The Thief-Takers Apprentice

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The crowd had come to watch three men die. Most of them had no idea who the three men were. Nor did they particularly care. They’d come into Four Winds Square for the spectacle, for a bit of blood, for a Sun-day afternoon of entertainment. They’d come for the jugglers and the fire-breathers, the pies and the pastry-sellers, the singers and the speakers. They’d come for everything the city had to offer, and that’s what they got.

The thief ran through them with practised ease. The crowd barely noticed he was there. He slipped between the larger bodies around him like an eel between a fisherman’s fingers, finding space where none seemed to exist. If anyone had asked him how old he was, he might have said twelve or he might have said sixteen, depending on who was doing the asking. The truth probably lay somewhere in between. The truth was that he didn’t know and he didn’t much care. He was small for a boy who might nearly have been a man, and his name was Berren.

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