Alice raced around the alleyway corner, fist balled, wishing for the first time since she had found the class seed which gave her Prim that she still had her old General Laborer strength.

She was ready to slap somebody down, to hit, punch, kick, gouge, and do whatever it took to save her dragon.

She didn't expect to be confronted by two high-pitched, young voices at the end of the alleyway.

“Mabel, let her go! She's not yours.”

“It's a dragon. Maybe we could sell it to some fancy classer. Maybe we—OW! Stop pecking at me, you little beast!”

“Mabel, I'm serious! This is a bad idea!”

Alice came to a stop. “Let her go.” She barely recognized her own voice. It was dark, low, and threatening.

The figures had finally come into view at the end of the alleyway: two short, childlike individuals.

One was Tom, and at that moment, only seeing red, Alice could only think, I trusted you, but I'll never make that mistake again.

She had trusted Dolly, too, and look where that had gotten her.

Prim, who was captured in the arms of another girl, twisted her head towards Alice and let out a verbal squawk of relief.

In the voice that only Alice seemed to hear, Prim said, “You're here! I was worried. She saw straight through my illusion.”

The girl holding Prim didn't seem to have a lick of sense because her arms tightened around Prim and she scowled up at Alice. “You can't take this away from me. I found her, fair and square.”

Tom, however, seemed to have been waiting for the moment Mable’s attention was off him. He grabbed the girl's wrist where it was wrapped around Prim and wrenched it to the side. Prim twisted and got one wing free, flapping as if she wanted to lift off.

Alice headed for the girl, ready to pull her hair. It had been conveniently pinned back into a plait.

Before she had taken more than a few steps, a manhole at the end of the alleyway exploded upward, and a red serpent of fire and wrath flowed out.

It was Iggy.

Alice simply pointed to the girl, and her loyal, defender dragon breathed a plume of flame in her direction, thankfully stopping short of Prim. However, he advanced, his teeth and claws bared and flashing.

Mabel was too well-trained in the streets to do something silly like shriek. She simply dropped Prim and backed up a few hasty steps, hands up.

Tom gaped, too, but he didn't back away. Not even when Iggy turned furious eyes on him.

Prim caught herself with a flap of her wings before she hit the ground, her claws skittering on the grimy brickwork before she got into the air again. Within a moment, she alighted back on Alice's shoulder.

“Are you okay?” Alice demanded, her voice still hard and alien to her own ears.

“She didn't hurt me. I was only surprised. She saw straight through my illusion.” Prim sounded much more put out by this than anything else.

“Alice—Miss… I... it's all a mistake.” To Alice's disgust, Tom stepped to put himself between Iggy and the girl, his hands held out as if seeking supplication. “We didn't mean no harm to your dragons.”

“A misunderstanding? She wanted to sell Prim to some classer.” Alice thrust a finger at the girl, who visibly recoiled. Alice's pointing finger—her whole arm—was shaking in fury.

She hadn't been this upset over Dolly's betrayal.

In fact, she never remembered being this upset before. It was hard not to tell Iggy to rip the girl apart limb by limb.

She had risked everything last night to save them just last night. Ungrateful brats.

“Alice. I am well. She didn't so much as damage a scale,” Prim rubbed the side of her head against Alice's cheek.

“They're super poor, too. Only two coppers to their name.” Numi seemed to pop up from behind the children—who both leapt in shock. Neither had seen her slither behind them—and spit out two sorry-looking copper pieces.

Less than a week ago, that had been close to what Alice herself had owned.

And that thought was enough to blunt the edge of her anger.

Iggy asked, in a growling voice that at that moment didn't sound too different from Alice's own, “Do you want me to dispose of the trash?”

Alice took a breath, let it out again, and somehow found it within herself to say, “Keep an eye on them, please.”

And with that minor release, she also realized that they had been making a lot of noise in a city where the Law Enforcement would be on the lookout for any ne'er-do-wells.

“Prim, please watch the front of the alleyway. And if you're feeling up to it, cast an illusion to show all is well. Numi, is that all you found on them?”

“Well, the boy had a knife,” Numi reached into her mouth and pulled that out, too.

“Hey,” Tom objected, touching his back pants pocket, apparently where he had been keeping the knife.

“Hey, nothing,” Alice snapped, “you ought to be on your knees thanking me and my dragons for saving you from the Workers last night—”

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“That was you?” the girl blurted.

Tom turned to her. “I was trying to tell you! Then you snatched up Prim like she was a turkey that had escaped the marketplace.”

“How did you see Prim?” Alice asked, focusing on the girl. Hadn't Tom called her Mabel? “Do you have a skill?” It was the only thing she could think of, though the girl looked younger than the minimum fourteen years old for a class. Also a skill like that would be prized beyond compare.

“A skill? No,” she said, with derision, “I'm only twelve.”

“Then, how? Tell me!” Alice snapped her fingers at the girl when she hesitated.

Mabel looked rebellious, but then sighed and pulled out a chain that had been under her shirt. A shiny golden medallion hung on the end of it.

Numi squawked, “I didn't see that. Alice, I need a real pick-pocketing skill.”

Ignoring her, Alice squinted at the medallion. When it caught the light just so, odd writing flashed on the surface.

“What's that?” Tom asked, just as curious and openly envious as Numi.

“I got it from those Workers when they were trying to snatch us. One had the chain sticking right out of his pocket,” Mabel said. “I didn't know what it was used for, but I figured if they had it, I wanted it.”

Alice held back her grudging admiration that the girl had had enough sense to pickpocket the man as he was kidnapping her.

“What does it do?” Tom asked.

“I don't know, but I saw her following us, and you couldn't.” She pointed down the alleyway where Prim was currently obscured by another illusion.

That medallion must be an artifact carved by someone from a Magician class.

Alice wanted it, and she knew with Iggy backing her up, she could just take it.

Still, she didn't trust herself to make smart decisions right at this moment. Instead, she continued on with her other questions, “What happened last night? Tom, I thought you had more sense than to get caught by those Workers.”

Tom scowled. “It wasn't my fault. They raided the whole orphanage. Mabel and I almost got free. I was running—”

“Wait, they raided the entire orphanage?” Alice demanded. “And the Orphanage Staff just let them?”

Tom shrugged, and Mabel scowled.

“Of course they did. The Orphanage Workers always get paid off. It happens when it gets too crowded. So I was on my toes, expecting it. Usually they don’t take the kids who manage to run. But they did this time.”

Alice was feeling sick, both from what she heard and the sheer whiplash of going from white-hot anger to intense pity.

She thought she had it tough as a General Laborer, but she had let herself forget that she, at least, had a class—even if it was a low one—and therefore some value to society. These children had nothing.

“We always make ourselves scarce when there's a raid on,” Tom added, nodding. “And this time, well, I thought maybe you'd give us some shelter,” he said, “but they caught us in the hotel’s courtyard right before I could get into the hotel.”

And there was the anger again. He’d almost led the Workers to her and her dragons.

He’s just a kid, Alice reminded herself. A dumb kid who’d almost ruined everything.

“Did they tell you what they wanted you for? The Workers?” she made herself ask.

Tom shrugged. “The mines, probably.”

But Mabel shook her head with an angry look Tom's way, “You shouldn't answer if you don't know.”

He turned to her. “Then what? They weren't exactly chatty with me.”

“Well, I hear things because I listen,” she shot back.

“So what did they say?” Alice asked.

The girl started to reply, but then a sly look crossed her face. “If you want to know, it will cost you.”

“Mabel, you don't know what you're doing,” Tom objected.

A bit of anger flared up again in Alice's chest, but she was back in control enough to squash it. Besides, she could appreciate Mabel's gumption. And, more importantly, she understood where the girl was coming from.

She lived on the streets, in a harder life than Alice had faced even as a General Laborer. It wasn't nice or polite, but it made sense that she would not let any opportunity go to waste.

Well, neither would Alice.

“Numi,” Alice held out her arm, and the green dragon took off into the air and landed on her wrist. Alice had to take a quick step before she staggered under the weight of her dragon. Numi was the smallest out of the three, but her stomach was apparently full of coins.

“A gold piece, if you please,” Alice said.

Tom and Mabel's eyes bugged out as Numi reached into her mouth and withdrew a gleaming — if spitty — gold coin. Alice plucked it out and held it between her fingers, making sure that it caught the light.

“This is yours to split in exchange every scrap of information you can give me about the Workers,” she said. “And,” she added as both Tom and Mabel took a step forward, “that medallion.”

Mabel hesitated, her hand closing over the medallion. “I could probably sell it in the marketplace for more.”

“The marketplace is shut down today, remember?” Tom said to her, earning a glare in his direction.

“You don't want to be flashing something like that in the marketplace,” Alice said. “The Workers might be on the lookout for it. Besides, only High and Magic classers will be interested in something like that. And they're more likely to cheat you than buy honestly from you.”

It was the same problem she had encountered when she first found the class seed, and a large part of why she had not gone to pains to find out how much it was worth. Anything valuable was much more likely to be stolen from her by a greedy classer.

“Yeah, then they'll dump your worthless carcass somewhere so you’ll never tell on them, either,” Tom added, much more brutally than Alice would have, but he had a point.

Mabel still hesitated. “How do I know you won't kill me after I hand this over?”

Alice pointed to Iggy. “I could sic him on you at any time. It's only because I'm friends with Tom that I decided to hear you out, first.”

Tom beamed at her as if Alice had just paid him a grand compliment.

The girl seemed to at least see the sense of what Alice was saying, or perhaps she just couldn't see a way out. Slowly, reluctantly, she lifted the chain of the medallion over her head, and, holding it in her hand, she spoke, “I heard tell of what the Workers were saying to the Head Orphanage Mistress right before coins exchanged hands. They said that a Dark Classer was rising up. They weren't going to send us to the mines,” she added with a significant look Tom's way, “they were going to use us as messengers and gofers for all of the Soldier classes'. Maybe make us fight, too, if things got bad enough. I dunno.”

That was horrifying, and not surprising. Also, it fit in with what Alice had heard from the Vendor. So, there was a Dark Classer—maybe even a Dark Lord himself—on the rise.

"Anything else?" Alice asked.

"No, I swear." Mabel made a gesture to cross her heart. Her face was solemn enough that Alice knew this was a promise not easily broken by the orphans.

Alice nodded to Iggy who had been waiting on tenterhooks to launch forward. The dragon swam through the air so fast that Mabel didn't have time to do anything more than flinch before Iggy snatched the medallion out from her fingers.

"Hey—!" Mabel's cry was cut off when Alice flicked the gold coin to them. The two orphan kids dived for it, but Mabel was the one who came up victorious.

"Find somewhere to rent and hide for the next few days, till they're done cleaning out the orphanages," Alice said. "Maybe some new clothes, too. And food," she added. That gold coin would be more than enough for all of it.

They had spent too much time in the alleyway. Alice turned to walk away.

"Wait, Alice!" Tom called, "where do I find you if we hear more about the Workers?" His eager tone told Alice he wanted an opportunity for more gold coins.

Alice hesitated for a moment. Tom had meant well, but he had nearly led the Workers right to her dragons.

She couldn't let such a close call happen again. Already, she was thinking of plans for Prim’s next egg.

“I’ll find you,” she called back to the boy, turned, and walked out.

It sounded like she truly did have to worry about the rise of a new Dark Classer. She and her dragons had leveling to do.