A Jewel Among Thieves

Chapter 8: Stories

Another heavy silence wrapped itself around them. Safia supposed they were both at fault, poking at the other's sore spots unintentionally. But regardless of who was to blame, she'd had enough of the current mood. "So, you've worked private security for a while now. What's the strangest thing you've seen while on job?" The attempt to change the subject might be as subtle as a hurled brick, but she didn't care.

Rezo straightened and a slow smile spread across his face. "Oh, I've seen some strange things while working for sure. The oddest is tied between the man who hired me to protect his fluffy little dog, who I'm still not sure what threat there was against, and the valet I caught trying to smuggle several birds into the manor by hiding them in his pants."

That got a laugh out of her. "Birds? In his pants? Why? And how did you catch him?"

"I saw him acting suspiciously and thought he was trying to steal something. I never expected him to be bringing things in. As for the why, he was courting one of the lady's maids and apparently she liked birdsong. I'm not sure why he hid them in his pants and didn't just get a cage of them. It was a weird household."

"I'm surprised he ran the risk of getting pecked. Or them fluttering around inside his pants-" That particular mental image had her chuckling. Birds in pants really was the oddest thing she'd heard of, at least for the year.

Rezo grinned. "The best part is I only caught him on his second trip. It took them weeks to catch all the birds he'd brought in on his first one. Now, turnabout's fair play. What's the craziest story you have?"

"Hmmm..." Safia tapped her pursed lips with one finger as she considered her options. It needed to be something funny and light. The last thing she wanted was them to get stuck in another of those difficult moods. Two memories rose, and she had to smile. "I have a tie as well. The time I found another thief up in the attic, stuck upside down because he hadn't paid attention to where he'd hooked his feet, was pretty funny. So was the older lady who tried to hire me to steal a certain young man's seed. I to this day don't know what she wanted it for, or how she thought I was going to transport it. Or why she didn't approach a prostitute."

He shook his head, chuckling. "A man's seed? I don't know what I was expecting, but that definitely wasn't it. Depending on the man, it might be easy to get, but you have a good point about the transport of it. And the use. I...That is truly weird."

"Then you admit I win for craziest story?"

"I'll give it to you, but only because I'm still trying to figure out what in the name of the depths she wanted it for."

Safia smiled, glad he was willing to admit that she'd won. Her expression flickered briefly as the reality that she was his prisoner reasserted itself. When Rezo grinned at her like that, when he spoke to her in that deep and easy voice of his, sometimes she forgot she was trapped in a cell. Especially when he was being nice to her.

She couldn't afford to forget her situation, not with his brother getting ever closer. Safia glanced at the window, squinting a bit to see if the sliver of sky she could see was any lighter or not. She didn't think it was, but it was hard to tell. She had to be careful of every minute. Which meant she couldn't waste more time just chatting with Rezo. At least not without purpose.

He seemed to sense the change in her mood. He stood up and stretched. "Well, if you can promise me not to try and escape until I get back, I may know where there's a bottle of decent wine that won't be missed. I don't know about you, but I could use a drink."

Safia gave him a half-smile. "That would be nice."

Rezo mock-saluted her. "Then I'll take my leave of you, Cat. And do try not to hurt yourself when you try to force yourself through the bars."

She rolled her eyes while he grinned at her. He waved one last time before he disappeared around a corner and out of the lantern light. Safia waited until she couldn't hear his footsteps any longer before she studied her cell again. The rough stone walls and floor were the same and of no use to her. A closer examination of the iron bars that made the front of her cage showed that they were all solidly mounted into the top bar which was in turn bolted into the stone of the ceiling. She made a face. No help there then.

Out from under Rezo's sharp gaze, Safia hunkered herself down in front of the cell's door and stared at the lock. She closed one eye and pressed the other up against the hole, trying to get a hint of the inner components. It looked like a solid lock, but nothing specifically designed to foil thieves. She thought she could pick the thing in under a minute with her tools. With something makeshift, it might take five times as long.

She sighed. So she was still stuck. A thought struck her, and Safia turned her attention towards the door's hinges. It had certainly worked with the safe. But getting up close to one told her that it was an avenue that would be a waste of time to pursue, they were far too solid to be used.

Safia moved up closer to the bars, pressing herself against them as she reached out as far as she could to gauge the distance. Still not close enough to get near Rezo's chair. Or to reach the stool, empty bucket, or anything else that could have been potentially useful.

A few tugs on the bars told her that her initial impression of them had been correct. They were solid, and there was no way she was going to be able to remove, bend, or otherwise get by the bars to escape. Which meant she was still trapped.

She moved over to the window and stared up at it. It was far too narrow for her to get out of, if she'd even been able to reach the bottom of it. Maybe with a running start she could have made it, but even then her head was probably the only part of her that could have made it through, and that without the bars. Safia sighed. There was no help for it. Convincing Rezo to let her go was her only real option, even if that seemed the harder of the two. Though, now that she thought about it, he'd already asked her about it in a hypothetical context. That gave her hope, at least for now.