Thief Eyes by Janni Lee Simner Read Free Book Online

with it? For three days I have returned to this cave, hidden from my father’s view, to seek you out. Are you a coward after all?”
    A boy’s voice:
“You are breathing. At least you are still breathing. I do not know where we are, but—I will find a way out of this place. I promise I’ll be back.”
    I tried to recall why I wanted a way out, but I saw only burning things: a bow, an arrow, a woman’s hair, cracks within the earth.
    A squeaky voice:
“Here. Drink this.”
Sweetness filled me again.
    A voice that held the beating of wings:
“You need not remember. You need only sleep.”
    *  *  *
    When I woke again, the pain was gone. I sat up slowly, afraid, but nothing hurt. I began trembling, with shock or relief or maybe both. The air was still dark. I couldn’t see my own fingers, held up in front of my face. Just then, that didn’t matter. “I’m all right,” I whispered, and the trembling eased.
    Small feet clicked against the stone and stopped beside me. I felt a cup pressed to my lips. The liquid within smelled sweet and alcoholic. I pushed it away.
    “It would be better if you drank.” The squeaky voice again. I reached out and felt soft fur. So soft—more like a plush toy than anything real.
    “I’m not thirsty.” Whatever was in the cup would make me sleep, and I didn’t want to sleep anymore. I heard movement in the dark as the furred creature left my side. Something scraped the floor.
    I felt around me. I was sitting on a hard low platform, like a stone bed. The air smelled heavy with water. I swung my feet over the edge—still no pain. “Is there light?” I asked my—captor? Rescuer? Had I needed rescuing?
    “I will get light.” Claws tapped rock, leaving me alone.
    I squinted into the dark, but my eyes didn’t adjust. I knew I’d been able to see before—where? I couldn’t remember. My thoughts felt fuzzy and strange. I stood—the floor was stone, too—and walked forward, stretching myarms out in front of me. After a few steps I came to a rough stone wall.
    My shoes squeaked as I returned to the platform. I’d been running. I remembered that much. I’d been running, and someone had been calling my name.
    Haley
—somehow, I pulled that name from the back of my mind. It was like pulling something out of thick, sucking mud. My name was Haley. I held on to the thought, afraid that if I let go, I would lose it.
    I sank to my knees, fighting nausea. I was in more trouble than I could imagine if I had to work to remember my own name.
    I rubbed my arms. They were covered in nylon—jacket sleeves. My long hair was loose, and it fell into my face.
Think, Haley
. Where did I live? I couldn’t remember. Family? Nothing, just sludgy darkness where my memories should have been. My teeth chattered. It was cold in this stone room.
    Yellow light flared at the edges of my sight. Too bright—I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them. More light bloomed in front of me, behind me, as if by magic. The light cast faint shadows.
    I blinked and stood. I was in a small stone room, maybe ten feet across, wearing jeans and a blue hooded jacket. The light came from small bowls of oil with burning wicks in them, set in shoulder-high niches in the walls. Smoke drifted from the bowls, carrying an oily animal scent. Aside fromthe bed and the lamps, the room was almost empty, with just an ivory-colored drinking horn filled with amber liquid, set in a wooden stand beside the bed, and some shelves and ledges in the walls, which disappeared into the darkness above me. To my left, a broad doorway led out into a dark tunnel.
    A small white fox padded out of the tunnel and crossed the room to sit at my feet. An arctic fox with small ears and a long fluffy tail—not a red fox or a fennec fox or any of the other species names that tumbled into my awareness. Why could I remember twelve kinds of foxes when I couldn’t remember my family or home?
    “Light,” the fox said.
    Never mind what species he was—I