Night came early to the market, crowded against the western edge of the city wall. The high, shining wall loomed over the close-packed tents, shacks, and stands and threw the teeming, dusty streets in deep shadow more than an hour before the sun fell below the horizon. The market emptied of patrons almost immediately, some chasing the sun to the other parts of the city, others pouring out of the Westgate before its close at sunset. That didn’t mean the market was deserted; the merchants lingered, cleaning and closing up their shops, tallying their money, and talking to their neighbors about another day done. And at the edges of the market, near the paths the merchants had to take to return to their homes, a few others waited, like crocodiles lying just under the surface of a river.

With the Thief Lord’s protection lying on the market itself, the merchants’ walk home presented the best opportunity for the independent thief to strike gold. Pickpockets had already been through the patrons as they left, but it was the merchants who carried the real money. Sometimes a week’s worth of profits could be gotten from a single purse. Unfortunately for the thieves, most merchants were wise to their vulnerability. They hired escorts to take them through the gauntlet whenever they were carrying much coin. Like river crocodiles, the thieves usually preyed on the weak.

The Firebrand stood in the shadow of a recessed doorway, watching three thieves who had found a weakness to exploit in the passing merchants that wouldn’t be cured by hiring muscle. She had come upon the aftermath of their work the previous evening in the form of a long-bearded man berating two muscled men who were tied together with what appeared to be their own trousers. The man’s description, given at length and full volume, had been detailed enough for Kiri to discover the thieves in the crowd in the market the following afternoon. They had appeared to be picking out their possible victims from among the merchants.

The three women looked like sisters, with great wreaths of jet-black curls surrounding their pretty faces. They were all dressed in clothes that weren’t actually expensive in fiber, but made tastefully enough to pass for it. They had taken up what they no doubt fancied to be positions hidden from view, though the Firebrand could see them. She did the same, hoping her hiding place was better than theirs. For a moment she smiled to herself, imagining that there could be a tail tailing her tail. Just to be sure, she looked around and scanned the shadows all around her, but saw nothing of note. If there was anyone else hiding, they were very good.

The Firebrand had chosen these particular thieves carefully. She doubted they had anything whatever to do with the Thief Lord’s networks, intricate though his connections were. She had no desire to get herself into another tangle like the one with Colin. Being only one person, her protection could only extend so far. She was already worried that the Outsiders might be deciding to try and do their rounds again. As soon as she was done here, she planned to put in an appearance Outside so they wouldn’t get any ideas.

The initial surge out of the market had gone completely. Kiri moved slightly now and then to keep her muscles from cramping. Finally, when the fading light was almost gone, a small group came into view. The Firebrand recognized the old glassmaker at the center of it. He was dwarfed on either side by his hired muscle. They were two large men who looked to have plenty of strength but little intelligence, and little awareness either. Both looked bored and didn’t seem to be paying attention to their surroundings. Neither seemed to think it suspicious when three women stepped from the shadows and one promptly put her hand to her head and sank to the ground.

“Oh no!” one of the other women called in the too-clear tones of a stage actor. “Our dear sister has fainted! Good sirs!” She turned to the startled men and held out a hand in entreaty. “Please, render assistance.”

The hired guards were even more stupid than Kiri had thought possible. Ignoring the old man, who was muttering to them and seemed to be attempting to argue restraint, the two bulky men surged forward and knelt by the fallen woman. Immediately all three women produced knives from within the folds of their skirts and the two foolish men were immobilized by the sharp blades against their necks.

“All right, you know the rules,” the woman on the ground said. She got to her feet without removing her blade from the man’s throat. “Sit on the ground with your backs to each other.”

One of her sisters ran off and dragged the old man over to the others; he had tried to take advantage of the moment to escape.

The Firebrand decided this had gone far enough. It had been nicely done, and she hated to take the part of the imbeciles against these clever, capable young women. But they were thieves, and after all, she hated just as much to see the old glassmaker robbed and mistreated. Bringing fire to her hand with a shake of her fist, she leapt from the shadows to stand tall in the middle of the street. “Stop right there!” she called, her voice just as loud, if not as bell-clear, as the other woman’s had been.

At the sight of her, fingers aflame, bright against the black of her clothes, everyone seemed to forget what they were doing. The blades moved away from the men’s throats, and the two overborne guards stared open-mouthed at the Firebrand.

“Put your knives away, ladies,” Kiri called. “This game is over, and you’ve lost.”

Two of the women started to put their knives away, but the third, the one who had been faking the faint, recovered herself. “The game is over?” she said, as she pressed her blade back against the man’s throat. “We haven’t even played. I admit I’ve never seen anyone who can hold fire before, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to give up my earnings.”

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“Is that what thieves call the money they steal?” Kiri asked. She walked toward them slowly, gathering the fire in her hand into a ball as she moved. The three sisters, all with their knives on the men now, watched her warily. “I can do more than hold fire. But I don’t want to hurt anybody.”

“Neither do I,” said the other woman. “But if you make a move, I’ll cut this man’s throat.”

Kiri stopped moving forward. She cocked her head to the side and studied the situation carefully. “You are right,” she said. “We are at an impasse. So, here’s an idea. I will put down my fire and the little old man there will put down his money, and you will let us, and his two men there, leave. How does that sound?”

The woman narrowed her eyes and stared at Kiri. She was probably trying to figure out how and whether the Firebrand was planning on going back on the deal. No doubt she didn’t want to give up her hostage just so she could be, literally, burned. She didn’t look very sure, but after glancing again at the fire in Kiri’s hand she swallowed hard and licked her lips. She seemed to finally decide it was worth the risk. She knew she didn’t have the advantage here, and this offered at least the possibility to come out ahead. “Very well,” she said. “Move slowly.”

She pulled her knife a little away from the man, and her sisters did the same. Looking very unhappy about it, the glassmaker untied his purse from his belt and set it on the ground. Kiri kept her eyes on them all as she slowly moved to one knee and brought her still-flaming hand down. Then, at the last moment, she turned it over and slammed her palm into the pavement.

The boom was loud, so loud she knew it must have startled everyone in this quarter of the city. It was accompanied by a flash of light that blinded Kiri for a moment, so she couldn’t see for a moment whether she had succeeded. As the bright spots before her eyes cleared she saw that she had set the distance perfectly. The pavement was burned in a neat arc that went right under the sister, glassmaker, and his guards, all of whom had now fallen in a genuine faint.

Kiri ran to them, and checked the glassmaker first to assure herself he was all right. She had been a little worried the old man would prove too frail to survive her lightning. But he breathed easy, as did the rest of them. It hadn’t been an ideal solution, but she hadn’t seen that woman giving up any other way but bloodshed.

The problem was that now she couldn’t very well leave the heap of them here together. Who knows what order they would wake up in, and whether the action might resume? Indeed, laying passed out in the city like this, they would be easy targets for any other thieves.

Kiri didn’t fancy staying here to babysit them, but couldn’t immediately think of a way out of it. Eventually she decided that while she was waiting she could at least give the women a taste of their own medicine. She took one of their knives and cut a few long strips of cloth from the hem of the dress of the one that had caused all the trouble by refusing to surrender. She hoped the woman would really hate that her dress had been defaced when she woke up. She deserved it. With a few grunts and heaves Kiri got all three women laid out face down and hauled their arms behind them. She tied the hands of the first two women quickly. The third started to stir as she wound the cloth around her wrists, moving her hands while Kiri tried to tie them. Kiri was forced to hold them with one hand while using her teeth and the other hand to pull the knots tight.

“Just in time, I think, Firebrand. That one is waking up.”

Kiri leapt to her feet, nearly falling over the legs of the woman she was tying up as she whirled to face the speaker. It was Neal, the Untouchable’s man, and he had one of the Thief Lord’s guards from the market with him. Her heart pounded so hard the sound of it filled her ears. Without thinking about it she pulled fire to her hand. The glow lit the dark street.

“No need for that,” Neal said. “I didn’t come here to fight you, Firebrand.”

“You didn’t?” Kiri couldn’t believe it.

“The Thief Lord is aware of your actions in the city,” Neal said. “And he believes you may have similar goals to his.”

“Similar how?” Kiri said. “I’m not a thief.”

“In a word, order,” Neal said. “By now you have seen that the Thief Lord is as much a source of order here as the guard. Perhaps more. But while he watches after the order of places like the market, as you have noticed, there is much beneath his notice. That is why you came here, to apprehend these thieves. You knew this is not among the Thief Lord’s concerns, many though those are.”

“That is one way to put it,” Kiri said. “I just came to save people.”

“Save them. Please, do.” Neal said. “The Thief Lord encourages it. He will not interfere, nor will I, if you stay away from those places that fall under his umbrella of protection.”

Kiri moved closer to him, mostly to get away from the three sisters and the others, who were all starting to moan and move around. “I can do that from here on out,” she said. “But if you’re trying to call me off the Outsiders, I can’t let their rounds go forward. I’ve made promises.”

“The Thief Lord understands obligations,” Neal said. “This business with the rounds, we will leave it between you and Tagg. Agreed.”

Kiri nodded, briskly. Not wanting any more words with him, she scurried up to the rooftops and ran away as quickly as she could. She felt a choking disgust at dealing with the Untouchable’s man at all. Why was he giving his blessing to what she wanted to do, anyway? After the mess with Colin, she didn’t really want to get involved in the Thief Lord’s business, not at least until she understood it better, but she didn’t want his blessing, or anything to do with him or Useph or the Untouchable’s people.

The truths he had said just made it worse. She had come here to fight the Thief Lord, but she wasn’t doing it. She had chosen not to, so far, because she didn’t want to make things worse. It really was a kind of order, and she didn’t know that she could get rid of him without causing more problems than she solved. So for now, she would accept the deal she had been offered, and maybe she would not even have to fear for a while for the lives of everyone she dared to treat kindly. Not having the fear of the Thief Lord hanging over her sure should feel like a good change. Tagg and his Rounds and defending Colin was a task he should be able to handle. But her feelings were at war with her reason, and she argued with the anger shouting in her head all the way to the Outside.