A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

fellowship.” The alchemist wore a hooded traveler’s cloak, brown and nondescript. The rising sun was peeking over the rooftops behind his shoulder, so it was hard to make out the face beneath his hood. “Have you decided what you are?”
    Must he make me say it?
“I suppose I am a thief.”
    â€œI thought you might be.”
    The hardest part had been getting down on his hands and knees to pull the strongbox from underneath Archmaester Walgrave’s bed. Though the box was stoutly made and bound with iron, its lock was broken. Maester Gormon had suspected Pate of breaking it, but that wasn’t true. Walgrave had broken the lock himself, after losing the key that opened it.
    Inside, Pate had found a bag of silver stags, a lock of yellow hair tied up in a ribbon, a painted miniature of a woman who resembled Walgrave (even to her mustache), and a knight’s gauntlet made of lobstered steel. The gauntlet had belonged to a prince, Walgrave claimed, though he could no longer seem to recall which one. When Pate shook it, the key fell out onto the floor.
    If I pick that up, I am a thief,
he remembered thinking. The key was old and heavy, made of black iron; supposedly it opened every door at the Citadel. Only the archmaesters had such keys. The others carried theirs upon their person or hid them away in some safe place, but if Walgrave had hidden his, no one would ever have seen it again. Pate snatched up the key and had been halfway to the door before turning back to take the silver too. A thief was a thief, whether he stole a little or a lot.
“Pate,”
one of the white ravens had called after him,
“Pate, Pate, Pate.”
    â€œDo you have my dragon?” he asked the alchemist.
    â€œIf you have what I require.”
    â€œGive it here. I want to see.” Pate did not intend to let himself be cheated.
    â€œThe river road is not the place. Come.”
    He had no time to think about it, to weigh his choices. The alchemist was walking away. Pate had to follow or lose Rosey and the dragon both, forever. He followed. As they walked, he slipped his hand up into his sleeve. He could feel the key, safe inside the hidden pocket he had sewn there. Maester’s robes were full of pockets. He had known that since he was a boy.
    He had to hurry to keep pace with the alchemist’s longer strides. They went down an alley, around a corner, through the old Thieves Market, along Ragpicker’s Wynd. Finally, the man turned into another alley, narrower than the first. “This is far enough,” said Pate. “There’s no one about. We’ll do it here.”
    â€œAs you wish.”
    â€œI want my dragon.”
    â€œTo be sure.” The coin appeared. The alchemist made it walk across his knuckles, the way he had when Rosey brought the two of them together. In the morning light the dragon glittered as it moved, and gave the alchemist’s fingers a golden glow.
    Pate grabbed it from his hand. The gold felt warm against his palm. He brought it to his mouth and bit down on it the way he’d seen men do. If truth be told, he wasn’t sure what gold should taste like, but he did not want to look a fool.
    â€œThe key?” the alchemist inquired politely.
    Something made Pate hesitate. “Is it some book you want?” Some of the old Valyrian scrolls down in the locked vaults were said to be the only surviving copies in the world.
    â€œWhat I want is none of your concern.”
    â€œNo.”
It’s done,
Pate told himself.
Go. Run back to the Quill and Tankard, wake Rosey with a kiss, and tell her she belongs to you.
Yet still he lingered. “Show me your face.”
    â€œAs you wish.” The alchemist pulled his hood down.
    He was just a man, and his face was just a face. A young man’s face, ordinary, with full cheeks and the shadow of a beard. A scar showed faintly on his right cheek. He had a hooked nose, and a mat of dense black hair that curled tightly around his ears. It was not a face Pate recognized. “I do not know you.”
    â€œNor I you.”
    â€œWho are you?”
    â€œA stranger. No one. Truly.”
    â€œOh.” Pate had run out of words. He drew out the key and put it in the stranger’s hand, feeling light-headed, almost giddy.
Rosey,
he reminded himself. “We’re done, then.”
    He was halfway down the alley when the cobblestones began to move beneath his feet.
The stones are slick