The Theft of Sunlight by Intisar Khanani (story reading .TXT) 📕

“Or even how to catch one for questioning?” Sage adds.

Artemian hesitates. The second man, his hand resting on his knee, taps three fingers just once.

Artemian sighs. “It may be possible to catch one of the actual snatchers—but it will be like catching a pickpocket in place of a master thief: what he could tell us would be limited by the great amount he doesn’t know. And we would have to dispose of him afterward.”

“Dispose of him?” Sage echoes.

I cross my arms, holding myself in. No. That can’t be right. The snatchers might be murderers, but that doesn’t mean we should do the same. There has to be another way. I can’t—this can’t be the only choice there is. I look away from Artemian to find the younger man watching me steadily, but there is something faintly pleased about the way he regards me. Is he amused by my reaction?

“So you’d have to kill him,” I say, just so no one can pretend we’re talking about anything else right now.

“If he’s a snatcher, he probably deserves it,” Sage says, her voice hard.

“Are you asking us to kill for your princess?” Artemian eases back, studying Sage.

I feel a rush of relief that they aren’t actually offering such an option quite so easily as it seemed. “I don’t think we can decide that for her,” I say quickly, afraid of what Sage might come out with next. “Why would you be willing to do it anyway?” I ask. “If you’re worried about keeping this balance?”

Again, Artemian’s eyes flick to his companion, just a subtle check as he tilts his head before saying, “We lose some of our street children to snatchers every year.”

“With all the children you have,” Sage says slowly, “all those extra eyes, you can’t say how they operate? It seems a little strange.”

“As I said, they are brutal. Witnesses either join them, are snatched themselves, or die.”

That’s consistent, at least, with what I’ve heard. “It doesn’t seem as though catching a single snatcher will do us much good—not if, as you say, they know only a little of what they do.” Nor do I want blood on my hands. There has to be another way. Surely, as thieves, they have some ideas that wouldn’t occur to a country girl? “What approach would you counsel instead?”

“The princess needs support. And a change in the laws—one that sets harsher punishments for stealing children as well as for aiding and abetting the slave trade. She’ll also need a number of quads who can officially arrest suspected snatchers for questioning. Or to whom we can pass a snatcher. Until she has that, there’s nothing we can do.”

Sage glances at me. “Her quads—?”

I shake my head. “She doesn’t have her own men yet.” Even Captain Matsin is, as I’ve learned, Kestrin’s captain and not really the princess’s. “And I don’t know that she can change any laws quite yet either.”

Artemian dips his head. “Perhaps within a few months of her wedding, she can look to the laws,” he suggests. Which really means that I need to have Alyrra start looking into the laws and building support with the king now, in order to start effecting change then. “The snatchers will keep until she’s ready to take them on.”

“They’ll also keep snatching,” I point out. How many more girls like Seri will be lost in the meantime? Surely there is something that can be done—now.

“Then it will be that much more important for the princess to focus on strengthening her position quickly and effectively.”

Sage sits back. “That’s all.”

“Yes.”

Light and shadow, no. I have to consciously unclench my jaw, because there’s nothing I can do here, no way to argue myself to a better option. These men won’t help, not as things stand, and all my future holds is reading through the laws and preparing Alyrra to change policies once I’m gone. And attending meals where I am smiled at and treated with polite contempt. No, I decide. I’ll just have to find another way.

Sage sighs and brushes out her skirts as she rises, almost businesslike in her resignation. “We thank you.”

“You know where to find me, if you need to speak again,” Artemian says.

I rise and follow Sage to the door. The other man watches us steadily, his expression inscrutable. He must be Artemian’s superior, young though he may be. But just who he is, what his relation is to the infamous Red Hawk, I have no idea.

We head back toward West Road, Sage adjusting her stride to my slower-than-usual gait. My turned foot burns where the remaining blisters have burst, not even my trusty old riding boots able to cushion them enough through all this walking. But thinking on it only makes it worse. Instead, I turn the inn room conversation over in my mind again. “They’re hiding something,” I finally say.

“What do you mean?”

“They have to know more than they’ve said. The other man with Artemian was controlling how much he told us. Did you notice?”

“I don’t know about that,” Sage says, unconvinced. “Why wouldn’t they tell us more if they knew?”

“Maybe they don’t want us to upset their balance.”

She shakes her head. “It isn’t a balance if they’re losing children to the snatchers.” She purses her lips. “You’re suspicious of them, aren’t you?”

“That the only solutions are to kill someone or call in guards? Yes, I am suspicious.” I chew my lip, running through the conversation again. But I can’t quite put my finger on what’s missing, what we can do that they don’t want to discuss. As Mama always says, “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

We reach West Road in silence. We’re almost halfway to the palace—I could walk down to the stables and then ride back up again, or I could just go straight home and take care of my feet. “You want to walk up from here?” Sage asks, reading my look easily enough.

“It would be faster,” I admit. If there were any carriages