The Thief's Daughter (Kingfountain #2)

“How did you come to join the Espion?” he asked her softly.

Her lips pressed hard together. “My father,” she said in a low, angry voice. Then she sighed. “I can’t believe I’m telling you all this. No one ever asks about my story. They only want me to do something for them.” She glanced at him. “Except for you. My father is one of those fountain-men at the sanctuary of Our Lady. I grew up with my mother and sister in a hovel outside the sanctuary, but my father had to stay there during the day for fear of the law. He used me to cheat people. He’d dress me up in fine gowns he’d stolen. He taught me how to watch the nobles, to act like them. All so I could steal from them. I even stole coins from the fountain. When I was twelve, I was caught by the Espion. They took me to Mancini.” She frowned at the memory, her eyes guarded. “He offered me a chance to join them. He needed someone young, someone he could teach. Someone he could mold. Well, it was that or go into the river! To ensure my father and everyone else I knew would believe I was dead, Mancini shoved another body into the river. Then he sent me to Pisan.” She shuddered at the word, her eyes blinking rapidly. After a moment, she collected herself again. “So you see, Master Owen, I’m more of a pretender than Eyric is.” She sniffed, and then looked him in the eye. “I suspect that you are pretending as well.”

Owen felt a coldness settle over him. He knew what she meant, but he wasn’t going to say it. “Am I?”

She nodded with certainty. “I have a suspicion. Mancini never told me about you, you know. He told me about Ankarette, the greatest spy of them all, and how she had helped him become master of the Espion. But he never once mentioned you. After you and I met, I found myself wondering why. I think it’s because Ankarette helped you both. When you were brought to Kingfountain as a young boy, I remember hearing about you. I think I even saw you once at the sanctuary. All by yourself. Then I learned about the little boy who could see the future in his dreams.” She blinked. “That’s not true, is it?”

Owen took a deep breath. This was so dangerous, talking to her. Yet she had secrets of her own, some of which he now knew. She had trusted him with the story of her past, something he realized she rarely, if ever, did.

Over the years Owen had missed his relationship with Ankarette—there had been no lies between them, and yet she had also understood and could relate to his powers. What if he lost Evie? Not having a companion to confide in and trust would make his life an utter misery. He shared Etayne’s eagerness for friendship, but he felt conflicted by it, particularly because he knew she would be able to understand him in ways that Evie could not. Evie should be the one with whom he shared everything; Evie, who was not Fountain-blessed.

The feelings wrestled inside him like snakes, and he could not bring himself to say the words. But she was looking at him so imploringly, so desperate for anything resembling friendship, that he could not resist. He shook his head no.

Etayne breathed out. Her voice was very low when she spoke again. “That wasn’t easy for you to admit. Thank you for your trust.” Then she looked him in the eye, her face vulnerable and intense. “I swear by the Fountain that I won’t tell anyone. I swear it.”

“Thank you,” Owen whispered. “I won’t tell anyone about you either. You have my word.”

She straightened her shoulders. “I will do whatever you ask, Lord Owen. Anything. Just teach me. If I’m truly Fountain-blessed, that is a secret I don’t want anyone else to know. Especially Mancini.”

Owen nodded.

She sighed, relieved. “How do you use the power then? How do you summon it?”

“It’s difficult to describe,” Owen said thoughtfully. “It just seems to happen naturally for me. I don’t need to force it, but I do need to open myself to it. I can feel the Fountain all around me. It’s like a river of rushing water, always flowing. When I want to access the power, I just open myself to it and let the current take me. Let me show you.”

He let out his breath and opened himself to the Fountain’s magic, letting it flow from him into her. There it was again, that sensation of his power draining away and not being replenished. This time, he wasn’t trying to probe for her weaknesses. He just wanted her to feel what it was like. She closed her eyes, lifting her chin slightly, and sighed.

“I can feel it,” she murmured. “It’s like rain.”

“Good,” he said coaxingly. “Now try to use it. I don’t know how the power will manifest in you, but let it flow through you, and then try to—I don’t know—direct it back at me.”

He watched as she stood there, eyes closed, hands pressing against the edge of the windowsill. She was concentrating, or perhaps meditating was the better word. It did not seem to be a strain or difficulty.

He remembered how Ankarette had tried to teach him about the nuances of the Fountain when he was a little boy. She had been so patient, so tender with him. He could tell that Etayne had experienced little tenderness in her life.

“Is that what she looks like?” Etayne asked. “I see a woman’s face in my mind. It’s coming from you. Is that Ankarette Tryneowy?”

Owen was startled. Was she reading his mind?

“Yes, I was just thinking about her.”

“She was pretty,” Etayne said, eyes still closed. He felt the flow of the Fountain magic shift, a ripple like a huge stone plunging into placid waters.

His vision rippled like the waves and he blinked rapidly.

The person next to him by the window wasn’t Etayne anymore.

It was Ankarette.

“By the Veil!” Owen gasped in shock. It looked just like her!

The mirage vanished as Etayne opened her eyes wide in surprise. “What? What happened? I feel faint.” She started to wobble and Owen had to catch her before she crumpled.





There has always persisted deep enmity between Ceredigion and Occitania. Over the centuries, great wars have been fought to assert rights of rulership in Occitania. The greatest and most interesting war occurred nigh on fifty years ago. A young girl from Donremy in Occitania arrived at the court of the exiled prince of Occitania claiming the Fountain had spoken to her and that she had been instructed to take the prince to the sanctuary of Rannes and there crown him king. And she did. Never underestimate the power of those who are Fountain-blessed to achieve great things.



—Polidoro Urbino, Court Historian of Kingfountain





CHAPTER TWENTY


Evie’s Duty



Etayne’s dizziness did not last long. Owen helped her into a nearby chair and quickly found some of the invalids’ broth for her to drink. She took a swallow, blinking rapidly, and then took a longer sip.

Staring down into her eyes, Owen pressed, “Have you done this before?”