Then I sell all the goods to the next pawnbroker I find, and shortchange her, too, for good measure. It’s revenge for making me wait while a weeping widow begged fruitlessly for her wedding ring back.
The wedding ring goes with me when I leave. I accidentally on purpose run into the widow on my way out, then gasp and pretend to pull the ring from the mud. “Oh, I think you dropped this.”
The woman bursts into tears once more, clinging to me until I extract myself and hurry off.
Ragne alights on my shoulder again once I’m a reasonable distance away. “That was a nice thing you did for her.”
I shrug. “It was easy.”
The next part is harder.
I complete my circuit around the Madschplatt, collecting fees and more from miracle cure hawkers, bail bond shops, barber-surgeons, more taverns, even a chapel to a local saint that I’m positive is a front for poppy-dealers. But for businesses like charity shops, pauper’s hospitals, and the streetwitch guildhall, I pull the same shell game with change and transactions—but in reverse, leaving them with more money than when I walked in. I even hide white pennies between ledger pages, stuff them into overflowing donation tins, making sure each has enough to cover the next few months’ worth of protection fees.
There’s still leftover silver when I’ve left my last shop crammed with secret wealth. I carefully sift it from the red pennies, sneaking it into my own satchel. The satchel will weigh enough to be convincing, at least until Rudi the Wolfhunder checks inside.
The real beauty of it is that Rudi can’t strong-arm the shopkeepers to pay again. He’d need the brawn of the Wolfhünden behind him for that, and he can’t exactly tell his boss that he got scammed out of the fees. He’d have to admit to letting a hired boy make his collections while he was off martyring a Johann or five, and that would only make them look a little harder at his lines in the ledger. Someone who’s been skimming regularly can’t survive that kind of scrutiny.
I’m close to the end of Rudi’s hour with themietling, so I return the satchel to the brothel’s hook and scurry away. When I’m out of sight, I switch hats again and wrap my shawl back around my shoulders. That ought to throw off anyone looking for “Steffe’s sister” with her yellow hat. I’ll just scatter the white pennies throughout donation boxes on my way out of Lähl.
I pop out of the narrow alley and—
See Gisele.
She doesn’t see me. She and a few of the older orphans are waiting in line outside a spindly little chapel down the lane, holding empty bags. The House of the High operates food banks from its smaller neighborhood temples around Minkja, providing decent fare between produce tithes from their farmers and donated leftovers from trusted inns and taverns. As I watch, a kind-faced older woman directs the family at the head of the line to the half of the vestibule where the food is separated by their customs.
I suppose the donation box at the Gänslinghaus was rather sparse. Still, I left them nearly threegilden. That should have stretched longer than a day.
A bellow of rage echoes down the alley behind me. Rudi, it seems, has looked inside the satchel.
Gisele glances over to find the source of the shouting. I swiftly turn away, walking toward the Madschplatt. I have to look unbothered, like I do this every day. I have to pray that she’s too distracted to recognize my dress is faded Falbirg red.
I duck around the first corner I can and nearly trip on a goat tied up in front of the streetwitch guildhall.
There’s a sign listing their services, and I pretend to peruse, keeping an ear out for the Wolfhunder.
Sure enough, Rudi rounds the corner, swearing up a storm. His eyes skip right past me. Good. If he’s smart, he’ll start running now, and hope his superiors in the Wolfhünden don’t care to follow.
He makes a circuit around the Madschplatt, vainly looking for any sign of the culprit, but there’s nothing to be found. Realization is just starting to set in when a child’s voice tears me away: “’Scuse me, sir, you wanna play Find the Lady?”
Ice strikes lightning-fast through my bones.
Fabine, the Bourgienne girl I taught to cheat at cards in the Gänslinghaus, has wandered into the plaza.
The poppy-eater she’s approached only blinks and mumbles a little, slumped against the cracked foundation of a pawnshop. I slowly turn to keep them both in my line of sight. I don’t know if Gisele’s noticed Fabine’s absence, but it’s not safe for her here, especially not on her own.
I’ll just—keep an eye on her.
Fabine wanders away from the poppy-eater and over to a fewmietlingenclustered around an open brazier. She holds up the cards, but the women laugh. “You’ll find no ladies here,” one of them cracks. “Run
along, little bit.”
Yes, I want to say,run back to the chapel, go back.
But instead Fabine wanders right into the path of the fuming Wolfhunder. And just like me, she smacks right into him.
I don’t even know I’m moving until I’m halfway across the Madschplatt. I hear Rudi screaming at Fabine, I see his hand raise, I’m almost there—
I yank Fabine out of the way before he can strike. It’s not gentle, but it’s better than the alternative. “Thereyou are. We need to get going. Terribly sorry for the inconvenience, sir—”
