Well, it was if the “child” was Skif.

Hidden in a join of two walls, where one stuck out a little farther than the other and left a vertical slot of dark shadow, Skif waited until the Watch passed. There was always the Nightwatch to reckon with, in the fine neighborhoods. When he’d worked by day, snatching things out of the laundries of many of the fancy houses he now robbed, he hadn’t had to worry about the Nightwatch.

Not that he worried too much about them now—so long as he knew the schedule. He kept his head turned away as they passed with their lantern to keep from having his night vision ruined, then nicked across the top of Jesolon’s wall to the top of Kalink’s.

The home of the arrogant “new money” grain merchant Kalink was his goal tonight. The irony was that this Kalink wasn’t even the one who made the money—that had been the work of the old man, who according to gossip had been perfectly content to live quietly, if comfortably, in the country until he died. Not the son, though. Gossip grudgingly admitted he had as good a head for business as the old man, maybe better, but he wasn’t going to molder in the countryside, not he! He got himself a show-wife, long on looks and short on wits, and had this brand new manor house built right up against Jesolon’s, first tearing down the smaller place that had been there. He hadn’t been content to simply add on—no, nothing was good enough for him but brand new, nor would he hear any advice on the subject. It didn’t matter to him that having walls run right up to the side of a house just made a road for a thief to walk on—hadn’t he the very latest in locks and catches and other theft-foiling hardware? Hadn’t he ornamental ironwork on all the windows?

Hasn’t he left enough room between them bars to put a donkey through? Skif snickered to himself, as he slipped over the roof of the stable to the uneven triangle of shadow just against the wall of the house that the moon wouldn’t reach at this time of night. He managed it all without a hint of sound, not the rattle of a stone, not the slip of a slate. In his all-black “sneak suit,” with hands in black gloves and face wrapped in a black scarf, smeared with charcoal where the scarf didn’t reach, the only part of him visible was his eyes.