“If I let your arm go, will you promise not to say another word about Boss Authority?” she said.

I nodded.

“Okay, I’m trusting you.”

She let go and I whirled around. It was the pickpocket girl. She had deep brown skin and green eyes. She grinned at me.

“My name’s Talia, but everybody calls me Tally. What’s yours?”

“None of your business,” I said. I was all huffy. How was I going to find my daddy now?

“It isn’t, is it?” she said, her hands on her hips, like she was bossing me. “Well, you just about told the whole tavern your business. How your daddy is the notorious Parsnit hustler David Josiah Pennington—”

“That’s my pop!” I said, all proud.

“—and now they’re all thinking about how they can kidnap you and get a leg up at the Parsnit table, weasel your pop with a witch’s bond.”

I didn’t much like the sound of that, not at all, but Tally was just getting warmed up.

“And on top of that, you were ludicrous enough to say”—she dropped to a whisper for this next part—“Boss Authority is after your daddy? Here? Not a soul in here don’t hate Boss Authority, plain as day. Twisted, he is, gone deep rotten with borrowed magic. And yet not a soul in here wouldn’t split a belly to be on his good side. You know that old saying, ‘the swamp’s always creeping’?”

“Yeah, I know it,” I said. “It means that the swamp is always moving a little upriver, inch by inch, and one day it’ll take over the whole world. It’s what folks say when they mean for you to stay ready and vigilant.”

“Exactly,” said Tally. “And it’s the same way with Boss Authority. He’s always gathering his magic, killing people and worse, all to gain more power. Pretty soon he’ll rule the whole swamp. And as the swamp creeps upriver, so will Boss Authority’s rule. Let’s face it, if Boss Authority’s after your daddy, he’s probably after you too. So I figure at this point, half the tavern wants to kill you for who your daddy is, and the other half is just ornery and wants to kidnap you and bring you to Boss Authority as a favor. If I were you, I’d come with me. I can take you to my granddad. If anybody knows where your daddy is, it’ll be him.”

I studied her a minute. Maybe her granddad knew something and maybe he didn’t. Maybe the whole thing was one big setup and I was about to stumble myself right into it. I’d gotten lucky—a rare thing for me, mind you—finding that old lady at the dock, even if she did scare me a little. Did I dare push my luck further with some other old fogey? Besides, what did I know about this girl in front of me? Well, she was a pickpocket, and she might have saved my life. At the same time, she might also be lying to me. She might have just kept me from finding my daddy. All the while, time was a-wasting, Pop getting further and further on down that river without me.