This was the third time he’d applied for work as a lamplighter, and this was the third time he’d been thrown out on his bottom. Tegan, the man who commanded the lamplighters like a general directing his troops, knew who Rolan’s father was and wanted no part of him or his trouble. Or so he said.
Rolan’s stomach gurgled reproachfully. He patted it with a sad sigh. “I am trying, you know.”
Glancing down the street, he thought of his old ways of getting money. Raiding a garbage barrel, digging around the latrines fordropped coins, running messages between criminals for a penny. It all felt so small and pathetic to him now, and he wondered how he’d gotten by for so long, scraping a life out of the gutters and mud. He’d tried to go back to his old ways, in the days after he’d left Luc, but it was like going back to crawling after he’d learned how to run. It was humiliating, and besides, most of his old scrounging spots had been taken over by other grubby kids. He didn’t much feel like starting a turf war over the reeking latrines behind the Duke’s Honor.
But his attempts at getting honest work hadn’t gone any better.
One thing he’d absolutelynotdone was go back to Evaine’s. Even if she did let him in, he’d only have to explain everything to her and Anaya. That sounded about as pleasant as pulling off his toenails one by one.
He spent most of his time slinking around the city’s west district, far from the apothecary, focusing hard onnotthinking about the truth-blasted Arcanist. He did feel a twinge of regret now and again about throwing away his knives, which he could have sold, and his boots. The raggedy rope-and-wood sandals he’d found abandoned by the river were already falling apart. He could see why their previous owner hadn’t bothered to come back for them. Plus they gave his feet nasty splinters.
Overlooked. Unknown. Rolan felt like a slip of nothing. Like if he only sat in a shadow for a time, he’d sprout claws and a tail and skitter off into the dark. A Cryptic boy.
He was still sitting outside the lamplighters’ guild, feeling terrifically sorry for himself, when he got kidnapped.
It happened very quickly. And very stupidly.
Someone tried to slap a burlap sack over Rolan’s head, butmissed and ended up toppling over Rolan instead. He went sprawling onto the street, crushed beneath his attacker. Trying to wriggle free, he got his hair yanked back and he yelped. With little else to try, he finally bit down on the ankle of the man atop him, and felt the hand on his hair release.
He scrambled up and took two steps before another man grabbed him by the waist, and that was the end of it. The sack went over his head and he was caught.
They hauled him down several streets, probably doubling back to confuse his sense of direction. He struggled the whole way to no avail. They were bigger, tougher, and irritated. One of them kept cuffing him on the back of the head any time they changed directions, and he guessed that was the one whose ankle he’d bitten.
Finally they shuffled him into a building, shoved him into a chair, and yanked off the sack.
He blinked hard in the dim light of an oil lamp, trying to grasp his bearings. There was a plain wooden table in front of him, and all the windows were covered with black cloth. It was about as boring as a room could get.
“Ugh!”He gagged. “It stinks in here. What is this, some kind of latrine?”
“Shut up, you little termite,” growled one of his kidnappers.
Rolan squinted at the man, not recognizing his wide, runny nose or the glass, heart-shaped earring dangling from his ear. If he had ever seen him before, he’d remember. That earring was justbeggingto be insulted.
The other kidnapper, however, he did know.
“Cabbot!” Rolan grinned. “How’s the ankle?”
Cabbot scowled, taking a seat on the other side of the table and knitting his fingers together. “You keep smirking at me, boy, and I’llchop offyour ankle.”
“Well, that would be stupid. You know who my pa is, right? He doesn’t much like folks going around chopping off his kid’s ankles, especially his only kid. His onlybelovedson.”
“The boy makes a good point,” said a gravelly voice behind Rolan, and Rolan went stiff at the sound of it. “I don’t much like folks who take what’s mine without permission.”
Rolan swallowed as the speaker walked around and stood next to Cabbot. Now Cabbot was the one smirking, and Rolan looked up miserably to meet his father’s eyes.
“Hey, Pa.”
His father was here, with Cabbot. In league with Cabbot, the man who was conspiring to destroy the Arcanist. His father, who hadkilledthe Arcanist’s family.
He wished he felt more confused, but no. It all made terrible sense, the pieces slotting together precisely. He didn’t knowwhyhis father was still after Luc, or why he’d attacked him all those years ago, but he didn’t want to wonder about it. Wondering about it meant thinking about Luc, and that still hurt. A lot.
“So you’ve returned,” his pa grunted. “I heard you came back to the city.”
“Nice of you to invite me round for supper,” Rolan grumbled. He glanced about, marking the door to his left. But he sensed there were a few more people lurking behind him and doubted his chances of making it out of the room.
“Thought I’d give you a few days to put some hunger in yourbelly,” Rabb Strider said, stamping his cane. “Teach you not to scorn the hand that feeds you.”
“When haveyouever fed me?” Rolan scoffed. He thought of all the shopkeepers and stable masters and lamplighters who’d turned him down when he’d begged for work, and he wondered if their scorn had been bigger than just knowing who his pa was. Had his pa gone around town, threatening anyone who might help Rolan?
