“Ugggghh.” I slump over and let my head hang a moment as Ragne chirps from the bench. “What does your motherwantfrom me?”
I don’t have to speak bird to understand that Ragne doesn’t know either.
A knot swells in my throat. I try not to think of where the next outbreak will be—Pearls in my lungs? A ruby tongue?—but what wells up in that hollow is the sudden, terrible thought that in two weeks, I will be dead.
I will be dead, and no one will mourn but Death and Fortune, for the loss of a servant.
“Who taught you to play cards,frohlein?”
I’ve heard that voice before, but I can’t place it. I look up.
Junior Prefect Emeric Conrad is standing before me once more, bundled up to the point of absurdity in his enormous dingy cloak and scarf. His arms are full of wrapped parcels with the stamp of the Order of Prefects.
Thewell-fundedOrder of Prefects.
The lock pins slide, just a bit, with hope. I’ve stolen nearly a thousandgilden; perhaps I didn’t notice a change because I only earned and gave away one.
“A friend,” I say, straightening up, and fan the cards out on the crate once more. This isn’t a job for thePrinzessinor Marthe, but thePfennigeist: faceless, nameless, whatever I want to be. Right now, I need a shifty grifter. “Fancy a game of Find the Lady, Prefect?”
I’m pretty sure he mouths “junior prefect” before shifting the packages in his arms. “Maybe. I have some questions you might be able to help with.”
Junior Prefect Conrad, always on the case. This might be an opportunity to steer him off my trail. I gesture to one of the barrels the gamblers used for chairs.
He manages to drop every single one of his parcels as he takes a seat, then shakes his head in resignation, straightens them into a pile, and tucks his hands into the oceans of fabric under each arm. “You seem like someone who may take a few liberties with the law,frohlein,” he says stiffly. “And you might hear about . . . other liberties being taken.”
It’s different, the way he talks to me without the pearls. I’m used to it. It still stings every time. But thePfennigeistis nothing, no one; it’s one of the perks of being little but shadow and whisper. Nothing can leave a mark.
“That’s a devil of an assumption,” I drawl, shuffling the three cards over the crate at a snail’s pace. Fleecing him willdramaticallyimprove my mood. “But sure, maybe I hear things.”
“You ever hear of the Penny Phantom?”
I jerk my chin at the cards and lower my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I heard of ten of them. Ten to play a round.”
He leans forward, enthusiasm igniting him like a candle. “Ten . . . ? Right.” He drops a stack of copper bits on the crate.
I wait.
“Oh. You meant . . .” Emeric wavers a moment, then produces asjilling. “Here.”
I keep waiting. We both know the Order has cash to spare.
The junior prefect caves and slides another nine over.
“Good man,” I cackle with a wicked grin, the picture of a shady dealer.
Ragne chirps, then hops to my shoulder. I turn over the cards on the crate to show him: Ten of Bells, Knight of Shields, Queen of Roses. Then I flip them over and begin the shuffle in earnest.
“Ten,” I repeat in my peak grizzled-street-urchin voice. “You’re not looking for a Penny Phantom, but the Red Penny Gang. Didn’t hear it from me,ja?” Emeric nods, wide-eyed. “Look in Lähl, near the Stichenstegs, for a tavern called the Ten Bells. There’s a secret entrance in the alley. Heard it’s marked with a red stone.”
Not a single word of that is true, but it’ll keep him out of my hair for a few days. And honestly, you have to appreciate the sheer poetry of it, him paying thePfennigeistfor a wild-goose chase.
Then I line up the three cards, facedown. I’ve switched the Queen of Roses more than enough times for him to have lost her. “Figured out where the Lady lies?”
Emeric reaches out, then stops, hovering between the queen and the Knight of Shields. His hand drops on the knight. I turn it over and sweep hissjillinginto my satchel.
“Unfortunate,” he grumbles. “You’ve been very helpful. Thank you for your assistance.”
The sun ducks behind the rooftops as he gathers his parcels and leaves, and my glee turns bittersweet. I’ve bought time away from an overeager prefect, but now I have to take the harder way back into Castle Reigenbach. The icy waterfall path is too treacherous in the dark, and I can’t exactly stroll in through the entrance hall looking like a street urchin.
