barely breathe, sinking into the muck and grime. I knelt there for a while, waiting for my heartbeat to return to normal. On the way up my leg gave out, and I had to buy a crutch off a fake cripple so I could hobble the rest of the way home.
I awoke with a headache that made my swollen ankle feel like a hand-job from a ten-ochre-an-hour hooker. I tried to stand, but my vision swirled and my stomach let me know it was up for a repeat of last night’s performance, so I sat back down. Prachetas’s cunt, if I never took another whiff of pixie’s breath it would be too damn soon.
The sun streaming through my window meant it was past noon. My feeling has always been that if you’ve missed the morning you might as well go ahead and skip the afternoon as well, but there was work to do. I steadied myself, then pulled on my clothes and walked downstairs.
I took a seat at the counter. Adolphus had forgotten to cover his eye, and the recess in his skull wagged disapproval at me. “It’s too late for eggs. Don’t even ask.” I had figured one o’clock was probably past the breakfast rush but wasn’t happy to have my suspicions confirmed. “The boy from last night has been waiting for you to wake up for the past three hours.”
“Is there any coffee at least? And where is my shadow exactly?”
“There is none, and he’s in the corner.” I turned to see the youth uncurl from a wall. He had an odd talent for remaining unnoticed, or maybe my hangover was worse than I’d thought.
We looked at each other in silence, some natural reserve keeping him from beginning. “I didn’t idle half the morning away in front of your door,” I said. “What do you want?”
“A job.”
He was direct, at least, and concise-that was something. My head was pounding and I was trying to figure out where my breakfast would come from. “And what possible use could you be to me?”
“I could do things for you. Like last night.”
“I don’t know how often you think I stumble over the corpses of missing children, but last night was kind of a rare occurrence. I don’t think I can justify a full-time employee waiting around for it to happen again.” This objection seemed to do little to sway him. “What is it you think I do exactly?”
He smiled slyly, like he’d done something wrong and was happy to let me know it. “You run Low Town.”
And what a lovely fiefdom it was. “The guards might dispute that.”
He snorted. It was worth snorting over.
“I had a long night. I’m not in the mood for this nonsense. Get lost.”
“I can run errands, deliver messages, whatever you need. I know the streets like the back of my hand. I can tussle, and nobody sees me that I don’t want to.”
“This is a one-man operation. And if I was to bring on an assistant, my first requirement would be that his balls had dropped.”
The abuse did little to faze him. No doubt he’d heard far worse. “I came through yesterday, didn’t I?”
“Yesterday you walked six blocks and didn’t fuck me. I could train a dog to do the same thing, and I wouldn’t need to pay him.”
“Give me something else, then.”
“I’ll give you a beating if you don’t scramble,” I said, raising my hand in something meant to resemble a menacing gesture.
To judge by his lack of reaction, he was unimpressed with the threat. “By the Lost One, you’re a tiresome little bastard.” The walk downstairs had reawakened the fierce pain in my ankle, and all this conversation was upsetting my stomach. I fished into my pocket and brought out an argent. “Run over to the marketplace and get me two blood oranges, a dish of apricots, a ball of twine, a coin purse, and a pruning knife. And if I don’t get half of it back in change, I’ll know you’re either a cheat or too stupid to haggle a fair price.”
He hurried off with a speed that made me wonder if he would remember everything. Something about the boy made me unlikely to bet against him. I turned back around and waited for breakfast to arrive, but found myself distracted by the scowl atop Adolphus’s girth.
“You have something to say?”
“I didn’t know you were so desperate for a partner.”
“What did you want me to do, clip him?” I rubbed slow circles into my temple with my middle and forefingers. “Any news?”
“They’re having a funeral for Tara outside the Church of Prachetas in a few hours. Don’t suppose you’ll attend?”
“You don’t suppose correctly. Anything else making the rounds?”
“Word has spread of your encounter with Harelip, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“It was.”
“Well, it has.”
It was about then that my brain decided the time had come to free itself from its long years of imprisonment, and began a furious if unproductive effort to batter through its casing. From the back Adeline noticed my agony and set a pot of coffee boiling.
I was nursing the second cup, dark and sweet, when the boy returned. He set the bag of goods on the counter and put the change next to it.
“There are seven coppers left,” I said. “What did you forget?”
“It’s all there.” He wasn’t quite smiling, but there was a distinct upturn to the thread of his lips. “I swiped the pruning knife.”
“Congratulations, you’re a pickpocket. It’s a real exclusive club.” I took an orange from the bag and started to peel it. “Who’d you get the fruit from, Sarah or Yephet the Islander?”
“The Islander. Sarah’s are half rotten.”
I ate a wedge. “Did the Islander have his son or daughter helping him today?”
“His daughter. His son hasn’t been around for a few weeks.”
“What color shirt was she wearing?”
There was a pause. “She was wearing a gray smock.” His quarter grin returned. “But you wouldn’t know if I was right, ’cause you haven’t left the bar yet.”
“I’d know if you tried to lie to me.” I finished off the orange and tossed the peel onto the bar, then set two fingers against his chest. “I’ll always know.”
He nodded without taking his eyes off mine.
I scooped the remaining coins into the purse he had bought and held it in front of me enticingly. “You got a name?”
“The kids call me Wren.”
“Consider this the rest of the week’s pay.” I tossed him the bag. “Spend some of it on getting a new shirt-you look like a bum. Then stop by later in the evening. I might have something for you to do.” He accepted this development without response or expression, as if it were of little importance one way or the other. “And quit thieving,” I continued. “If you work for me, you don’t siphon funds from the neighborhood.”
“What does ‘siphon’ mean?”
“In this context, ‘steal.’ ” I jerked my head toward the exit. “Off with you.” He headed out the front door, though not with any great hurry. I pulled the second orange from the bag. Adolphus’s frown had returned. “You have something to say?”
He shook his head and began cleaning glasses left over from the night before.
“You’re as subtle as a stone. Spit out whatever you’re choking on or quit shooting me daggers.”
“You are not a carpenter,” he said.
“Then what the hell am I doing with this pruning knife?” I asked, flourishing the tool. Adolphus’s brutish lips kept their curl. “All right, I’m not a carpenter.”
“And you are not a blacksmith.”
“Nor was there confusion on that account.”
Adolphus set the tankard down with a start, and in his flash of anger I remembered a day at Apres when those massive arms had cracked a Dren skull as easily as you would an egg, blood and brain bubbling out from white bone. “If you ain’t a carpenter and you ain’t a blacksmith, then what the hell are you doing taking on an apprentice?” He spat this last sentence at me, along with a fair bit of, well, spit.
The void where his left eye once sat gave him an unfair advantage, and I broke contact first. “I don’t judge
