Play dead. Pretend not to care. That was the way to keep a few moments of humiliation from becoming hours or days of pain; to keep bruises from becoming broken bones or worse.

The river of orphans was flowing to a rare grand gathering, nearly all the Hill, and in the main vault the air was already heavier and staler than usual. The Thiefmaker sat in his high-backed chair, his head barely visible above the press of children, while his oldest subjects carved paths through the crowd to take their accustomed places near him. Locke sought a far wall and pressed up against it, doing his best impression of a shadow. There, with the welcome comfort of a guarded back, he touched his forehead and indulged in a momentary pout. His fingers were slippery with blood when he took them away.

After a few moments, the influx of orphans trickled to a halt, and the Thiefmaker cleared his throat.

It was a Penance Day in the seventy-seventh Year of Sendovani, a hanging day, and outside the dingy caves below Shades’ Hill the duke of Camorr’s people were knotting nooses under a bright spring sky.

3

“IT’S LAMENTABLE business,” said the Thiefmaker. “That’s what it is. To have some of our own brothers and sisters snatched into the unforgiving arms of the duke’s justice. Damned deplorable that they were slackards enough to get caught! Alas. As I have always been at pains to remind you, loves, ours is a delicate trade, not at all appreciated by those we practice upon.”

Locke wiped the dirt from his face. It was likely that his tunic sleeve deposited more grime than it removed, but the ritual of putting himself in order was calming. While he tended to himself the master of the Hill spoke on.

“Sad day, my loves, a proper tragedy. But when the milk’s gone bad you might as well look forward to cheese, hmm? Oh yes! Opportunity! It’s unseasonal fine hanging weather out there. That means crowds with spending purses, and their eyes are going to be fixed on the spectacle, aren’t they?”

With two crooked fingers (broken of old, and badly healed) he did a pantomime of a man stepping off an edge and plunging forward. At the end of the plunge the fingers kicked spasmodically and some of the older children giggled. Someone in the middle of the orphan army sobbed, but the Thiefmaker paid them no heed.

“You’re all going out to watch the hangings in groups,” he said. “Let this put fear into your hearts, loves! Indiscretion, clumsiness, want of confidence—today you’ll see their only possible reward. To live the life the gods have given you, you must clutch wisely, then run. Run like the hounds of hell on a sinner’s scent! That’s how we dodge the noose. Today you’ll have a last look at some friends who could not.

“And before you return,” he said, lowering his voice, “each of you will do them one better. Fetch back a nice bit of coin or flash, at all hazards. Empty hands get empty bellies.”

“Has we gots to?”

The voice was a desperate whine. Locke identified the source as Tam, a fresh catch, a lowest-of-the-low teaser who’d barely begun to learn the Shades’ Hill life. He must have been the one sobbing, too.

“Tam, my lamb, you gotsto do nothing,” said the Thiefmaker in a voice like moldy velvet. He reached out and sifted through the crowd of orphans, parting them like dirty stalks of wheat until his hand rested on Tam’s shaven scalp. “But then, neither do I if you don’t work, right? By all means, remove yourself from this grand excursion. A limitless supply of cold graveyard dirt awaits you for supper.”

“But … can’t I, like, do something else?”

“Why, you could polish my good silver tea service, if only I had one.” The Thiefmaker knelt, vanishing briefly from Locke’s sight. “Tam, this is the job I got, so it’s the job you’re gonna do, right? Good lad. Stout lad. Why the little rivers from the eyes? Is it just ’cause there’s the hangings involved?”

“They—they was our friends.”

“Which means only—”

“Tam, you little piss-rag, stuff your whining up your stupid ass!”

The Thiefmaker whirled, and the new speaker recoiled from a slap to the side of his head. There was a ripple in the close-packed orphans as the unfortunate target stumbled backward and was returned to his feet by shoves from his tittering friends. Locke couldn’t suppress a smile. It always warmed his heart to see a bullying oldster knocked around.

“Veslin,” said the Thiefmaker with dangerous good cheer, “do you enjoy being interrupted?”

“N-no … no, sir.”

“How pleased I am to find us of a like mind on the subject.”

“Of … course. Apologies, sir.”

The Thiefmaker’s eyes returned to Tam, and his smile, which had evaporated like steam in sunlight a moment before, leapt back into place.

“As I was saying about our friends, our lamented friends. It’s a shame. But isn’t it a grand show they’re putting on for us as they dangle? A ripe plum of a crowd they’re summoning up? What sort of friends would we be if we refused to work such an opportunity? Good ones? Bold ones?”

“No, sir,” mumbled Tam.

“Indeed. Neither good nor bold. So we’re going to seize this chance, right? And we’re going to do them the honor of not looking away when they drop, aren’t we?”

“If … if you say so, sir.”

“I do say so.” The Thiefmaker gave Tam a perfunctory pat on the shoulder. “Get to it. Drops start at high noon; the Masters of the Ropes are the only punctual creatures in this bloody city. Be late to your places and you’ll have to work ten times as hard, I promise you. Minders! Call your teasers and clutchers. Keep our fresher brothers and sisters on short leashes.”

As the orphans dispersed and the older children called the names of their assigned partners and subordinates, the Thiefmaker dragged Veslin over to one of the enclosure’s dirt walls for a private word.

Locke snickered, and wondered who he’d be partnered with for the day’s adventure. Outside the Hill there were pockets to be picked, tricks to be played, bold larceny to be done. Though he realized his sheer enthusiasm for theft was part of what had made him a curiosity and an outcast, he had no more self-restraint in that regard than he had wings on his back.

This half-life of abuse beneath Shades’ Hill was just something he had to endure between those bright moments when he could be at work, heart pounding, running fast and hard for safety with someone else’s valuables clutched in his hands. As far as his five or six or seven years had taught him, ripping people off was the greatest feeling in the whole world, and the only real freedom he had.

4

“THINK YOU can improve upon my leadership now, boy?” Despite his limited grip, the Thiefmaker still had the arms of a grown man, and he pinned Veslin against the dirt wall like a carpenter about to nail up a decoration. “Think I need your wit and wisdom when I’m talking out loud?”

“No, your honor! Forgive me!”

“Veslin, jewel, don’t I always?” With a falsely casual gesture, the Thiefmaker brushed aside one lapel of his threadbare coat and revealed the handle of the butcher’s cleaver he kept hanging from his belt. The faintest hint of blade gleamed in the darkness behind it. “I forgive. I remind. Are you reminded, boy? Most thoroughlyreminded?”

“Indeed, sir, yes. Please …”

“Marvelous.” The Thiefmaker released Veslin, and allowed his coat to fall over his weapon once again. “What a happy conclusion for us both, then.”

“Thank you, sir. Sorry. It’s just … Tam’s been whining all gods-damned morning. He’s never seen anyone get the rope.”

“Once upon a time it was new to us all,” sighed the Thiefmaker. “Let the boy cry, so long as he plucks a purse. If he won’t, hunger’s a marvelous instructor. Still, I’m putting him and a couple other problems into a group for special oversight.”

“Problems?”

“Tam, for his delicacy. And No-Teeth.”