Once down on the street he and Deek strolled along together like a pair of old friends, Deek putting in a laconic comment now and again, while Skif nibbled at his eggs, making them last. He’d had boiled eggs before this—they were a regular item at Lord Orthallen’s table—but not so often that he didn’t savor every tiny bite. Once Deek darted over to a vendor’s wagon and came back with a pair of buns, paying for them (somewhat to Skif’s surprise) and handing one to his new “mate.”

“Why didn’ ye nobble ’em?” he asked in a whisper.

Deek frowned. “Ye don’ mess yer nest,” he admonished. “Tha’s Bazie’s first rule. Ye don’ take nuthin’ from neighbors. Tha’ way, they don’ know what we does, an’ ’f hue-an’-cry goes up, they ain’t gonna he’p wi’ lookin’ fer us.”

Well, that made sense. It had never occurred to Skif that if your neighbors knew you were a thief, you’d be the first one they looked for if something went missing. He ate his bun thoughtfully, as Deek pointed out landmarks he could use to find his way back tomorrow.

“I got lessons,” Skif pointed out reluctantly, and Deek laughed.

“No worries,” the boy replied. “Bazie won’ be ‘wake ’till midday. Ye cum then. Look—ye know this street?”

Skif looked closer at the street they had just turned onto, and realized that he did—he had just never come at it from this direction before. “Aye,” he told Deek. “Hollybush be down there—” and pointed.

“G’wan—” Deek gave him a little push. “See ye midday.”

The other boy turned on his heel and trotted back through the gloom of dusk along the way they’d come, and in a moment Skif couldn’t make him out anymore.

With a sigh and a bowed head, he trudged toward his uncle’s tavern and the cold welcome that awaited him. But, at least, tonight he had something to look forward to on the morrow.

3

KALCHAN never asked him where he’d been, so long as he came back before dark. He just welcomed Skif back with a cuff to the ear, and shoved him into the kitchen. By now, the kitchen was full of smoke, and the cook coughed and wheezed while she worked. It wasn’t just the fault of the chimney, which certainly could have used a cleaning—the cook routinely burned the bottom crust of the bread, burned what was on the bottom of the pot, dripped grease on the hearth, which burned and smoked.

Skif didn’t have to be told what to do, since his duties were exactly the same thing every day. Poor half-witted Maisie, on the other hand, had to be told carefully how to go about her business even though it was all chores she’d done every day for the last however-many years. That was why, if Skif wasn’t back by dark and the time when the big influx of customers came, he’d get more than a cuff on the ear. If you gave Maisie one thing to do, then interrupted her with something else, she became hysterical and botched everything.