Page 32 of The Hood and his Thief

“That’s just it. I was too good at it.”

Rhosyn wanted to say something scathing in response but was too busy chewing, so she settled for rolling her eyes, only to freeze when Ansel continued.

“Mr. Archer was afraid I was going to give away my Talent.”

She forced her mouthful down her throat with difficulty. “You’re Talented?”

Ansel smiled, the expression simultaneously mischievous and wistful. “You asked me how I started stealing the Talented away from the sponsorships, but in truth, it isn’t anything new. It’s what we’ve always done, since long before I was in charge.

“That’s the beauty of the circus, you see. People come to see things that shouldn’t be possible—things that are extraordinary. The spectators expect things to be inexplicably magical. So, when a lion seems to truly understand what his tamer is telling him, or a fire breather can shape flames like a sculptor…well, that’s just the magic of show business.”

Rhosyn stared. “You’re all Talented?”

“Not all.” Ansel shook his head. The silver strand of hair that Rhosyn had only seen neatly coiffed into his pushed back hairstyle, fell forward with the motion. “It was…a passion of Mr. Archer’s. You see, he had a son who was Talented. Had a way of predicting the weather down to the second that was almost scary—as if he controlled the rain. They hid it easily when they lived in the country, but when Mr. Archer started the circus, he moved them to London for the bigger crowds.

“They learned too late that the cramped quarters of the city, combined with the bloodthirstiness of the Royal Police, made it nearly impossible to conceal a Talent for long.”

Rhosyn’s stomach dropped to the soles of her boots, the bread she had hastily swallowed turning leaden. “He…” She trailed off, not wanting to ask the question and fearing she already knew the answer.

Ansel nodded solemnly. “I think that Mr. Archer thought that if he could just smuggle enough Talented out of London, it would wash away the guilt he felt for his son’s death. And so, he sent out word through whispers in the lower city that he was searching for incredible acts to go on tour. People were skeptical at first, but when they realized it wasn’t a trap, the Talented flocked to him with all sorts of interesting displays, which he played off as clever tricks and sleight of hand. Then, he bought the train and headed out to the country.

“Acts would drop off at every remote stop where we put on a show, and Mr. Archer never said a word. Just gave them their coin and let them set out to start a new life. Every year, we would come back to London and fill up with a fresh set of performers.”

A question built in the back of Rhosyn’s mind and spilled off her tongue when he paused. “But you, you never left to start a life in the country where you could hide your Talent?”

Ansel let his chair fall back onto four legs and rested his elbows on the table. “Some of us—I—fell in love with performing. After being petrified to use my Talent for so long, it was liberating. It felt like cheating the system to flex that muscle in front of unsuspecting audiences and be praised for it, even if they never knew. After a while, the circus train became more of a home for some of us than London ever had been. So, a group of us stayed for the long haul.”

Rhosyn looked around the room they were in, with plenty of young men and women both milling about and sitting at tables with drinks or dice. The sight, the warmth of casual laughter, even the smell of cheap alcohol and tobacco—it would be enough to make Rhosyn nostalgic if not for the feeling that she was watching the scene through a pane of glass. These weren’t the Lions, and the wary glances and wide berths everybody but Ansel gave her told her they still noticed her uniform, however rumpled. After so long trying to cover the blemish of her history with a spotless police record, she should have been proud that Ansel’s compatriots saw her as the enemy. Instead, bitterness rose up in her throat to choke her.

“So, once you inherited the circus from Mr. Archer, you turned it into a band of thieves and kidnappers?”

A splintering thud, and the tip of a dagger buried itself in the table millimeters from where Rhosyn’s hand rested. To her credit, she didn’t flinch away, but the suddenly hard look in Ansel’s eyes made her wish she had.

“Mr. Archer died for this circus, and those of us who stayed honor him by continuing what he started.” Ansel’s voice carried a flinty edge that gave Rhosyn pause. So far, as both the Hood and Mr. Blakely, she had delighted in teasing him, rising to the challenge of a suave attitude that promised to never take itself too seriously. The steel in his green gaze now, though, was something else.

It flashed away as quickly as it had come when Ansel pulled the knife from the table and leaned back in his chair. He tossed the blade with one hand and flipped it, catching it by the handle without looking, in an action that was as much soothing habit as it was intimidation tactic. It was the same way Rhosyn used to twirl her brass knuckles around her index finger.

“The Foxes were born out of necessity, but we’re still Archer’s Circus at heart.”

Rhosyn sat back in her own seat, taking a deep breath to keep up with Ansel’s changing posture as he slipped back into his curated demeanor. “The Inquiries are over. I wouldn’t think you’d have much business smuggling them out of the city anymore.”

“Do you have the life you would have if the Inquiries never happened?”

The question hit Rhosyn like a slap to the face. The dreams of being a sailor like her father—of visiting distant lands and never staying in one place for too long—had dissipated like smog from a smokestack the day she had decided to stay with the Lions. She knew she would never forgive herself if she turned away when she could give the children living in the Den a better childhood than she had. But the Lions had slipped away too, like so much smoke at the end of the Inquiries, and Rhosyn had grasped at the straws of yet another life, helping people in the best way she knew how.

“I have the life I need,” Rhosyn bit out.

“Not everybody was so lucky,” Ansel observed. “It seems to me that the Talented have two choices: continue to make a living as a criminal or sell themselves into a lifetime of servitude with a sponsorship. The Foxes wanted to give them another choice. A fresh start.”

“And so, you steal them away from their sponsors.”

Ansel inclined his head in his acknowledgment.

Rhosyn cracked her knuckles to distract herself from the desire to argue further. She wanted to tell Ansel that robbing the residents of the upper city who were trying to use their power to aid the Talented wasn’t a long-term solution. But wasn’t that what she and the Lions had done, stealing orphans away from brutal factory jobs?

It wasn’t news to her that the law and what was right were not always aligned, but things were supposed to be different now. Chief Thorne was a good man. Contessa and King Byron worked tirelessly to right the injustices of the past.

Rhosyn was saved from having to answer by the appearance of Paul, a small bundle of fabric carried in his arms.