Stubble climbed through the first-floor window. He stared at Rownie. He had a broken broomstick in his hand. He looked shocked, and still afraid, but he held the stick just like he always did when he played the King of All Pirates. Blotches and Greasy climbed through the window behind him.

Rownie might have been the smallest and the youngest in all of Graba’s household, but he was not the most recent one to join them. He remembered when Greasy first stood before Graba, up in the loft. She had marked his face with ash and spit. She had marked him as belonging to her. Rownie didn’t know where Greasy had come from. Maybe he was just another dustchild of Southside, with nowhere else to be and a liking for the thuggish swagger that came with joining Graba’s household and running Graba’s errands. Maybe Graba had made him out of birds—probably pigeons, in his case. Pigeons were greasy.

The burning pigeon blackened into a greasy smear at Rownie’s feet.

Stubble advanced, and then hefted his broomstick, but Rownie was no longer willing to be smacked with rusty swords on the backs of his knees, or anywhere else. He had changed roles. Stubble was very much taller, but Rownie was a giant. He stood like a giant. He walked directly up to Stubble and took the stick away from him, just as a giant would.

“Thanks,” he said, as though the older boy had been offering it to him rather than threatening him with it.

Stubble looked lost. He looked like he no longer knew what kind of story he was in. But then his expression changed. It took on some of Graba, with one eye squinty and the other eye wide. He watched Rownie with Graba’s look, with a piece of Graba inside his head, and the look she gave was angry.

Greasy and Blotches each took on a little of Graba’s expression.

Others climbed out through the window, Lanks and Bilk and Filtch and Jabber and Mot. They were all of them Grubs, and all of them looked at Rownie with Graba’s stare and squint.

Rownie was no longer a giant. He turned away and ran as fast as he could force his legs to run.

He heard many footsteps smack against the dirt and dusty cobblestones behind him. He dropped the broken broomstick. He couldn’t possibly fend off a whole gaggle of Grubs with a stick, and it got in the way of his running.