“I looked for work in various trades. I was too old already—no guild would take me on for prenticing at the advanced age of fifteen. I tried to find occupation as a bricklayer, as a carpenter, even as a stevedore down at the wharves. Each place turned me away—or demanded bribes. The gang bosses who organized such labor all wanted a cut of the pennies I would earn.”

“And you were unwilling to pay such fees.”

“How could I, and survive? It takes money to live in this world, money to eat, money for rent, money for taxes and tithes. The pay that work offered would have put me in debt the first week, and it would only have gotten worse. I’d seen this scheme before, and the ruin it caused.”

“Oh?”

“It is exactly how the pimps keep their stables of women in line.”

“Indeed,” Cutbill said.

Malden fidgeted with the sleeve of his shirt. “There were no opportunities for one like me. None at all. Yet I needed money to survive. I could go out on the streets and become a beggar. Or I could turn to a life of crime. You know which I chose.”

“And found you had a flair for it.”

“You wish to know my life story entire?”

“I already know it. I’m simply confirming it. For the last five years you’ve been making a paltry living pilfering coppers from the unwary. Occasionally you’ve run a trick of confidence, but your real skills seem to lie in your fingers, not your voice. It was only recently you turned to burglary. For only a few months now you’ve been breaking into houses. Care to tell my why you changed your game?”

“People in this city know better than to carry much money when they go out. They know no purse is ever safe. The real money they leave behind, at home. It only seemed logical to follow the money, not the people.”

The master of thieves made a small notation in his ledger. “You know who I am,” Cutbill said. “You spoke my name outside.”

Malden waved one hand in the air. “All of the Free City knows the exploits of great Cutbill, master of thieves, procurer extraordinaire, purveyor of unlawful euphoria, betrayer of confidences, extortionist to the high and mighty—”

“Spare me.”

Malden sat back in his chair, a little dumbfounded. He had not expected the man to speak so plainly—or so abruptly. It was all he could do to keep up.