LITMIR.BIZ

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spun around to find the man she’d spotted rummaging through the shop, a scorched tin box tucked under his arm. From under his hood, long inky-black hair framed his sharp-edged face. He studied Rye with pale blue eyes the colour of robins’ eggs, and couldn’t conceal a hint of a smile at the corner of his thin lips.

      “In fact,” he added, “this is the very last place you should be.”

      

      RAMBLE?” RYE ASKED in disbelief.

      The man lowered his hood. “It’s good to see you again, niece,” he answered warmly.

      Bramble Cutty was her mother’s brother. That made him Rye’s uncle, of course. Not that she really knew him at all. They’d met ever so briefly the prior autumn, and it was quite some time before her mother got around to telling Rye who Bramble actually was.

      Bramble also happened to be the Luck Ugly who had given her the black swatch of fabric that she kept in her pocket. The Ragged Clover.

      A furry head with round, dark eyes popped out from the folds of Bramble’s cloak. Rye leaped back. The small black monkey shrieked and bared its teeth. She knew him too. The little ape had never been particularly pleasant to her.

      “Quiet, Shortstraw,” Bramble hissed, and stuffed the monkey’s face back under his cloak with a shove of his palm.

      “He’s not fond of the cold,” he explained. “Makes him ill-tempered.”

      Bramble handed the charred tin box to Rye. “This is for your mother if you see her before I do. It’s all I could find.”

      Rye ran her fingertips over it, turning them black with soot. She slipped the box inside her coat.

      “Tell me, Riley,” Bramble said, “what are you doing back in Drowning?”

      Rye looked up at the burned beams and rafters around them. The lump returned to her throat. “Folly told us about … this.”

      Bramble nodded gravely. “Well, now you’ve seen it for yourself. Abby’s been in quite a twist, as you can imagine. It’s a brazen gesture on the part of Longchance and his Constable – especially given the warning he’s under.”

      Rye vividly remembered the warning Harmless had given Morningwig Longchance. She’d been there in the courtyard of Longchance Keep along with the small band of masked Luck Uglies. Harmless spared Longchance’s life, but promised that the Luck Uglies would be watching – and he would show no such restraint if Longchance were to ever trouble his family again. The Earl had either forgotten the warning – or no longer feared it. Had the new Constable emboldened him or were the Luck Uglies too preoccupied with their own differences to be bothered?

      “And where in the Shale is your father?” Bramble asked. “Surely he hasn’t sent you back here alone?”

      Rye told Bramble of the sniggler and Harmless’s pursuit into the culverts. Bramble’s face darkened.

      “That man would drop everything for the thrill of the hunt,” Bramble muttered, then seemed to catch himself. “Not a problem, though. I’ll see you to the Dead Fish myself.”

      It wasn’t the first time she had heard Bramble express frustration with her father.

      “Bramble,” Rye said, lowering her voice out of habit, “what do you know about Slinister and the Fork-Tongued Charmers? Have they been heard from since the attack on the Mud Sleigh?”

      Bramble narrowed an eye. “These are complicated times,” he said, in a manner that seemed dismissive of her question. “I won’t miss Silvermas anyway. I’ve gotten one too many potatoes … and mouse turds … in my boots.”

      Whether or not Bramble missed Silvermas wasn’t exactly her point.

      Bramble cast his attention to something over her shoulder. Rye turned to see Folly and Quinn stepping through the debris, hurrying towards them.

      “There you are,” Folly said, and then paused at the sight of Bramble. “And … hello.”

      “Greetings, young Flood,” Bramble said. “Floppy, is it?”

      “Folly.”

      “That’s right. Hard to sort out your lot with all the names.”

      Folly frowned.

      “You’re back,” Quinn called to Rye, his kind face bright. “When I heard about the Mud Sleigh I was …”

      He pursed his lips tight as if grasping for the words, then simply threw his long arms around her. She awkwardly accepted his hug. He had a steel helmet tucked under his elbow. It poked Rye in the ribs.

      “Sorry,” he said. “I smithed this one myself,” he added proudly. “Or started it anyway.”

      “You’re the blacksmith’s boy, no?” Bramble asked.

      Quinn nodded. He lived alone with his father, Angus, the blacksmith, and always did his best to please him. That sometimes made him a bit of a rule follower like his father, but, for the most part, Rye and Folly had broken him of that bad habit.

      “It’s not the worst work I’ve seen,” Bramble commented. “But your hands may be better suited to the quill than the forge.”

      Quinn looked at his blackened hands and sighed in agreement. All of his fingers were swollen, bandaged, or both.

      “Enough chatter then. Let’s be on our way to the inn,” Bramble declared, casting a wary eye around them. “Before the villagers begin to wonder what’s so interesting in here.”

      “I’m coming too,” Quinn said eagerly.

      “We’ll split up and meet at Mutineer’s Alley. I’ll go first – I’m most likely to draw attention coming out of this place. You three wait a few moments then head out after me. Just try to look like nosy little scamps. Can you manage that?”

      Bramble looked them over. They just blinked back at him.

      “Perfect,” he said.

      Bramble pulled his hood over his head, climbed through an empty window frame, then paused and looked back at them. “Step lively and stay inconspicuous,” he warned, before disappearing.

      Rye, Folly and Quinn waited for several minutes, then pulled their hoods tight and ventured out on to Market Street.

      The Constable was still reading from his list. “James Whitlow. Guilty of fouling the Earl’s private privy at the Silvermas Eve Feast. Fine of ten silver shims and one hour on the Shame Pole.”

      “We missed you at Silvermas,” Quinn whispered as they moved quickly down the cobblestones.

      “Yes, we should talk about that,” Rye said with a frown. “Next year, let’s save our coins and buy our own candy—”

      Rye stopped abruptly. The Constable’s words had caught her ear from the pillory.

      “And now for the most egregious offenders,” he said, running his finger down the length of the scroll. “Abigail O’Chanter,” he read. “Guilty of trafficking in stolen goods, harbouring known criminals, and conspiracy to commit treason. Punishment is seizure and destruction of the guilty’s property and imprisonment in the dungeons of Longchance Keep for not less than …”

      Rye’s head instantly flushed with a rage so great she couldn’t hear the rest of his words. Someone whispered to her to ignore it, to keep on moving. She thought it might be Quinn. They were in front of the fishmonger’s stall. Rye thrust her bare hand into the trough of ice and pulled out

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