The Dream Spheres - Elaine Cunningham [5]
She silently padded into the lamplight and scanned the streets for a sign of the fleeing Isabeau. A flash of red disappeared into a nearby alley. Lilly set her jaw and followed. Though she rarely plucked female pigeons, this woman was the most deserving mark Lilly had seen in a month of tendays.
Following the noblewoman was easy enough. Not once did Isabeau look back, so intent was she upon the faint rumble of a carriage approaching the end of the alley. Lilly caught up to her near the midpoint and glided silently up behind. She noted the deep pocket attached to the woman's bejeweled girdle: a large, smooth sack of the same deep crimson as Isabeau's gown, and devised in such a way that it blended into the skirt's folds.
A canny design, Lilly thought. Even though the pocket was full and heavy, a lesser thief might not have seen it at all. She sliced the strings, her touch as light as a ghost's, and then fell back into the shadows to count her booty.
Her eyes widened as she opened the sack. Inside it nestled the richly embroidered coin purse recently worn by the unfortunate Maurice.
"You are good," intoned that dark and sultry voice, "but I am better."
Lilly's gaze jerked up from the twice-stolen coins into the cold, level stare of her noble "pigeon." Before Lilly could react, Lady Isabeau's jeweled hands shot forward. The noblewoman seized the bag with one hand and dug the fingers of the other under Lilly's shawl and into her hair. She yanked Lilly's head forward and down, bringing the coin-filled bag up to meet it with painful force.
Lilly went reeling back, bereft of the purse and, judging from the burning in her scalp, at least one lock of her hair. She thumped painfully against the alley wall.
Blinking away stars, Lilly pushed herself off the wall, drew a knife, and charged. Isabeau set her feet wide and swung the heavy silk bag like a flail.
There was no time for evasion. Lilly slashed forward in what was half parry, half attack. She missed the woman altogether but managed to slice the dangerous bag open. Coins scattered with a satisfying clatter, but the bag was still heavy enough when it hit her to send her stumbling back. Her knife flew off and fell among Isabeau's scattered booty.
Hissing like an angry cat, Isabeau pounced, her hands hooked into raking claws. Lilly seized her wrists and held on, dodging this way and that as she sought to keep her eyes beyond reach of those flailing hands.
Together they circled and dipped-a grim, deadly parody of dance that mocked Lilly's still-bright dream. So frantic was their struggle, and so painfully poignant her memories, that Lilly did not realize her shawl had fallen off until she caught her foot in the fringe.
A small stumble, a moment's hesitation, was all that Isabeau needed. The noblewoman wrenched her hands free and fisted them in Lilly's hair. Down they went in a tangle of skirts, rolling wildly as they scratched and tugged and pummeled and bit.
Through it all, Isabeau was eerily silent. Lilly would have expected a pampered noblewoman to scream like a banshee over such treatment, not realizing that in this part of town the sounds of her distress could bring worse trouble upon her. Apparently this woman was more familiar with the ways of the streets than her appearance suggested.
Still, Lilly knew a few tricks that this overdressed pickpocket did not. Years of fighting off persistent tavern patrons had left her as hard to hold as a trout-she would wager that not even the elf lord's gladiators could pin her if she were determined to wriggle free. Though she was smaller than Isabeau and lighter by at least a stone, the battle slowly began to turn her way.
Finally she managed to straddle the woman and pin her arms to her sides. Her captive, looking outraged and furious but still holding her preternatural silence, twisted and bucked beneath her like an unbroken mare.
Lilly sucked air in long, ragged