But Jass didn’t come back that night, nor the next day. Skif fell asleep waiting to hear his footsteps on the stairs, and woke the next morning to the unaccustomed sound of silence next door. He waited all day, wondering, with increasing urgency, what was keeping the man from his own rooms.

By nightfall, though, he knew why.

At dusk, a three-man team of the Watch came for Jass’ two girls, escorting them off, rather than taking them off under guard, so it wasn’t that they were arrested or under suspicion. Skif was at his window when they showed up, and he knew before they ever came in view that something was wrong, for the whole street went quiet. People whisked themselves indoors, or around corners, anything to get out of sight, and even the littles went silent and shrank back against their buildings, stopping dead in the middle of their games, and staring with round eyes at the three men in their blue-and-gray tunics and trews. The Watch never came to this part of town unless there was something wrong—or someone was in a lot of trouble.

Skif ducked back out of sight as soon as they came into view, and when he heard the unmistakable sound of boots on the staircase, huddled against the wall next to the door so that no one peering underneath it would see his feet.

What’re they here for? For me? Did that feller turn me in? Did summun figger I lifted them purses? His mind raced, reckoning the odds of getting out via his emergency route through the window if they’d come for him, wondering if that sell-sword had somehow put the Watch onto him. And if he had—why?

The footsteps stopped at his landing, and his heart was in his mouth—his blood pounding in his ears—every muscle tensed to spring for the window.

But it wasn’t his door they knocked on—and they knocked, politely, rather than pounding on it and demanding entrance. It was the girls’ door, and when one of them timidly answered, an embarrassed voice asked if “Trana and Desi Farane” would be so kind as to come down to the Watch-station and answer a few questions.

Skif sagged down onto the floor, limp with relief. Whatever it was, it had nothing to do with him.