Rules for Thieves

by Alexandra Ott

  I’m free. I’m on the other side of the wall.

  I take off running. Someone will probably come chasing after me any moment, but I don’t care. I can go wherever I want, run as fast as I want. I’m free.

  Chapter Two

  Unfortunately, being completely free means being completely on your own.

  I didn’t know this before, but the reality hits me hard after the excitement wears off. I have nowhere to go and no food and no money and no anything.

  Azeland is a patchwork city, with buildings of all different types and sizes and materials thrown together, as if scattered haphazardly by a giant hand. Still, there are divisions, some neighborhoods nicer than others. The orphanage sits just outside a round “plaza” that’s mostly just rundown secondhand shops. I skirt the edges of the plaza, not wanting to be seen by anyone, but keep to the south side of the city on instinct. That’s where the marketplaces and the farms and the poorer shops are. My past experience proved people on the north side will call the protectors if they see me running around. I’m too dirty and orphaned-looking to ever fit in there.

  I run as far as I can manage, but before long I’m doubled over in the street, a burning stitch in my side. I’m used to running, but not this much. I can’t catch my breath, and my hands burn. They’re bleeding, scraped up from the tree and the rock wall, and so are my skinned knees. Great, just one more problem to worry about.

  First, I have to get cleaned up. I’m too dirty even for the south side. Besides, word might get out about my escape, and someone will call the protectors on me for sure.

  I look around, taking in my surroundings. I’m in the middle of a narrow cobbled street, lined with small, dingy shops. Faded signs advertising clothing stores and furniture repair lean dejectedly above poorly-constructed doors. Judging from the trash piled in the gutter and the boards on the windows, the street is mostly deserted. Footsteps and voices drift from up ahead, so I keep moving, cautiously this time.

  Around the corner is a restaurant. A popular one, by the looks of things, in the middle of the lunchtime rush. Perfect.

  I follow a family inside, keeping out of sight. The aroma of fresh bread wafts out of the open double doors, churning my stomach. I imagine the softness of the warm, fresh bread, with creamy butter melting on my tongue, and my mouth waters.

  The interior is dimly lit and smoky. Dishes clatter, drowning out the low rumble of voices. As the people in front of me head toward the seating area, I spot a sign for the bathroom and head straight toward it. It’s empty. I lock the door.

  A small mirror is tacked above the sink in the corner. Even though I’m tall for twelve, I still have to stand on tiptoe to see myself in it. A thin, dirty girl stares back at me, a smudgy bruise encircling one of her muddy brown eyes.

  I wash off the dirt and blood and tree bark and who-knows-what-else as best I can, which helps my appearance some. But there’s nothing I can do about my clothes, which were new a hundred years ago, or my hair, a matted mess of curls which has been in need of a good trim for basically my entire life. A hairbrush would help, maybe. . . . I try to brush it with my fingers, but it’s so knotted that I give up.

  As I stand there, staring at my reflection in the chipped mirror, the enormity of what I’ve done finally sinks in. I am alone. Worse than that, I’m a fugitive now. They threatened to throw me in jail when I tried to escape last time, and I’m guessing they’ll make good on that threat this time. I’ll be locked in a tiny room with no light and no air and the walls closing in on all sides.

  My hands shake. I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths to steady myself, but I can’t get the picture of a stark prison cell out of my head. Even the walls of the bathroom seem to be shrinking, collapsing on me. My breaths come faster, more shallow, and I can’t breathe, can’t breathe, can’t—

  I turn the faucet on again and cup my hands under the stream. The water is freezing. I splash my face, feeling the little pinpricks of cold all over. The jolt to my senses clears my head. I gulp, but the air is so smoky my chest tightens.

  A fist pounds on the door, hard and insistent. “Anyone in there?”

  “Just—just a minute,” I call back, trying to sound older. I turn off the water, wipe my face dry, and glance in the mirror one last time. This will have to do.

  I unlock the door and walk out. The woman stares at me, but I don’t look at her, trying to act natural. Now, if only I could find a way to get some food—

  A protector.

  He’s just walked in the main doors, right in front of me. He wears a standard red uniform, complete with a silver badge and lots of sharp, pointy weapons. The glint of silver and steel flashes a warning: Run.

  The imagined taste of metal chokes me, sharp steel edges pressing against skin. Not again. I run back up the hall, past the bathroom, as far away as I can go.

  I hear a shout but don’t look back. The hallway forks and I choose a path at random, only to find myself at a dead end in front of a single door. I shove it open, race through, and look for exits. Stairs loom up out of the darkness. I take them three at a time, praying I don’t fall.

  The family must live above the restaurant, and I’m in their apartment now. There’s a small kitchen, a worn sofa, and a hallway lined with doors. Sunlight streams through the window across from me, and I glimpse weathered wood. The roof.

  I head for the window, shove aside the thin red curtains, and examine the pane. It’s simple enough to open, like the windows at the Carrians’ house. I lift it up, it slides an inch, and then . . . it sticks. It won’t open any farther, no matter how hard I shove.

  I slam the window back down. In one corner the dirty glass is cracked. It’s been hit before, by a ball maybe, and smaller cracks trail out from the corner like a spider’s web.

  I search for something heavy and find a kitchen chair. I slam it against the window, legs first. The window splinters with a crash, and some glass drops out of the pane, leaving a hole. But it’s not big enough.

  Behind me, the door to the apartment thuds open. “Freeze!” a deep voice yells.

  I don’t turn around. I lift the chair and slam the window again, and with another crash the glass shatters into a thousand pieces.

  There’s a loud crack, and something hot whizzes past my ear. I duck just in time. Oh God, he’s using magic.

  “Don’t move!”

  I’m too close to freedom to stop now. I haul myself onto the windowpane, grabbing the frame for balance. Another crack sounds, and something flashes through the air, coming right at me—

  Heat engulfs my right hand, and the wall beneath it explodes.

  I don’t even have time to see what’s happening. I climb through the window onto the outer ledge, my burning hand dangling uselessly. Below me, part of the roof juts out from the restaurant, and it’s an easy jump from the window. The hard part is getting down from there.

  I look around. I’m above the alleyway behind the restaurant. Where I’m standing is too high to jump from, but the roof slants down at a sharp angle. All I have to do is walk to the lower part of the roof and jump from there.

  Good thing I’m not afraid of heights.

  I should probably be more cautious, take it slow so I don’t fall off, but the protector’s footsteps sound right behind me, and I doubt he’s out of magical ammo. In a few steps I’m across the roof, at the edge of the slant, only a few feet from the ground.

  I sit down on the edge, let my legs dangle off, and lower myself as much as I can.

  Behind me, what remains of the window bursts apart with a tremendous crash, pieces of glass and wood skidding across the roof. The protector fires again with a crack.

  I let go.

  The fall hurts, but I land on my feet, and I haven’t broken any bones. Success.

  I’ve had quite enough falling for one day, but I still have to run.

  Luckily, running is what I do best.

  The first time I ran away, I went through a window in the Carrians’ house. I
didn’t have any sort of plan, but it didn’t matter. I’d had enough. They seemed all right at first, the Carrians. But it all went wrong so fast, when it became obvious that I wasn’t the perfect daughter they were looking for. All I remember of that first night with them is people saying how “adorable” I was and patting my head and bringing me gifts I didn’t like—lots of pink and lace and sparkles, which isn’t me at all—and asking questions about the orphanage that they didn’t really want the answers to. When I tried to be honest, everyone got really uncomfortable and averted their eyes. Mrs. Carrian’s smile got more and more manufactured as the night wore on, less teeth and more thinly-pressed lips, and I began to realize that I was not what they were expecting.

  I tried to stick it out, honestly. But the neighbor kids kept picking fights with me, and I didn’t want to wear the frilly dresses, and the tutor they hired kept pursing her lips and frowning, and all these things made the Carrians upset. Then I overheard Mrs. Carrian crying to Mr. Carrian, and she said my name, and she used the word “mistake.” I knew what was coming. They hated me, and they were sending me back. I wasn’t about to let that happen.

  So, out the window I went.

  I’m embarrassed to say how quickly the protectors found me. I was back in the orphanage a few hours later. But, in my defense, I was only six.

  The second time, I was eight, and it was the Puceys’ house, and I didn’t even have to escape, really, since they didn’t care if I ran or not. This time, I’d hated them right from the beginning. Having been thoroughly disillusioned with the whole adoption thing, I pitched a fit when the Puceys first showed up. But Sister Morgila gave me this spiel about how they just had to find the right “match” for me, and I believed her. (I was eight, and stupid.) So I went with the Puceys: Mrs., who looked like a dried prune and smelled like dishwater; Mr., who was never actually present long enough for me to determine what he was like; and their three kids, who sucked up all Mrs. Pucey’s attention. At first I couldn’t figure out why they even wanted another kid, but then it dawned on me: I was the charity child. Mrs. Pucey would make us all dress up for church and then parade us around, her perfect family plus the poor little orphan girl who had been so heroically rescued. The rest of the time, they did not particularly care where I was or what I did, except when I got into trouble. And I got into trouble a lot. It was all starting to look so horribly familiar. I packed my bag and walked out. I suspect part of the reason I was able to avoid detection for longer that time is that they didn’t even notice I was gone.

  I lasted a couple of days, living in the alley behind a sweets shop. I thought the owner was on my side—he was nice, and gave me huge chunks of white chocolate. Then he called the protectors.

  I haven’t been out on the streets since then. When I tried to escape from the orphanage a few years ago, I never made it that far. So I guess you could say that my street experience is next to nothing. The sweets-shop man taught me an important rule, though: Trust no one.

  My first concern now, when I can spare a moment to breathe, is my injured hand. I don’t even know what that protector was firing at me, but I know it was magic. Outwardly, there are no signs of injury, but hours later my hand still burns. The black substance that coated it before seems to have seeped through the skin; small black lines trail across the back of my hand like inky veins. I’m not sure if it’s permanent, but eventually the pain dies down, so I decide to worry about more pressing concerns.

  My second problem is hunger. I start hunting for scraps, but it’s not as easy as I thought it would be. Any leftover food is picked off quick by stray animals roaming the streets. The few outdoor trash bins behind shops have been ransacked and picked clean already. All the shops keep their doors locked.

  The orphanage taught me not to be picky about what I eat, so I take food when I can get it. But the lack of food at the orphanage was nothing compared to this. I can’t ignore the hunger anymore.

  So I set out on a mission.

  The marketplace teems with people, and I’m afraid someone will spot me if I try to steal there. So I pick the most rundown shop I can find, which has paint so faded I can’t tell what color it used to be, thinking I won’t look out of place inside. That much is true. The shop is as dirty as I am, which is saying something. But there’s food.

  Inside, the walls and floor are gray, streaked with dirt and dust. There’s only one other customer in the shop. Ignoring the knot of fear in my stomach, I head over to the food shelves.

  I wait, pretending to examine some of the items for sale. The customer heads to the register, distracting the shopkeeper. It’s now or never. I take a deep breath, my hand shaking, and reach for the shelves. I start slipping little packages into my pockets. I’m not even sure what I’m taking, just that it’s food and it’s here. When my pockets are full, I turn and head for the door.

  Only to bump right into a protector, who has chosen this exact moment to walk in.

  I must have seriously offended Saint Ailara at some point in my life.

  The protector takes one look at my guilty expression and slightly bulging pockets and stops. His hand moves toward the knives in his weapons belt. “Miss, I’m going to have to ask you to empty your pockets.”

  I try to look innocent. “Sir, I really don’t think that’s necessary.”

  His jaw tightens. “I’ll be deciding what’s necessary. Now please, empty your pockets. There’s no need for any trouble here.”

  “You’re the one causing the trouble.” The words are out of my mouth before I think about it. Idiot. Why couldn’t I keep my mouth shut for once in my life?

  His eyes narrow. “Miss,” he says through clenched teeth, “I’m going to have to arrest you for uncooperation if you don’t—”

  “Uncooperation?” I repeat. I can’t help it. I may not have paid any attention in language class, but Sister Romisha accused me of noncooperation enough times that I have to laugh. “I think you mean noncooperation. Non, not un. Even I know that. Apparently they’re letting any idiot become a protector these days.”

  Apparently I’m an idiot too.

  His face reddens, and he pulls a weapon out of its sheath. Just seeing it makes me think of the first time I ran away, of being six and cold and scared and having the hard edge of a knife pressed against my skin, but my fear is mixed with anger, too. I’m so tired of running. I’ve spent my whole life running, but the protectors and their knives always find me.

  “Sorry,” I say quickly, reaching into my pockets, “I didn’t mean that. See, I’m emptying my pockets now. . . .” My fingers close around one of the packages.

  I pull it out, throw it at his face, and run.

  He’s not as slow as Sister Romisha, though. He’s on me before I get out the door. His hand grabs the back of my shirt and it’s over—

  A scream pierces the air. The guard whirls around, taking me with him, still not loosening his grip. The customer now has a knife to the shopkeeper’s throat.

  “Let go of the girl,” the customer says, real calm. He’s a boy, not much older than me, but there isn’t any fear in his voice or expression. He’s totally in control.

  The protector’s hand starts shaking. “Put away your weapon!”

  Right, like he’s just going to listen.

  The boy smirks. “Nobody needs to get hurt. Release the girl, and we’ll be on our way. Otherwise . . .” He moves the knife a little. The shopkeeper makes a sort of strangled whimper.

  The protector lets go of me, and I stagger backward. The boy mutters to the shopkeeper, and they both start moving. Slowly, they shuffle past me and the protector toward the door. I bolt for the exit.

  I’m out. I should keep running, but I turn back to the door of the shop.

  The boy walks backward through the door, holding the shopkeeper between himself and the protector like a shield. Abruptly, he lets go, spins around, and races toward me.

  “Run!” he yells.

  I don’t need to be told twice.

&n
bsp; Instinct tells me to get away from the boy. He’s dangerous. But he seems to know where he’s going; he runs purposefully, not randomly like me. Following him seems like a good idea. Anyway, he just saved me.

  So I follow him through the twists and turns of the streets and the crowds of a marketplace, whizzing past food stands until the cobbles turn to dirt under my feet. The streets grow narrower, the stalls and crowds disappearing, until we’re in a tight alleyway, wedged between two small shops. I’ve never been in this part of the city before, but it looks the same as the rest of the south side: dim, dirty, and mostly neglected.

  Finally we both stop, leaning against an alley wall and gasping. We don’t say anything for a minute, just try to catch our breath. The dust we’ve kicked up from the street clogs my nose. The stone of the wall behind me scrapes against my skin, but I’m glad to have something solid to lean against.

  I look at him closely for the first time. Like me, he has unruly black hair that’s been poorly cut and possibly never combed. But his skin is an even darker tan than mine, and his eyes are a warmer brown. His limbs are skeletally thin, his knees and elbows bony and sharp. He’s probably about thirteen.

  He’s staring at me, too, and we just look at each other for a couple of minutes until I can’t take the silence anymore. “What did you do that for?” I ask. It sounds more accusatory than I mean.

  He raises his eyebrows. “Is this your way of thanking me for saving you?”

  “I had everything under control,” I say, even though I didn’t and we both know it. Softer, I add, “Why did you help me?”

  “You needed help. And I’m no fan of the protectors myself.” He hesitates. “And thieves help each other.”

  I guess it should’ve been obvious by now, but this still surprises me. “You’re a thief?” I take another look at his clothes. Long pants, a plain cotton shirt, sturdy shoes. They’re not nearly as bad as mine—a little grungy, maybe, but not patched or frayed or faded.

  He hesitates again, like he’s about to say something else. “I’m Beck,” he says finally, extending his hand. “Beck Reigler.”