, thinking about it now.

So Becca would read in the living room with her mom or hang out at a friend’s house those days—things that Crys would do on Saturdays. But Sundays were reserved for father-daughter art-appreciation sessions.

She’d seen plenty of incredible exhibitions over the years. Andy Warhol, da Vinci, the impressionists, the Group of Seven, and tons of modern art—which Crys loved, but at which Daniel Hatcher always cocked his head, uncertain how to interpret two bands of color worth over a million dollars.

Currently the AGO was hosting a history of photography exhibition. It was called Light and Shadow: Photography from 1839 to Present Day.

Crys hitched her heavy bag higher on her shoulder as she explored the once familiar hallways and alcoves of the AGO. She kept her mind off her nerves by focusing on the paintings and sculptures in the permanent collection before wandering into the special exhibition rooms.

Displays of old cameras—far, far older than her trusty Pentax—and one-of-a-kind shots of landscapes, architecture, and solemn faces posing for early photographs were good distractions. Crys noted happily that there weren’t too many perfectly coiffed model-types around a century ago.

“They aren’t smiling, because they had to sit for a very long time, frozen in place like that,” a deep, familiar voice behind her said. “Hard to keep a smile looking genuine for that long.”

Her shoulders tightened, but she didn’t turn around.

“You look wonderful, Crissy,” he said. “So grown up.”

Finally, she glanced over her shoulder. And there he was, looking very much the same as he had the last time she’d seen him. Two whole years ago.

It felt more like ten.

Eyes that were duplicates of her own stared back at her, that spooky light blue color they both shared framed by dark lashes. A smile curved up one side of his mouth. “Nothing to say?”

“I have plenty to say,” she managed. “Just trying to find my voice.”

“Texting is easier, isn’t it?”

“Texting is always easier.”

He wasn’t wearing his usual glasses (she’d inherited her bad eyesight from him). Maybe light eyes were naturally weaker than darker ones, she’d often wondered. Her contacts had pissed her off that morning, and she’d thrown them across her bedroom after several unsuccessful attempts at putting them in, then had stepped on them during her search. So glasses it was today. But she didn’t blame the contacts. She blamed being close to the edge of Anxiety Cliff all week.

“So let’s talk about photography,” he suggested, crossing his arms and studying the display in front of them. “You know what this is called?” He pointed to a self-portrait of a man staring into the camera. The image had been printed on a shiny surface, very unlike the matte photo paper Crys used in the makeshift darkroom she set up in the house when she needed to develop film.

“It’s a daguerreotype,” she said, pushing her glasses up higher on her nose. She had already known the answer, but there was a descriptive plaque right next to it that explained everything, which she read from. “‘Named for Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, the daguerreotype is an early photographic process that uses an iodine-sensitized silver plate and mercury vapor.’”

“Sounds like a lot of effort.”

“Too much. I wonder what this guy would have thought of digital.”

“Maybe he would have looked happier about the whole situation.”

“Maybe.” She swallowed hard, barely seeing the impressive image before her, barely caring about being so close to a historical artifact of her favorite subject.

“You’re still wearing your funny T-shirts,” her father observed.

She looked down at herself. Her vast T-shirt collection was simply clothing to her, not a conscious attempt at daily humor through fashion. The one she’d randomly chosen today was a cartoon of an anthropomorphic piece of sushi with the caption: THAT’S HOW I ROLL!