Kel squatted in front of a wooden house, carved into the great roots of one of the giant sacred trees. Leanna was leaning on a wooden crutch he had fashioned for her, waiting for him to find what he was looking for. Her convalescence had been speedy and Beverly had cleared her to leave her care with a mix of satisfaction and bewilderment. For whatever reason, she had taken a liking to Kel and they often spent their days walking around the city and playing games. Today, she was teaching him about Thief Scratches.

“Is it this one?” Kel pointed to a horseshoe shape, traced in faint lines of chalk just under the dark windowsill.

She nodded approvingly. “That means it’s a safe place to stay.” She traced her finger over the chalk marking on the corner of the house. “Folk tales tell that cold iron protects against dark spirits. So that translated into general safety,” she explained. It made sense. Iron was used for most weapons, a proactive defense. And Kel had heard that you could drive the Fae away with iron. That wasn’t surprising - waving a sword at anyone tended to be a deterrent.

Lianna straightened up and stretched. “Onward,” she said, and hobbled along, leaning on her crutch as she made her way up the street. Her eyes roved over the cityscape. Kel followed along, eager to learn all he could about the thieves’ secret language.

“Are you going to work in the inn now?” he asked when they stopped on a bench to take a short break.

Her face darkened. “No. I’m going back to my friends at the guild. I’ll pick up some work there.”

“Your friends? But they haven’t even asked about you. They didn’t even come by when you were healing.

“They’ve still done more for me than my sister. And they’ve checked on me…just not out in the open.”

“Okay then….” Kel wasn’t so sure about the veracity of that statement, but he knew better than to try and stick his nose in a family squabble. Valir had chewed him out a few times in the last few days for suggesting that she not smother her sister as much as she had since the incident.

“Why did you become a thief, anyway?” He ventured, hoping to at least segue into less dangerous territory.

“Easier money.” The young thief stared ahead, impassively watching merchants and customers, travelers and artisans go about their day. Despite being from the same town, she didn’t seem to regard them with much respect.

“But working at the Inn is super easy. You just carry drinks and food, chat with folks.”

“If you’re a boy, maybe.” she sniffed. “I get pawed at by drunkards and shorted on tips. How many times have customers tried to corner you alone in the hallway? None? That’s what I thought.”

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Kel was taken aback. No, none of those things had ever happened to him. “But still,” he felt himself saying “thievery has to be pretty dangerous.”

She looked at him with a cold determination he had never seen on another child’s face. “It is. And I like it. I’m fine keeping the peace with my sister. If living at the inn and carrying drinks around every once in a while makes her happy, so be it. But I’m not going to stop my trade - it’s the best skill I have and I do not want to get rusty. You never know which way the winds may turn and Five Pines has been on the up for a long time.” It was odd to hear a girl younger than him talk like that. He thought back to Ryla, playing with dolls and toy swords back in Fellow’s Glen. He was sad, truly sad, that she couldn’t have had a childhood like that.

“What happened, so that you had to go out on your own?”

“Another time, maybe.” She gave him a look that indicated this particular subject was closed. Kel took the hint shut up for a while. He was slowly getting better at not stepping into verbal minefields with the sisters.

They continued on for a time and she occasionally found and pointed out another icon. “This one,” she said with a gleeful smirk, “means ‘easy mark.” Indeed, it was a simple X, as one might find on a fictional treasure map, hastily scrawled on the side of a tea shop.

“So X marks the spot?”

She grinned, “It does. But such a spot exists only for sustenance. Never for sport.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” she hefted herself along with a groan; the crutch wasn’t quite comfortable and Kel reminded himself to make some changes to the padding later, “that there is no skill in easy marks and so they should only be targeted if completely necessary. It’s not my rule originally - that’s the guild’s code, but it’s a good one. It keeps us fed but also hungry, if that makes sense.” It did not, but Kel kept it to himself.

“Besides,” she tossed her hair as they walked along, “robbing an old woman of her savings by lying isn’t exactly admirable thievery. And I like a challenge.”

“You sound like the Grey Peregrine. A true gentle-thief.”

Lianna did not seem to take this as a compliment, however, from the look on her face. “He’s not guild.” She turned her nose up.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he doesn’t pay dues or anything. Never checks in at any of our hideouts. We hear plenty of stories about him but no one has ever met him. A few of our brotherhood believe he’s just a story made up to justify roundups.”

“That’s what makes him so mysterious. He’s like a phantom!”

“That’s what makes him - or her -” she clarified, “obnoxious. No one is supposed to be able to steal, professionally, without being part of the guild. The Grey Peregrine doesn’t rely on our network of fences or lookouts or anything. It infuriates the guild leaders.”

“I thought thieves were all on their own.”

“Only if we get caught.” she shrugged. “Come on, there’s more to see.” And she led him down the road to see more thief scratches.

Kel’s legs were aching and he felt like they had made laps around town when they finally sat down on a bench in the central garden.Lianna sat staring up at the sky, her head resting on the back of her bench. “Are you going to stay here?” she asked.

“Well, I don’t really know what to do. For now, sure. But I’m supposed to study - I have to find Maximilian Magus - who is supposedly this famous sorcerer except no one seems to know him or where to find him.”

She seemed to sense the frustration in his voice because the next moment he felt her hand on his. “Maybe you should take stock of what you have. You said your master before was smart and practical. Maybe he left you a clue.”

With a magical sack sitting in his room back at the inn, Kel had to agree. Maybe Caaron had left him a clue to go on.