She took him at his word.
Matthew had only meant to buy himself a few seconds, but her hand went straight into the cabinet.
By the time he understood that she intended to accept the invitation, she’d already made the first move.
She grabbed the piece of black velvet, which he now saw was the top of a shallow, old ring box.
The stone in the middle was the blue of deep water, with a pale star that came and went as the box moved.
He closed his hand over hers without regret.
He hadn’t come all this way to let her take the ring simply because he’d been polite.
With forty people downstairs and floors that carried every noise, neither of them could afford to be heard.
They had to fight quietly.
She pulled, then tried to twist the box out of his grip, but he held on.
When that failed, she drove an elbow at his ribs.
He caught most of it.
She put her full weight on his foot and brought up a knee that would have ruined him if he hadn’t turned his hip in time.
He blocked and moved, but he never struck back.
He had never hit a woman, and he wasn’t going to start tonight.
She was fast, though he suspected she hadn’t done this often.
She committed her whole body to each movement, which made her dangerous but also easy to read.
When he knocked her back against the desk, a little too hard, he heard himself whisper, “Sorry.”
She looked at him as if he had said something obscene, and scoffed.
His reach gave him the advantage in the end.
When she lunged for the box, he could simply lift it out of range.
But his victory didn’t last long.
The reading lamp went over and hit the floor with a crack that seemed to go through the whole house.
The brass shade rolled a short way across the boards and stopped against the leg of the desk.
They both stood very still as the peacock woke downstairs with a scream that sounded as if someone were being murdered.
The music cut off, followed by a laugh.
A moment later, footsteps started up the stairs, probably someone coming to check on the bird.
Neither of them would be able to leave that way now.
He was standing in the bedroom doorway, which left her the window.
“It’s a long way down,” he said quietly.
It seemed only fair to mention it.
She didn’t answer, which made him realize she hadn’t said a single word since he’d seen her.
He still had no idea what her voice sounded like.
She looked from him to the window, then took a short coil of rope from her jacket and looped it around the radiator pipe.
He leaned against the doorframe, enjoying himself until he noticed what her hands were doing.
She twisted the rope, tucked it, then drew the end back through itself without once looking down.
He stopped finding any of it amusing.
Only one person had ever tied that knot in front of him.
He had been barely nine, though he could still remember how slowly she’d done it so he could follow.
In all the years since, he hadn’t seen anyone else tie it, and recognizing it now made him go cold.
“…Sabine?”
He said the name almost without thinking, but it landed on her like a blow.
Her hands stopped on the knot as she looked up at him through her mask.
For a second, they stared at each other, and neither thought of the ring anymore.
He looked at her, trying to take in every detail.
The woman he remembered would be fifty now, while this one moved like someone who had never been tired in her life.
It couldn’t be her.
He knew that, but his heart raced anyway.
Out in the hallway, the footsteps reached the top of the stairs.
She moved while he was still thinking about it, making the most of that moment.
She ducked under his arm and bit him.
Her teeth sank so hard into his wrist, that they forced his hand to immediately open.
He couldn’t afford to make a sound, and he would later be rather proud of having managed to keep so quiet despite the pain.
As the box tipped in his fingers, she took the ring out, leaving him holding the rest.
She had left the pocket watch too, he noticed, and the cufflinks, which were gold and well within reach.
Whatever her reasons were, it obviously wasn’t money.
She was out the window and down the rope in two seconds.
He looked at the half circle of teeth marks on his wrist, already turning red, still finding it difficult to believe she’d actually bitten him.
He couldn’t afford to dwell on it with someone so close to the door.
At most, he had another ten seconds.
He crossed to the window and crouched by the radiator where the knot was and that’s when he noticed that it was tied the wrong way round.
Sabine had been left-handed, so every knot she tied leaned the other way.
This one had been tied by a right hand.
So it wasn’t her, but it had to be someone she’d taught, someone who knew the knot well enough to tie it easily in the dark.
He had no idea who that could be, and the thought troubled him even more.
When the handle of the hallway door began to turn, he went back through the bedroom as quickly and quietly as he could.
He felt a little ridiculous as he passed the chocolate still on the pillow, though by now leaving one was a habit.
He climbed over the balcony rail, found the drainpipe, and let himself down into the dark side garden.
The lights came on across the lawn just as his feet touched the grass.
At the far end of the garden, a small gray figure went over the wall, quick and low, then disappeared.
He chose not to follow her, unsure whether he could have caught her anyway.
He stopped at the bottom of the hill, where the road curved under a row of plane trees.
By then, his wrist had started to throb.
He hadn’t said that name out loud in twelve years, and the first person to hear it had been a rival, a woman robbing the same house he had come to rob.
It seemed unfair.
Still annoyed, he took the box from his pocket and opened it.
It was empty, of course, with a small dent in the cushion where the ring had been.
When he pressed the edge of the cushion, it lifted out.
Underneath was a piece of folded paper.
He opened it with his thumb and recognized the letterhead immediately.
Seven small stars ran across the top, and under them, in narrow gold letters, was his own last name.
THE VOSS.
It was a receipt from his family’s hotel, for Room 707.
Across the bottom, in blue pen and in handwriting he didn’t recognize, someone had written a single word.
*Thursdays.*