Page 29 of The Hood and his Thief

“We couldn’t stay at the Gower’s—”

“We heard the Foxes—”

They both cut off until Olivia nodded at Paul to continue. He took a deep breath, before beginning again more calmly.

“When we were first offered the positions with the Gowers, we thought it was the best thing we could ever hope for. A chance that we only ever dreamed of as Talented children.” Paul shifted in his seat. “We barely read the sponsorship papers and jumped in. But after years in the factories as children, it didn’t take us long to after we started to realize what it actually was—indentured servitude.”

Rhosyn frowned. Contessa wouldn’t support something like that—not after fighting so hard to free so many orphans from the horrendous working conditions in the factories—and sponsorships had been her idea. She opened her mouth to chime in before snapping it shut. Chief Thorne had impressed upon her, with great difficulty, that interrupting witnesses was not a good way to go about gathering information.

“In the factories, they paid us, but they forced us to live in their rooms and charged us more than we made. After a few weeks, we were in such deep debt that they basically owned us, while acting like they were saints for taking in children who lost parents to the Inquiries.” Paul’s face twisted at the memory, the movement pulling on the scar in his forehead and hairline. It had healed to a shiny white, not nearly as gruesome as Nate’s, but Rhosyn still remembered how he got it. He had arrived into her care, head wrapped in bandages after being injured in his escape from factory service.

“The Gower’s house was the same. After he paid our pardons, took us in, and dressed us for his house, we owed him so much that it would take decades of work to ever be free of him,” Paul explained.

“Did he mistreat you?” This time, Rhosyn couldn’t stop herself from interrupting.

Paul hesitated.

“The whole time we were there is such a blur,” Olivia chimed in. “We were so busy, I could barely keep up with my work and think straight at the same time.”

Rhosyn had to take a deep breath in and out through her nose to stay composed. Olivia’s voice was so small, still so terribly young. Her childhood had been stolen from her by the textile factory she worked in, and the job that was supposed to be her salvation had apparently worked her so hard that her mind became addled from lack of sleep.

“Why didn’t you come to me?” Rhosyn asked, her voice low. Only through an effort of will did she restrain the growl that threatened to creep in, both in anger that Mr. Gower would treat them so badly they felt the need to run away and that they would choose a random thug to help them over her.

“I…I don’t know.” Paul seemed genuinely baffled as he tried to dig up an answer. “I just—I went on an errand for the Gowers, and at the market I heard a rumor that a new gang was helping Talented people leave London. It felt like the first time my head had been clear in months when I heard that. So, I followed the man who had been gossiping.

“I had to use some of the…skills…you taught me,” Paul looked sheepish, “but I eventually tracked the rumors back here. I met Ansel and the Foxes, and they told me he could help. He would even steal our sponsorship papers from the palace so they couldn’t hunt us down and force us back. And then…well, I guess you can fill in the rest.”

For a moment, Rhosyn thought Paul was infusing his words with his Talent again, as her mind couldn’t seem to keep up with what he was saying. In the long pause when he finished, staring at her with a mix of expectancy and apprehension, her mind hummed with all the force of the factories in the industrial district.

“The Foxes?” she asked, her police brain homing in on that detail first. Her investigation into Foxes left her thinking that they were more myth than reality, and Paul had stumbled on them by accident.

“That would be us.” Ansel stood in the doorframe, leaning casually against it with his arms folded, one leg crossed in front of the other. It would have been a relaxed pose, but something in his posture told Rhosyn he was ready to jump into action in a moment’s notice. To be fair, she hadn’t given him a reason to believe that any given conversation with her wouldn’t end in a fight. He must have appeared there sometime during their talk, with his uncanny knack for stealth.

“You?” Rhosyn echoed. She had surmised Ansel had gang help, but he seemed to be suggesting that he led the gang.

“Well, my associates and I,” he clarified with a shrug.

“…The circus?” Rhosyn asked.

“We are a group of many skills,” Ansel said, the hint of a wry smile tugging at his lips, even though the rest of his expression remained serious. Rhosyn stared for a second, taking in the lines creasing his forehead that seemed too deep for his age and the hollows under his eyes. They looked like hers.

“I wouldn’t have thought clowning and crime had much overlap,” Rhosyn admitted.

“Little John is our strong man, and he seems to do just fine at standing in as the muscle.”

Rhosyn blinked dumbly. “So, Archer’s Circus…is the Foxes?”

Ansel bowed his head in affirmation.

With this admission, more pieces of the puzzle started falling into place. Contessa’s office had been robbed of the sponsorship papers the night Archer’s Circus had performed there, and the thief had disappeared into the hubbub of the dressing room. The supposed turf fight with the Foxes had occurred in the rail yard the night the circus train had arrived. And the gang had supposedly sprung into life out of thin air a few weeks before, when Ansel and his advance guard of performers arrived in London.

Rhosyn slumped. She swung her head to look at Paul and Olivia again. Grown as they were now, something in their expression still made them look like children waiting to be scolded for some mischief or another—although truth be told, they were some of the less devious children she had minded at the Den over the years.

“So, you were just trying to run away, and the Foxes were your way out.” It wasn’t exactly a question, but the siblings nodded in affirmation. A few pieces of the puzzle were still missing though.

“Why are you stealing Talented away from their sponsorships?” She directed the question at Ansel.

He signed heavily and pushed off the doorframe, taking a few steps further into the room. “That is a question with a lot of history behind it.”