The silence meant something. It meant: make up your own damn mind. I served the idols, they didn't serve me.

So I followed my instincts: I ran.

The kids jeered d behind me, but I was already halfway across the square. I veered into an alley and kept running. Past a feral cat slinking through weeds, past the ash from a dead cookfire.

I knew the name of the city, but I didn't know landmarks or directions. And by the time I stopped running, in the shade of an ohmi tree, I'd figured that I didn't know anything about friends or family or home, either.

As I caught my breath, I checked my surroundings. A dozen hovels lined this city road--which looked more like a wide dirt path--and charms dangled from the ohmi tree. Cheap things: ribbons, pebbles, a shiny bit of metal.

Not worth stealing, even if I dared anger a god. Which maybe I did, now. But there was no reason to take stupid risks.

I wiped blood from my face. I felt okay, though my stomach still hurt a little. At first I thought it was from getting punched, but no. The deeper pain was hunger. I'd been hungry a long time.

What were my options? Work for a few bites, scrounge a few bites, or tsteal a few bites.

Scrounging sounded best ... except if it were easy, why was I hungry in the first place? Working? Worth a try. Or I could beg, except who'd give money to a kid my age with all his limbs?

Okay, my silent deities, here's another question: what should I do now? Give me guidance, oh blessed ones. Nothing answered. Not a word, not an urge. So I kept walking though the slums of Lorint, choosing wider roads over narrower ones at every juncture.

"Hey!" I called to a man sweeping his doorstop. "Which way's the market?"

"Go on with you," he snarled. "Get out of here."

"That's what I'm trying to do," I told him. "If only I knew which way--"

He pointed. "There."

"I thank you, kind sir," I said, and he shook his broom at me.

I didn't know the color of my hair--or eyes--or the shape of my face, but I knew one thing: I looked disreputable. I needed to bathe, and get clothes, too. Apparently these ragged burlap trousers below an even ragged-er tunic weren't reassuring. So much for a job.

The road widened a few minutes later. The houses changed from hovels into cramped homes, jammed together. Some of them were even two stories high. Then the dirt under my bare feet turned into cobblestones.

Okay. Food, clothes, bath. And a place to sleep, but judging from the sky, smudged with wood-smoke between the roofs, I had a few hours before I needed to start worrying about that.

The market was a bigger square with proper shops around the edges. Maybe a half-a-hundred people shopped and chatted at the fountain and hawked goods from the carts clustered along one side. At least that many chickens pecked for seed on the ground, and two goats bleated complaints from atop a tree stump outside a chandler's shop.

Did I know chandling from my other life? I thought about wicks and wax, but couldn't remember anything worthwhile. I must've known something, once, but not anymore

I cupped my hands in the fountain and washed my face. I looked at my reflection in the water, but it was rippling because a couple of toddlers were stomping around the other side.

One fell to her pudgy bottom, and instead of crying she gurgled happily. Iwatched her and the other one, feeling soothed by the sight and--

"You boy!" one of the mothers snapped. "Stop your staring."

"Sorry," I muttered, and looked away.

Maybe I could steal from her. Follow her home? Nah, she'd seen me now, that made her a bad mark. At least, that's what I guessed.

The fint tinkle of bells sounded, and I watched a girl cross the square. A pretty girl, with dark skin and darker hair, woven through with bright spangly chains. The bells were her anklets, jingling as she walked. Her skirt swished and these new eyes of mine found her hard to look away from.

Which bothered me. I'd pledged myself to service already; I wasn't going to let anyone else control me. So I forced myself to look toward the carts. One vendor was wearing a floppy cloth hat. Another was shouting about fish for sale. A boy of nine or ten, with dull eyes, was picking his nose with enthusiasm.

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The carts looked shabby, but not as shabby as me. Some good pickings there. Well, a few rolls, some radishes. Another shop had woven goods, tunics and blankets and such. And one at the end was selling baubles: cheap jewelry, but bright and cheerful.

The girl must've thought the same, because she called: "Have you got any red ear-bobs? Dark red?"

Her voice matched the rest of her. Pretty and sweet and ... vibrant. The peddler answered and she laughed, and everyone watched for a moment, entranced by this vision of beauty in an otherwise-drab square.

Everyone except me, because I refused to, and the dull-eyed boy, who snatched a pouch from the tunic-vendor.

Not a full pouch, stuffed with coins. An empty pouch that was just ... for sale as a pouch.

He made the pouch disappear and then just stood there, picking his nose again.

The girl shook her head at the bauble-vendor, setting her hair-chains glimmering, then jingled from the square while the dull-eyed boy still remained in place. Picking his ear, for a change.

He stood there until the bauble vendor told him to stop blocking the path. Then he finally slumped away, toward a road that left the square toward the north.

I was twenty paces ahead of him. I stayed ahead of him until I reached a junction, then I turned right and waited. If he turned left, I'd have to backtrack and follow.

But he didn't. He kept on toward me, so I followed him from the front like ... like herding, maybe? Maybe I'd been a shepherd, I didn't know. But I knew this: if I stole from a thief, he wouldn't report me. Also, he'd must've already lifted small, salable items. Very convenient.

After a time, the dull-eyed boy ducked into an alley. I kept walking until I reached a stoop, where I sat and picked my teeth with a twig. Lounging in the open. Watching the world go by. Nothing suspicious about a kid who's not trying to hide.

That's why I guessed, at least. I'd give the dull-eyed thief time to relax and then try to steal what he'd stole.

A knife-sharpener passed me, shouting her services. Then a member of the city guard, with his blue-trimmed tabard. Then a crowd of people who looked better-off than most, with one man eating an orange and tossing the peel to the ground. Two priestesses of Ymani, chatting together behind a moon-painted fan and ...

Someone veered into the alley. A young woman in a drab tunic, with dark skin and darker hair and--oh! The girl from the square. Huh. So those two worked together? She distracted the mark and the boy snatched the goods?

I grabbed the orange peel from the ground and strolled into the alley like I belonged, rehearsing excuses in my mind. "Oh, me? Bought some orange peel for Ma. Wait, this isn't my house. Must've got turned around."

I'd find the thieves. Steal their day's haul, then sell it for food and clothes.

The alley opened into a courtyard. Doors and archways faced me, and stone stairs to my right climbed to a balcony. Toothless women drank tea and played a game of tiles. They ignored me, and I returned the favor. No idea which way to go, so I headed straight like I knew what I was doing--and there!

The faint jingle of a bell.

Coming from my left. I headed that way and heard the jingle again. I crept through a stone archway that opened into another alley--more of a hallway without a roof--and halfway down, though a window with broken shutters, I heard voices.

Low. Murmuring. I crept closer and almost knocked over a stack of kindling. When my heart stopped pounding, I peeked inside and saw a small room. Mattress in the corner, clothes drying on a rope, and three people.

The dull-eyed boy, slumped against the wall, holding a hand to his bloody mouth. The girl, her dark eyes fierce. And a man, holding her upper arm and shaking her so hard that her bells--hidden in her satchel--were jingling. That's the only reason I'd found them.

"Six copper?" he snarled. "That's all you got?"

"We also got a coinpurse," the boy said.

The man shook the girl harder. "You asking to get punched again?"

"N-no," the boy said.

The man punched him again. "Well, I don't wanna hear you talking shite about a coinpurse."

"You told us not to come back without a whole coinpurse," the girl said. "So we didn't."

"You know what I meant you little slat."

She gave a brave, frightened smile. "A deal is a deal, Horge."

"The new deal is this. I'm gonna put you on the street, girl. Make a lot more money on your back then you do--"

The boy pushed off the wall and rushed the man, who backhanded him savagely to the ground.

"Erni!" the girl cried, and tried to break free of the man.

He shook her again and kicked the boy. "You treat me pretty or I end him right now. You want that? You want me to end him?"

"N-no," she said.

"If you run, I'll end him." He released her roughly. "Unnerstand?"

"Y-yes."

"So you'll treat me pretty?"

She started trembling. "I ... I will."

"Start by taking that tunic off."

"We'll get you more coin! I promise, we'll--"

He kicked the boy again.

"Stop!" she said. "Stop, okay, I'll--okay."

She started lifting her tunic. For a moment, her other skirt, her pretty skirt, showed beneath, then the fabric snagged together and showed a long expanse of legs and the man--Horge--made a hungry noise and started telling her what he was going to do to.

That's why he didn't hear me pull the heaviest stick of kindling--thick as my wrist--from the pile.

That's why he didn't hear me slip through the door.

That's why he didn't notice me behind him until the stick hit his head. With all my terrified might. Caught him in the temple so hard that the stick snapped.

He swayed and turned and godsdamn he was big. Like a bear ... but dazed from the blow. He swiped a clumsy paw at me, then took a step and did it again.

I backed away, angling toward the door, to run if I had to.

He made a guttural roar and I waved the broken stick at him--jabbing toward him the now-pointy end--and the girl leapt onto his back from behind, her fingers digging into his face.

She shouted, "Stab him! Stab him now!"

So I did. I stabbed him in the gut and he looked at me like he was trying to memorize my face, then fell to his knees.

And that was when I noticed the blue-trimmed guard's tabard he'd tossed over the room's only chair.

I'd just stabbed a city guard.

"Finish him!" the girl told me, wild-eyed and panting.

I took a breath, praying for guidance ...