“Are there canal rats beyond Fairhoven?” Anouk asked Runt. Bastiaan settled back in his saddle, curious to see how this conversation went.

“Probably. But they all learn pretty quickly to make their way to Fairhoven. There’s far more opportunity here at the capital to beg, snitch coins, find other crats. Plus, free bread! Well, that used to be the case. Now with the canal frozen . . .”

Anouk sighed. “I miss those days in the markt. Have the other children—crats—been okay?”

“From what I can tell.” Runt stuck his nose in the air to a comically stuffy level. “I’ve moved on to better things.”

Bastiaan wanted to laugh, but Runt’s “better things” comment stung him with guilt. Runt’s idea of better things was Bastiaan, a friend who broke promises. Who abandoned him to torture in the schloss dungeon. Who relied on the boy to ground him after an overlong visit to the Stillness.

Bastiaan didn’t deserve him.

“What about your family, Runt?” Anouk asked. “Don’t you ever wonder about them?”

Bastiaan stiffened. The insensitive question was a stark contrast to her typical tactfulness.

“Who, Bastiaan and Diantha?” Runt asked.

“No, I mean”—she gave Bastiaan an apologetic shrug—“your parents.”

“Haven’t got any.” Runt didn’t seem bothered. Bastiaan had asked him about his birth parents years ago. Runt said he didn’t want to talk about it, so Bastiaan had left it alone ever since. He’d assumed it was too sensitive, but Runt’s current nonchalance proved otherwise.

“How did you become a canal rat?”

“My pa got the wrong woman pregnant. He didn’t want to keep me because I wasn’t supposed to be born. At least that’s what the poorhouse woman told me. She saw my pa and said, ‘I know what kinda man that is.’ That’s why she took care of me. Her own pa was the same kind of man.”

“What happened to her?”

“Nin Jaalis cared for me until I was old enough to go to the canals to sharpen skates for coin. That’s what she does. Almost all the crats have been in her home for a spell or two.”

Anouk turned a bit green. “I’d like to meet this woman.”

“You keep asking us for stuff. Even though Bastiaan didn’t want the gold, I’ll take it!”

“I’d be happy to pay you.”

“After the Well, of course. But maybe I’ll get a Talent that will let me travel really far! And I could take you with me, like Bastiaan sometimes takes me—”

“Or maybe you’ll get a Talent that makes you croak like a frog when you talk too much!” Bastiaan tried to keep his tone playful to cover the interruption. While Bastiaan’s Talent no longer worked, he still wanted to keep it private. Anouk might not know that Bastiaan was King Vämbat’s murderer.