One Of Few

Chapter 3 - The Caverns

My eyes widened involuntarily. Of course they would think it was me. The only malkin thief in all of Myrian, and I thought the blame wouldn't fall on me? Clearly I was being naive. As I thought about it, though, I realized that this could help move my investigation along quite nicely. Everyone would want to ask me how I did it, they would expect me to brag about it; what if I did exactly that? What if, instead of saying I didn't do it, say that I did? That would almost certainly tick off the actual thief to the point that they would confront me. But first things first: talk to the thieves I knew had orange hair.

    "Owen?" Tandie asked hesitantly, breaking into my thoughts. I realized that I had been silent for quite a while now. I grinned at him. He looked at me, confused. "Why are you grinnin'? Owen, if your thinkin' about your reputation, stop it. This is serious."

    "Believe me, I'm not thinking about my reputation. This is way bigger than my reputation," I replied, still grinning like a madman.

    Tandie looked bemused. "Bigger than your reputation? Hold up, what are we talkin' 'bout?"

    "We're going to catch a thief," I said, my grin widening.

    Tandie stared at me, not seeming to catch on to my train of thought. "Huh?" he replied intelligently.

    "My thoughts exactly, Tandie. What are you talking about, Owen?" Alec broke in.

    I stared at Alec for a moment, realizing I'd forgotten he was sitting there. "I'm talking about finding out who broke into the Loves' mansion."

    Alec stared at me. There seemed to be a lot of staring going on, now I thought about it. "But... I thought you did it?" Alec said, looking confused.

    I sighed, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. "Alec, I already told you I didn't do it. How many times am I going to have to say it?"

    Tandie broke in. "It's true, sir; I was with him last night. He didn't steal anythin'." Tandie always called Alec 'sir' for some reason. No matter how many times he was told to just call him Alec, he refused, saying, 'He's chief of the enforcers. He ought to be called sir.' Eventually we'd given up, opting to just live with it.

    Alec looked at Tandie for a moment, as if trying to see if he was lying. He then turned to me, his grey eyes searching my blue ones, trying to catch a hint that I was lying. Then he sat back in his chair, running a hand through his cropped brown hair. "Well then," was all he said.

    Deciding to ignore him for now, I turned back to Tandie. "So, like I said, we're going to catch a thief. Unless you've got somewhere else to be today?" I said, cocking an eyebrow at him.

    "I'm free. What are you thinkin'?" He asked curiously.

    I quickly explained my plan to him, and he grinned. "Brilliant, my friend, simply brilliant!"

                        =====================================

    We stepped out of the dim tunnel into a large cavern scattered with buildings. Lit with torchlight, it wasn't much brighter than the tunnel we had just left; it was about as bright as the city above ground after nightfall.

    Most thieves lived underground, hence the cavern. I was one of the few exceptions, as I lived with Alec up in Myrian. But down here was a whole community that most of the world had no idea existed. A whole city underneath their world, and they were clueless.

    Tandie and I had decided to go and talk to some of the thieves, so as to put my plan into action. We figured we'd start with Aiden and Lara, seeing as they were currently my main suspects. Tandie hadn't thought much of my theory of hair color, since the flash of orange I had seen the night before had been down on the street. Since most of the time thieves used the rooftops wherever possible, Tandie had thought this person I'd seen was irrelevant. Eventually, through my sheer stubbornness, I'd won out, and so we were on our way to see Aiden.