Page 3 of The Hood and his Thief

“Perhaps your encounter with him today can help us identify him. With a detailed description, you could use your connections in the lower city to see if anybody has noticed him around,” Chief Thorne gestured to Rhosyn, who shook her head.

“He wore a hood and mask over his face. I can give you a general description, but not enough to get a solid identification on him,” Rhosyn explained.

The expression on Chief Thorne’s face seemed to indicate that he would be banging his head against the solid wooden surface of his desk if it wouldn’t be deemed unprofessional. “Well, write up everything you saw and add it to Fletcher and Davies’ report. Every little bit of information helps.”

“Do you want me to join them in the search?” Rhosyn offered. “I might be able to recognize his voice or movements if we encounter him.”

The man had displayed a certain grace in his movements that Rhosyn wasn’t sure she would be able to put into words for an official description. She had the distinct impression she would recognize it if she encountered it again, though.

“No.” Chief Thorne waved Rhosyn’s offer away. “I have a different job I need you to focus on. Fletcher, Davies, go start your report while I finish here with Walsh.”

The other officers shuffled from the corner and off to their desks. Rhosyn furrowed her brow at Chief Thorne, wondering what could be so important. To her knowledge, the lower city had been as peaceful as it ever was. Her regular watches kept her fingers on the pulse of the lower city, and she had not noticed the undercurrents of impending trouble. While turf wars between gangs were inevitable, and every so often skirmishes and crooked dealings ignited into full-fledged violence, there had been nothing as sinister as the Wolves’ illicit fighting rings in several years.

“I need your help gathering intel on a gang,” Chief Thorne admitted. He pulled out a thin stack of papers from a pile and held them out to you. “The Foxes.”

“The Foxes?” Rhosyn frowned at the few sheets of paper in front of her, a handful of very sparse reports. “They must be new. Or at least they weren’t around when—before I joined the Royal Police.”

Rhosyn corrected herself out of habit. Chief Thorne certainly knew Rhosyn had formerly been a member of the Lions, and a key member at that. After all, he had met and recruited her after his best friend married the leader of the Lions and the gang formally dissolved. Rhosyn had jumped on the opportunity for a new purpose, with her role as the Lions’ den mother ripped out from under her. Still, Chief Thorne and Rhosyn had an unspoken rule about keeping police business official, and only mentioning the murkier aspects of her past when in the Woodrow’s home.

“They’ve only just started cropping up, but for several weeks there have been skirmishes and thefts that we haven’t been able to track back to any known gangs. If they are responsible for even half of those, then they are worryingly active for a new organization,” Chief Thorne explained.

“There’s not much to go off of,” Rhosyn pointed out as she skimmed the reports in her hand. A few overheard conversations from their moles in the Raptors and Rattlesnakes comprised most of the information before her.

“That’s why I’m asking you.” Chief Thorne lowered his chin, looking at her meaningfully. “The people of the lower city have been oddly quiet about this new group, when normally gossip isn’t hard to come by. They trust you though, and you might be able to find something others can’t. I trust you can take advantage of…discreet sources.”

Rhosyn raised a single brow. That was as close as Chief Thorne came to suggesting Rhosyn use her connections to former Lions to gather information. He must know that he himself could ask Kristoff for help if he ever wanted to do some investigating in a less than official capacity. In this delicate dance, though, he preferred to have a degree of separation—even if Chief Thorne often brushed shoulders with Kristoff with friendly familiarity at the Woodrow’s dinner parties.

Paper crinkled as Rhosyn’s fingers tightened around the reports. Try as she might to help London in the best way she could think of—protecting the lower city on the right side of the law—Chief Thorne still saw her as the officer to turn to when he needed somebody to brush elbows with residents of London’s underbelly.

She forced her grip to relax. This is what she had signed up for, and she had done her job well for years now.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Rhosyn assured him, tucking the reports into the front of her jacket, retrieved from the roof where it had been pinned before she returned to headquarters. The bolt in the pocket would go with Davies and Fletcher’s report to help them track down the hooded jewel thief.

“First, fill out your report and then get some rest. We have a social obligation tomorrow.” Chief Thorne made a face of distaste at the reminder.

Rhosyn nearly chuckled at his reaction to the thought of leisure. He was almost as bad as Nate, burning the candle at both ends. Then again, Rhosyn wasn’t really in a position to judge.

“You’re coming with the Woodrows to the ball at the palace tomorrow?” she asked.

“Unfortunately, making sure the public sees the crown and the Royal Police as a united front is as much a part of the job as actually policing the streets,” Chief Thorne sighed. “I guess I’ll just have to get as much of tomorrow’s work done tonight as I can.”

As Rhosyn headed to join Davies and Fletcher, Chief Thorne was already absorbed in reading a paper on his desk, chewing his bottom lip as he frowned at it. She did not envy him.

The creak of Rhosyn’s boots on the stairs echoed deafeningly through the quiet house, no matter how lightly she tried to creep. The home in the middle city belonged to two former Lions who had gotten married after the Inquiries, acquiring jobs as a butcher and a seamstress. Not having children of their own yet, they were more than happy to rent a spare room to Rhosyn, having spent their youth running jobs with her.

As Rhosyn passed their bedroom, she paused for a moment, only hearing the deep, measured breathing of people resting peacefully. Sometimes, as she passed them on the stairs in the morning, she considered asking them how they slept so soundly in the quiet, after years of living in crowded safehouses with constant comings and goings—Lions gambling and laughing through all hours of the night.

Shutting the door to her own bedroom, Rhosyn looked around the small space with a sigh. The bed was nicer than any she had slept on in the Lions’ Den, the mattress plush and an embroidered quilt to keep her warm even on the coldest of winter nights. As she toed off her boots, she frowned at the empty space.

After years with the Royal Police, she had hoped she’d adjust to the luxuries of a comfortable bed and a room with a door she could lock. Instead, she looked forward to another night of awakening every hour to a phantom cry of a child having a nightmare, only to realize she was no longer responsible for a pack of youngsters. It was still odd to awaken alone in her bed every morning instead of finding a child, usually one freshly rescued from the cruelty of a factory, tucked into her arms, having climbed in to join her as she slept.

As she changed into her sleeping clothes, she chuckled at the irony. For years, she sat on the rooftop of the reclaimed warehouse she and the youngest Lions called home, wondering what it would look like to be free of the responsibility of being a universal big sister to all those Nate and his associates tried to give a better life.

Instead of freedom, the lifting of that burden only made her feel untethered.

Rhosyn splashed water from the bowl on the washstand onto her face, chiding herself for being dramatic. She just wasn’t used to the quiet of the middle city at night and was restless after too many weeks of poor sleep.

Maybe she would ask Chief Thorne to let her switch back to nighttime patrols, so she could sleep during the day, soothed by the backdrop of city traffic. After she gathered the information she needed on the Foxes, she would do just that.