“I figured I’d better have something when Kris told me that Henk had been a-boasting over in the Compass Rose, an’ told me I had to uphold the Heralds’ side,” Skif replied, with a nod to Kris. “We’ve all seen that luck piece of his, so it wasn’t no big thing to melt a bit of lead and make a slug to the right size. After that, I just waited for him to say something I could move in on.”

“But when did you get the coin?” Coroc wanted to know. “I mean, Alberich broke us up right after he took the bet, and you didn’t get anywhere near—”

Coroc stopped talking, and his mouth made a little “oh” when he realized what Skif had done.

“—you took it off him before the bet!” he exclaimed.

“When there was all that joshing and shoving, sure,” Skif agreed. “I knew he’d take the bet; after all that about his special pocket, he’d never have passed it up. He figured it’d be a secret I wouldn’t reckon out, and I’d lose. But even if Kris hadn’t told me, I’d have figured it anyway,” he added. “The button shows, when you look right, and he ain’t no seamstress, that buttonhole ain’t half as tight as it could be.” That last in a note of scorn from one who had long ago learned to make a fine buttonhole. “Anyway, I had to have the slug, ’cause I knew once he took the bet he’d be a-fingering that pocket t’ make sure his luck piece was there.”

“It’s a good thing you haven’t shown up a Gift other than moderate Thoughtsensing,” Kris laughed, “or he’d have been accusing you of Fetching the thing!”

Skif preened himself, just a little, under all the attention. If having Skif around was entertaining for his fellow Trainees, the admiration each time he pulled off something clever was very heady stuff for Skif. He’d begun beautifully, a couple of days after full classes resumed, when Kris’s best friend Dirk had asked innocently where he’d come from and what his parents did. He’d put on a pitiful act, telling a long, sad, and only slightly embellished story of his mother’s death, the near-slavery at his uncle’s hands, his running away, and his tragic childhood in the slums near Exile’s Gate. All the while, he was slowly emptying goodhearted Dirk’s pockets.

“But how did you live?” the young man exclaimed, full of pity for him. “How did you manage to survive?”

By this time, of course, since everyone in the three Collegia loved a tale, he’d drawn a large and sympathetic audience.

“Oh,” Skif had said, taking Dirk’s broad hand, turning it palm upwards, and depositing his belongings in it. “I turned into a thief, of course.”