“Clothing, Ragne. We’ve had this conversation.” I throw my shawl over her. It’s long enough to cover the essentials. “There.”
Emeric is still avoiding too close a look, but a flicker of curiosity darts through his face. “Wait. Aren’t you the girl who pushed me to shore?”
“The Vanja sent me,” Ragne says brightly. Emeric blinks at me, startled, only to sour when Ragne adds, “I was only supposed to save your bag.”
“Thereit is,” he mutters.
“I wanted to say hello again,” Ragne continues, smiling very toothily, “and to tell you it’s my job to look after the Vanja, even though she is mean. If you hurt her, I will turn myself into a bear and kill you. That’s all. Goodbye!”
She leaps into the air in a rush of feathers and alights on a nearby rooftop as a raven.
“Eiswald’s daughter,” I explain, wrapping the shawl around myself once more. “So, you know. Death is only a rooftop away. Might want tobearthat in mind.”
I didn’t think it was possible for Emeric to dislike me more than when I tried to drown him, but by all the saints and martyrs, I think I’ve pulled it off.
He gives me a look of pure loathing and carries on as if imminent death by bear is nothing new. “What is your business with the Wolfhünden? What are they asking you to do?”
I shake my head. “Nothing. I stay out of their way.”
“This would go much quicker for both of us if you would stop taking me for a fool,” he says frostily.
“Then don’t talk like one, Junior,” I snap back. “If the Wolfhünden knew the Penny Phantom isn’t paying their protection fee, they’d make an example of me. Several examples, if we’re counting all the pieces I’d be in. I keep my head down.”
That’s not the answer Emeric wants. His brow furrows. “You expect me to believe you were collecting fees for them out of the goodness of your heart?”
“Ask the Wolfhunder about the fees I collected,” I return. “Why that bag’s full of copper. And when you’re done, you can go check with all the charity shops who’ve suddenly come down with a rash of silver, and then maybe you can start minding your own damn business instead of harassing my friends and stalking me.”
Emeric already looked skeptical, but at “stalking,” he scowls. “Charter of the Prefect, Article One: ‘A prefect is bound to investigate and resolve any case they are assigned by their superiors, to the full extent of their ability.’ It isliterallymy job to investigate you.”
“Is it your job to memorize the whole clubhouse oath too, or is that extra credit?” I mutter.
He ignores it. “And the impression I got from Miss Ardîm was that you aren’t exactly friends. But for the record, I was actually in Lähl to tail the Wolfhunder you angered. In fact, I had to blow my cover to . . . Why are you—what’s so funny?”
I’m clutching my stomach, trying not to die laughing. “You thought you had a cover? Looking like that?” I wave my hand at the grimy walls around us, streaked with soot and scum and a respectable variety of dung. “Do you see where we are? You stick out.”
“I donot,” Emeric says, subconsciously tugging at his spotless black uniform jacket.
“You look like a schoolboy trying to buy his firstwurstkuss.”
He turns an incandescent red. “Andyoulook like a murderous little wretch, but the difference isthat’sactually true.”
“See? Still mad,” I scoff. “And still breathing, so wouldn’t you say ‘murderous’ is a little melodramatic?”
“I’m not talking about me.” Emeric pulls Yannec’s ledger from beneath his cloak. “Your former colleague, aMeisterKraus, just washed up in the Stichenstegs this morning with a knife in his heart and one of yoursignaturered pennies in his mouth. So peculiar that his ledger was in your vanity. You really have a nasty habit of dumping things into the Yssar.”
I give him a poisonous smile. “Only the trash.” Then I lunge for the ledger.
I run right into the palm of his hand. It stays flat on my forehead, keeping me at arm’s length. Emeric hoists the ledger out of my reach with the other.
“I don’t think so,” he says testily. “I have younger siblings, I can do this all day.”
“Yannec fell on his own knife,” I growl, flailing for the ledger anyway.
“How innovative of you. He fell on hisownknife. I suppose the penny was just decorative.”
“It was fare for the Ferryman, you louse-brained—pedant—” I make another fruitless hop.
“And it just happens to beyourcalling card. Sure.”
