"Gabriella?" Aldo frowned. "Really? Her? I didn't see her anywhere…" Gabriella was another of the Scamps following the three of them - according to Mossy Lakes, Tizzie had assigned her to Aldo.

"I don't think we're being followed all the time," I said. Truth be told, I was a bit annoyed that I hadn't caught Mossy before then. Having an eight-year-old follow me for days and being none the wiser didn't exactly speak well for my observational prowess.

In any case, it was a moot point - they could follow us all day and they wouldn't find us doing anything illegal. Surprisingly, even Aldo had turned legit-ish: he'd been making decent money picking locks for a loan agency operating out of Little Kulsiniy, the Slartic neighborhood of the Foreign Canton. If it sounds like shady business, that's probably because you aren't Florian…

While I'm sure there are illegal loan-brokers in, say, the Green Stones, Nurass all but did away with them in the rest of the city by legitimizing the firms operating on the fringes of the law - firms can charge no more than ten percent of the principal loan in interest per week and can't kill or hurt anybody to pursue delinquent loans. In exchange, they're issued legal loan-bonds that allow them to take whatever they want from 'deadbeats' (this is the legal term used in Floria) and may sell their takings to exchange brokers (which are approved by each canton's Master).

These loan companies can collect up to ten percent over the value of the loan-bond for their efforts and any additional surplus from the sale must be returned to the deadbeat. Of course, those exchange brokers have to make a profit, too, and so people with delinquent loans often find themselves returning to an empty home, out double or more of a loan's actual value. You read that correctly - loan-brokers are allowed to go into your house and take whatever they like, provided they have a legal loan-bond. Since any damage they do comes out of their end, they're usually pretty careful about taking the right person's stuff and not damaging anything. Hence, the loan-sharks employ lock-pickers to gain entry to houses while the deadbeats are out. Or while they're in - from a legal standpoint, it doesn't really matter, though the former is safer.

"Pa Akraszovic pays me a tollo per lock, and sometimes there's five or six a day," Aldo explained.

"Pa Akraszovic? You realize that sounds like the name of a crime boss, right?" Mailyn observed.

"He's not. He's told me he's gone completely legitimate…"

"Yup. Doesn't sound like a crime boss at all," I said.

If you asked anybody with a shifty mien in Little Kulsiniy, they'd gladly tell you that Dzhivli 'Pa' Akraszovic was the head of the local Slartic mob, hence the honorific. I believe somebody else took over around three years later after Akraszovic's body was found floating in the Nation's Pool - perhaps not too surprising, given the high turnover rate in the mobster sector of Floria's economy. In any case, that was irrelevant - the loansharking side of Pa's business was legitimate, and Aldo had receipts for all of the 'stolen' goods he sometimes showed up with, purchased legally from the exchange shop…

That is to say, he had receipts, but then somebody busted the lock to his footlocker and stole them all. One guess who…

"Tizzie," he fumed.

Aldo's footlocker had been secured, ironically enough, with a lock he'd bought at cost from Pa Akraszovic's exchange broker. It was a magical lock, the kind you might pay an octavo to pick up new and that would give you a pretty painful jolt if you tried to open it without the key and grounder. Of course, if you were willing to take a jolt to the hand, then a hammer and chisel would work just fine. This had been the cause of Aldo's run-in with the Sons the other day - somebody reported his nice new boots as stolen, and he didn't have the receipt for them. Fortunately, the guards knew Aldo worked for Pa and gave him a pass. Aldo was angrier about the lock than the missing receipts.

"I'm gonna give her a piece of my mind." He stormed over and point-blank accused her of

"Broke your locker?" Tizzie replied glibly. "Nope. I got no idea what you're talking about."

"You got a salve wrap around your hand where my lock jolted you!"

She flexed her fingers with a wince. "Nah. I just forgot my grounder to my own lock - so forgetful! You're being paranoid, 'Do."

"Cut the canal-turds, Tizzie," Mailyn butted in. "We know you've got those younger Scamps following us around, hoping to catch us doing 'crimes'… all so you can 'take over' our 'territory'…" she made scare quotes around the offending terms. "Which is the dumbest plan I ever heard of, and I've heard most of Vix's before she tightens them up."

"Hey!" I said. "My plans are good!"

"That's true, Mai," Aldo agreed, the traitor.

"Well… if you angels done nothing wrong, then what's the problem?" Tizzie asked. She plodded back to the vicinity of her own bunk, where Nima Sanda was glowering at us - safety in numbers, I suppose. Now, Tizzie was still a big girl, taller than any of us by a bit and broader. But Mailyn and Aldo were confirmed scrappers among the Scamps, and the only reason that I wasn't was because Oltzen and company still occasionally spread rumors painting me as a haughty princess-wannabe. But I had a damn good front kick. Tizzie was well aware of both of these things.

"The problem," I said, "is that people who haven't done anything wrong still get into trouble when there's enough lies and rumors out there. Just leave. Us. Alone, Tizzie. What's even the point? You're going to be a Sneak before any of us - two or three months, right? And then you'll be too busy doing Collegium stuff to worry about stupid Scamp gangs. So why not let it go?"

Tizzie glanced to Nima for reassurance and, with that little shot of courage, turned back to me, her dark eyes furious in their intensity. "Because you think you're better than me, but you're not. You always got money and fancy things, like you think you're too good to even be a Scamp. You even got your own glowglobe, princess…"

"Which I made myself!" I said.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Maddeningly, she just shrugged. "I sure wish I was friends with the artificers."

"Then make nice with the artificers! It's not hard!" I said, storming over to her, only for Mailyn to hold me back, the traitor.

"Not worth it," Mailyn whispered.

"Listen to your girlfriend," Tizzie huffed. "That's right… I'm not worth it, am I? I'm not worth a damn thing to you. You think those artificer lordlings would make nice with me? Not in a million years, princess. They like you because you're just like they are, and you'll never be one of us."

"I don't want to be 'one of you'! I want to be a Shadow. I want revenge for my family and my people. What could you possibly have to offer me?"

"There you have it," Tizzie said levelly. "I ain't worth a thing to her because she can't use me for anything, and she even admitted it."

"That's… that's not what I meant…"

"Yeah. Sure."

For all of Tizzie's negative qualities, and there were quite a few, she wasn't stupid. Nobody at the Collegium is, of course, but she'd displayed a deviousness here that I hadn't appreciated before.

And, to an extent, she wasn't even wrong. I don't know if you remember being nine, but the typical child in that age range has four or five close friends and another ten or fifteen 'satellite friends' a bit outside that closeness. Our ability to maintain close bonds is limited. Even as adults, we generally don't make friends without reason, even if that reason is 'this person makes me feel happy' (indeed, this is an excellent reason to befriend somebody). Simply put, a street mendicant would be a fool not to befriend Queen Fiona, but the same cannot be said in reverse.

"Just… just don't mess with us," Mailyn said.

"Is that a threat?" Tizzie asked.

"Yes."

The two of them stared at one another angrily for an uncomfortable amount of time. "We'll see, then," Tizzie eventually said.

A word to the wise: when Mailyn Watt says something is a threat, it absolutely is.

The next day was a Saintsday, which meant we were allowed to wake up an hour after the appointed time. As usual, I was up well earlier than that. We got cold breakfast delivered so nobody had to do kitchen detail. Following breakfast, we made our way down to the Largotto for our mandatory weekly bath. Including our Saintsday ablutions, I probably got between four and five baths a week, so I didn't have to be especially assiduous about my washing. A regular soaping-down would do. And, as I waded past little islets of soap suds and weaved my way between groups of splashing, chatting Scamps, I sought out Mossy Lakes down near where the rushes and river hyacinth clustered to the south of the Step Wharf.

She didn't see me approach, which gave me some small amount of satisfaction - I hadn't known that she'd been following me, but at least I could also approach unseen. It was a good thing, too, because I soon noted that several of her co-conspirators were nearby and Tizzie Drake wasn't far off, watching her charges like a mother duck watching her brood. I should have anticipated that - that if I approached Mossy openly, then Tizzie would almost certainly know something was afoot. That wouldn't do at all. If Tizzie wanted cloak and daggers, she'd have cloak and daggers.

Still… I wasn't about to leave my little turncoat unattended. I waded off and bided my time. Instead of meeting her on the Largotto, I waited until services at the Bannered Temple. This week, we were attending services from the Church of the New Circle, that sect of the Avatarine religions that claims that saints and prophets walk among us to this very day. These services were still presided over by Reverend Nuches, who'd offered me comfort two years before on the day that Tizzie and Oltzen nearly drowned me in the Largotto. Nuches was still my favorite clergyman in town, and I was a bit of an acolyte in his services. I think Nuches thought he had a potential convert in me - and, indeed, a year and some change later, he inducted me into the fold, his cheeks glowing with pride…

Don't worry, dear reader, I'm not about to proselytize to you. I'm a member in good standing with no fewer than four religions, and I only half-way believe in two of them. That being the case, I've never had a problem with pretending to believe what's essentially fairy tales with delusions of grandeur. If the God of the Avatar isn't real, then what harm is there in pretending to accept the delusion; and if He is real, then being an ingenuine participant can't be worse than being an unabashed heathen, can it? For is it not said: I shall know you through your actions as I know you through your heart, for I have marked you. Even the shaitan can quote scripture - but I digress.

On the way to the Bannered Temple, Mailyn sidled up to me and whispered, "Why do you even want this girl? We can get back at Tizzie without her…"

I pondered that for a moment and shrugged, admitting to myself that I was being a bit petty. "Maybe I just want Tizzie to know I can turn her friends into mine? Don’t you think she deserves it?"

A smile crept up Mailyn's lips. "Yeah, I guess she does. Fine. I'll keep lookout."

I dressed in my little acolyte's robe - identical to the parishioner's gowns that some of the more devout students wore, but with a little veridian stole with the symbol of the True Circle on either side of the draping - and made my way to the service, making sure to claim a row near where Mossy was sitting. Thus, when Reverend Nuches declared it was time to affirm our faith (for those students who did so) about half-way into the service, I was ready to claim a little basin of holy oil to carry down the aisles as the deacons anointed whoever wished to be 'marked' - a little thumb print of warm oil on the forehead if you've never been to a True Circle service. As we approached Mossy, the deacon waving her incense around and marking each kneeling Scamp, I noted that Mossy was not among the faithful, for she remained standing, albeit with her head bowed respectfully. That was all the more convenient for me.

As we approached her, I pretended to fumble the little basin of oil, wavering forward so as not to drop the thing. I, completely incidentally, found myself a bit too close to Mossy, at which point I whispered to her: "Meet me in the sermon room after services."

The deacon gave me an odd look, though I don't think she heard anything. Not with Reverend Nuches and the cantor belting out the vocit an fidelio, the 'call to faith'. And Mossy certainly heard me, because she showed up in the back office thirty minutes later after services had finished.

I have no idea what Reverend Nuches would have said if he'd seen me sitting behind the lacquered clergy desk with my fingers steepled like some maven. No doubt, he'd have gotten a chuckle out of it, but he'd also be obligated to provide some degree of disapproval. Fortunately, he had no designs on the room and I watched him walk past from my perch, off to wherever reverends usually go after their sermons. To the privy, if I had to guess.

"Mossy. Enter," I said.

She gulped and offered a terse nod, closing the door behind herself as she shuffled in. "You said to meet here?"

"I did," I said. "So… out of curiosity, how many languages do you speak?"

"Uh… how many what?"

"Languages. A little birdie told me you've got a decent knack. So… how many?"

"Um… six? Seven, depending…"

I nodded approvingly. "It's a start. You see, I've got a plan percolating, and you've got a part to play in it."

"A plan? Me?"

I nodded. "Yes, you, Mossy." I whispered the words of activation to summon a tiny ball of flame from my ring, which I then held above my palm, moving the sphere, about half the diameter of a stickball, back and forth. Mailyn had showed me how to move the flames around, but I had less natural aptitude for and a lot less practical experience at pyromancy. Still, I tried to pass my look of intense concentration as my being slightly vexed at Mossy, which I still was. The point was to make me seem like I was a magical savant and not somebody to ever mess with.

"I'm about to tell you something important, and you can either assist me or betray my trust. So I want you to ask yourself…" At that moment, I lost control of the flame, which flashed into nothingness in a little burst of white and yellow. I tried to pass my surprise off as more vexation. "Would you rather be Tizzie's friend? Or mine? Because you can't be both and I can give you what she can't."