Vry grabbed the stone out of the magician’s hands and stared into it himself. “I see nothing here! This man’s testimony is meaningless.” He threw the stone back at the magician, who caught it as he might a falling baby.

“I say only what I see,” the magician insisted. “Not what you want me to see.”

“Useless! Get out of here. Go back to the palace and read the Burgravine’s fortune for her. That’s the only reason I let you live, you mountebank.”

The magician hurried out of the room without further protest. One watchman went with him as an escort. Once he was gone the lights came back up and the air began to flow in the room once more.

“There,” Cutbill said. “As you see—I am wholly innocent.”

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty

“I’m half of a mind to string you up anyway, just on principle. It might not get the crown back but it would make the city a better place.”

Cutbill sighed and turned to the next page of his ledger. “That would be a foolish thing to do. I have long held a special arrangement with—”

“With the Burgrave. Not with me!”

“With the Burgrave,” Cutbill agreed. “Who always saw me as a necessary evil. I am allowed to operate for the most part unmolested. In exchange I keep a tight rein on the crime in this city. The wealthier citizens are under my protection and the better districts safe at night. If you remove me and my influence, you’ll have a hundred fat merchants to answer to.”

Malden stifled a gasp. To think that the mastermind of crime was in league with the very authorities he flouted! Not for the first time, his admiration for Cutbill’s genius was enlarged.

Cutbill entered a figure in his ledger. “The commonest kind of thief will run wild in the streets, and while you’ll catch them soon enough, there will always be more to take their place. The system works. You can’t afford to kill me.”

Anselm Vry grabbed the quill out of Cutbill’s hand and snapped it in two. “You’ll pay attention when I speak to you. I will find the thief who took the crown. And when I trace him back to you, Cutbill, I will be well justified in turning this place into a charnel pit. If your organization is needed, you can still be replaced!”

“Of course,” Cutbill said. He closed his ledger, though he kept one finger between the pages as a way to mark his place. “No man is truly indispensable. Yet it would take time to find someone with my particular gifts, and more time to place him properly where he could be effective. And at this very moment you require my services. In fact, without them all hope is lost.”

“How so?” Anselm Vry demanded.