Only a Thief

I wish everyone had amnesia and trusted me as much as Ilaria does. It would make my job easier—they would give up their valuables blindly, instead of me having to go through the work of robbing them. Ilaria is robbed of her memory, but I didn’t take it. At least, not intentionally.

My former nemesis is strangely calm for remembering nothing about her life. If my memory went up in smoke I would rage, demanding it and myself back. But…would I still have that angry part of myself or would I be completely different? As if my blood could ever be calm; what's pounding in my heart is different than memory. It's instinct, and it's what keeps me alive and makes me good at my job. I grit my teeth, tightening my cravat before we step into the ballroom as I think of the other chokehold on me; surely I would still feel my loyalty to my employers and my contract as it constricts more and more.

I shake my head; that’s just Ilaria’s questions getting to me. My employers have provided a roof over my head for years and I'm their man. Going outside the box, aspiring to greater heights, leads to an untimely plunge; I glance at the one who has most recently demonstrated that. Ilaria’s personality lines up with what it was before her amnesia kicked in, so it could be a trap. Behind her elaborate mask, dark eyes calculate every jewel bedecked guest taking off furs and silk scarves in the cloakroom. Eyes that did not recognize me when she woke up. Even if she is faking the memory loss, it’s best to keep one’s enemies close. Probably the same logic going through her head if she is conscious of her past.

Ilaria’s fall a week ago was different from our usual hostile routine. While I hated her for getting in my way, when we'd crossed paths—in a dusty warehouse or a museum after hours—the worst we’d get was bruises from shoving each other out of the way, knocking the other thief off their feet while grabbing the goods and making a run for it. The aches and pains the next day were a calling card, saying “until next time, may the best thief win.” When she fell off of a guardhouse last week and didn’t move I did something stupid: I checked on her, afraid there wouldn't be a next time. When she opened her eyes, she thought the person cradling her head was her best friend.

Was it wrong to not dissuade her? I took her with me—what else could I do? I didn’t know where she lived, and I couldn’t leave her for the cops. Even mortal enemies have a code of honor. Plus, I needed a date to this masquerade or I would be pinned down as the lone wolf I usually am. My disguise is the woman draped on my arm. It was already the perfect set-up—masquerades were designed for hidden identities—but now it’s foolproof. We've shown our invitations and were welcomed in, now all we need to do is find which room contains the painting and we'll be out of here before all the masks are taken off at midnight. The clock above the musicians says we have three hours, but I'd rather not wait for anyone to notice me and my exquisite partner. Already other men have bowed to Ilaria and there are sure to be comments when the bewitching woman is gone, vanished like in a fairy tale.

Ilaria squeezes my fingers, silently asking so many questions and I'm not sure which I should reply to.

Part of me screams to pull away from her touch, she’s venomous, she’s dangerous. Instead I listen to the voice that says pulling away would cue her in to my lie, revealing that this last week has been a sham. That we never can be anything but two thieves on the opposite side of a prized object. Letting her think that we are close is the professional thing to do, all about maintaining the cover. It’s not that having a hand to hold, even through gloves, is better than empty air in a room full of strangers or cold champagne glasses to numb the anxiety of completing a heist. Not anything to do with loneliness at all.

We should be scouting the rooms and clientele, but I can't resist pulling her onto the dance floor as the band swells to life. Only for the sake of the cover of two masquerade lovers enjoying an evening, not so I can hold her in my arms.

She knows the dance is a distraction and tilts her head to tell me she's worried about what the night will hold. “Are you sure you want to do this, Jared?”

Another wrong move was telling her my real name. When she asked who I was, it spilled out of me as quickly as the blood trickling down her temple. I told her the only name I've known for her—Ilaria—but it didn’t trigger anything. I’m free of bruises since she's been at my side instead of fighting me, but my bosses are going to kill me if they find out I was working with an outsider. Which they won’t; this is a one time job then I’ll abandon her as another piece of my disguise.

That goes on the list of all the other things I can never say to Ilaria. Just focus on tonight, the job.

“We do this and we can get anything we want,” I reply, hoping the formalities of bowing before the dance cover my hesitation.

Truthfully, what we want, what I want, has nothing to do with it. It's what my employers want. I'll give Ilaria a cut of the profits and send her on her way, blaming the lower price my bosses get on the market. I can take the heat as long as it keeps her away from the flame. She has a chance to get a new life, I can't let her fall into this again.

Her voice is nearly drowned out as we waltz past the band stand, but I catch a few words in a light harmony to my own feelings. “Money...can't buy what I want.”

Does she mean…us?—no. I can't think that selfishly, she must mean freedom from the business. Buying out is impossible, that's what we've all been told to keep us on a leash, but I'll become the guard dog so she can flee the scene. Someone has to stay behind so they don't follow and it might as well be the one without a hope for the future.

After her last comment, I shouldn't look at her, shouldn't try to find an explanation in her expression, but my traitorous eyes find hers anyway. Not that it gives me any answers as I stare into the mask. Complementing her white gown, gold flowers bloom across her face, a mirror to the gilding on my own mask, but my black suit couldn't be more different from what she's wearing. How apropos that gold is the common factor between us, as money has always been the only thing we both sought. After this last week, so much more ties us together: inside jokes, shared meals, and trust. Now I can't see the worry in the way she arches her eyebrows or the dimples that appear every time she laughs, but that isolation serves me right as the masks are another parallel to our former lives—we’ve never been ourselves around each other. She always fought with a calm disdain while I was a warrior of fire, burning everything in my path. To think I almost let it burn her, not reaching out to catch her before the fall, only coming too late. I can't rescue her, I can't be with her—

Instead of catching my hand as the next step in the dance, her fingers brush my face as if to wipe away the one thing my mask reveals, the scowl that deepens with every second passing on the clock. I have to end the caper, the lie Ilaria has believed this last week, but her touch douses the flames of purpose within me.

“We don’t have to do this,” she whispers, pulling me into an alcove and out of the swirling array of dancers in the ballroom. Can she pull me out of this trade as easily? Based on what I've told her, Iliara thinks I am her everything…would it be so bad if I made her fantasy my reality? Or is it just my fantasy and would she feel differently if she knew the truth? My patrons protect their possessions more than those I steal from, and I’m one of their assets, so would they let me go?

Once, after some of us had been asking too many questions, they had all their employees watch someone touch one of their trophies—the catch, revealed afterwards, was it had been coated in a special substance: a poison that does not need to be ingested to be fatal, just touching it released enough acid to burn its way under the skin and into the bloodstream. The volunteer’s death was sudden and imprinted the lesson onto all of our minds: don’t steal from the hand that feels you.

These thoughts and Ilaria’s cool hands coax me away from any ideas of a new start. A caress could turn into a strangle if I’m not careful, my employers made that clear. I kiss her knuckles like the gentleman thief that I am, silently saying goodbye to anything more before twirling her around the ballroom once again. “You should wear your gloves,” I mutter, noting the unprofessional behavior, the silk tucked into her sash. Her reply is inaudible among the other dancers, but maybe that's best that I don't get intoxicated on her voice and the hope that she truly doesn't remember our past if she doesn't know that keeping your hands covered is basic thievery.

I shake my head, trying to shake away the confinement of the rules. A thief is never without concealment, but maybe tonight the masks glittering on our faces are enough. I will be doing all the stealing, she’s just my cover. I won't make her risk getting her hands dirty when she's this close to being out of the business. I can't let her fingerprints be in the crime scene. My bosses would encourage blaming any accomplice, all the more to cover my own tracks. Maybe they’re right, as their hearts are as stone-cold as ever. I’ve neglected their own basic training as I've allowed Ilaria to steal my heart these last few days. I have to be the better thief and steal it back, or else I won't let her go.

The dance ends and Ilaria releases my arm and shoulder, pulling into herself and causing my heart to shatter as if the crystal chandelier above us had hit the floor. Being under its weight would've been better, as I wouldn't have seen the tear slide out from under Ilaria's mask.

“Are you–” I start to ask, but she just bows in accordance to custom, reminding me to do the same. She takes the arm I offer but doesn't meet my eye.

“If I'm only to be your partner in crime then we should get to work.”

The “only” in her statement feels worse than any fall. I'm only a thief, only after a valuable painting, with only a girl by my side. I'm only a few inches away from her but it feels like miles.

We stop by the refreshment table where she throws out playful comments to the other guests as we pick up stem glasses, but I'm not sure what she says; I can't hear anything but the word “only” echoing around my mind. Only a robber, only a criminal, only a conman.

Only holding Ilaria’s hand for now. I will be only by myself tomorrow.

She pulls me through a couple hallways, before laughing and staggering into the wall. “Get me another!” she giggles loudly before throwing her arms around my neck. We're as close as when I checked to see if she was breathing last week. So close then and so close now that I could kis–

“The painting is in this room, according to what the curator said," she whispers, tapping her foot against the door she's leaning on.

Oh. The man at the table, the excuse to come over here. This is what made her a thief in the first place, and I'm only getting distracted.

Someone coughs behind me.

I turn to face the intruder–am I a hypocrite for using that word?–and see it’s a waiter with champagne. “The lady wanted another?”

“Darling, let's get another later, getting out of this noise will do you some good,” I say, opening the door–which isn't even locked. Amateurs!–and Ilaria pretends to hiccup as she sweeps in. I place Ilaria's empty glass and mine on the server's tray and then wait until I'm alone before ducking in and closing the door behind me. As my eyes adjust from the hundreds of candles surrounding the guests on the foyer, to only a few in this small room, I go over the plan I told Ilaria: all I have to do is undo the frame, roll the portrait, and put in the folds of her dress.

But she's already started, with devastating consequences.

Blisters cover Ilaria’s hands and flame up her arm, imprisoning her in chains of doom. I’ve seen that chemical reaction once before and there's only one organization with that power bottled.

My employers.

Ilaria sinks to her knees. She's only everything to me. I run to her and cradle her head just as I did a week ago, sliding her mask onto her forehead and revealing the pain and fear in her face. “What’s happening?” she gasps. “I was trying to help so I touched the painting, and—and—“

“It was supposed to be me,” I choke out as the realization hits me. My bosses insisted that I drop every other job to do this one, and this was the reason why, so they could tie up their loose ends and all my questioning. They haven't been providing for me, they've only been providing for themselves.

“It's my fault–I'm sorry–Ilaria, I shouldn't have brought you–” I toss my own mask off, begging her to see the regret in my face, as she deserves the truth. I reach for her hands but she pulls away, burying them in the folds of her skirt so I don't get burned from the acid myself; she's always thinking more ahead than I can. I couldn't imagine us in the future, but she could.

“I wouldn't…have let..you come alone,” she gasps as she leans into my arm that's cradling her head. “We're partners, remember?”

I should've let that be the new truth, I should've given my employers up, not her. Now the only one I’m loyal to is dying in my lap. The door opens, and I hear the waiter calling for security but for once I'm without a plan.

Tears glisten on Ilaria's cheeks, like jewels I've stolen hundred of times, but they're falling from my own eyes as I lose my fortune, my future, my Ilaria.

“Run,” she breathes. “Don't fall with me.”

“I already have fallen,” I confess, then I steal what I should have taken days ago: a kiss.

My employers are going to wish they have amnesia, but those who wronged me won’t forget my name. I'm only a thief, but I'm going to get my revenge.