Chapter Six

THE FINCH fluttered her hand at me. “Are you sure you don’t like women, Daveth?” She looked down at her impressive bosom, clearly at a loss as to how anyone could resist. “I know men are nice, but so are women. We’re soft.”

I chuckled. “Not you, my darling. You’re tougher than steel.”

“Oh, you. Always the charmer. More tea?”

I glanced outside to judge the time. An hour until midday. “Yes. Please.”

The Finches were… entertainers, I guess. A little like Jory Pearce, which is why I thought they might prove helpful. There were several dozen of them, bound together in a guild nearly as old as the city, or so they claimed. They operated several little shops near the border of the Low and Silver Quarters, offering light refreshments and—in a private room upstairs—an experience that was part massage and part magic. I’ve heard it’s better than sex. More peaceful yet invigorating. And those who are abstaining from sex for personal or various religious reasons are allowed to visit the Finches.

I’d never been tempted myself. Maybe I would have been if some of them had been male. But every now and then when I had a few extra briquets, I stopped in to drink tea and nibble on spiced nuts. And to listen, since the Finches were an excellent source of gossip. Especially on a slow morning like today, when this particular Finch had nothing better to do than flirt with me. None of them used individual names—they were just the Finches—and they communicated with one another in some mysterious magical way, so if one of them knew something, soon they all did.

This Finch walked over to a kettle on the fire and poured hot water into a pot. She waited a few minutes, humming to herself, before refilling my cup and returning to the table.

“I like your new cloak,” she said. She patted the old one on the tabletop, where it was wrapped around my old clothes, picked up only that morning. “You’ve come into some money?”

“Temporary employment.” I burned my tongue when I sipped the tea. “Do you know a man named Jory Pearce?”

She was silent a moment, either consulting her own memories or somehow tapping into the ones she shared with her sisters. “Yes,” she finally said. “But surely he didn’t hire you.”

“No. He… well, I’m not at liberty to share. But if you could tell me something about his background or character, that would be helpful.”

“We don’t know much. A few of us have seen him perform. He’s lovely.”

I nodded my agreement.

The Finch nibbled at the seedcake on her plate. “He’s not from the Low Quarter or the Silver, but nobody knows where he is from. He appeared several years ago with that voice, and he’s been singing for money ever since.”

“Just singing?” I asked.

She gave me the type of indulgent smile a mother might spare her slow-witted child. “Of course not, sweetheart. But the singing is important. There are hundreds of whores in the city, yet only a handful who can sing as well as him.”

I have no bias against men or women who rent out their bodies. My mother did, after all, and probably her mother before her. I’d occasionally paid for whores’ services myself when my purse was full and my arms lonely. If Pearce augmented his income that way, I didn’t blame him. But that wasn’t what I’d been aiming at when I asked my last question. I shook my head. “Is he a thief?”

Her eyebrows flew upward like the wings of her namesake. “A thief? Jory Pearce? We’ve never heard it said so.”

Didn’t mean it wasn’t the truth, though. “Does he throw his money around?”

“He drinks quite a lot, but then so do you. So do half the people in the Low.” She reached over to give my hand a quick squeeze. “People find ways to numb the pain.”

I wasn’t in any pain but didn’t press the point. “No other excesses?”

“None that we know of.”

Well, perhaps something aside from simple greed led him to steal the ring. A whim. A way to exact a bit of revenge on a man who’d wronged him in some way. Or perhaps Pearce had lately taken on debt. “Does he gamble?”

“Not in any of the houses in the Low. If he gambles elsewhere, it’s somewhere quiet, and we wouldn’t know about that.”

Damn me to all the hells. My judgment about Pearce was too cloudy. I should go to Lord Uren and refuse the job, return the crowns to him, and promise to pay back the one I’d already spent. But I couldn’t force myself to do it—and not just because I needed the money.

The Finch had nothing else to give me about Pearce, so as I finished my tea, we chatted about the weather and the price of bread, we traded stories over ghosts we’d sighted, we speculated as to why the crown prince had been in seclusion lately, and we had a friendly argument over which nearby cart sold the tastiest meat pies. Then I gave her two briquets and thanked her for the tea and company.

“Good luck,” she said as she walked me to the door. I suspect she pressed her bosom against my arm on purpose. I pretended not to notice.

I had only a short walk to Five Witches Square, now crowded with people enjoying their midday meal or taking a brief rest from their labors. On the rare occasions when the sun won its battle with the city’s smoke and actually warmed the air, small children would splash in the fountain; but today nobody was in the mood to get wet.

The fountain itself was a monstrosity, a memorial to some long-dead general who had been depicted astride a beast, supposedly a dragon but which looked more like a sickly fish. The general looked ugly too, but maybe he’d truly looked that way in life.

I leaned against a nearby wall, watching the passersby. The midday bells tolled. And then, while the peals still echoed against the cobblestones, I heard a familiar light footstep, reached behind me, and for the second time that day, grabbed a skinny wrist.

“You need to improve your technique or the guards will claim your hand,” I told the girl as I turned to look at her.

She grinned, revealing several missing teeth. “They’ll never catch me.”

That’s what they all thought—until they were caught. I’ve heard the screams when the blade separates their hands from their arms. Sometimes I still hear them when I dream. But lecturing this urchin was futile, and in any case, her alternatives to stealing would be even grimmer.

“Do you have information for me?” I asked.

“Ten briquets.”

She’d bolt as soon as I handed them over. “I’ll tell you what. We’ll go get something from the cake shop. You talk while you eat, and if I’m satisfied, then you get the money.”

After brief consideration, she nodded.

The display at the cake shop would have tempted anyone, and to a half-starved child it was like a glimpse of paradise. She spent an eternity staring through the glass, weighing her options, and I didn’t begrudge her the joy of contemplating options or try to hurry her along. Eventually she chose a large confection coated in thick white icing and topped with candied violets. I realized during the process that I’d grown hungry as well, but I opted for a more subdued little log filled with poppy seeds.

Although the man behind the counter was happy enough to take my payment, he scowled when it looked as though we might sit at a table inside his shop. So we took our treats to the fountain and perched on the edge to eat.

“I bet the queen herself doesn’t eat anything this wonderful,” crowed my urchin with her mouth full. Frosting smeared her cheeks, and her tongue was white.

“They’re good cakes.”

She snorted at my lack of enthusiasm and swung her legs, sending a pigeon fluttering away. “It’s the best cake in the world. When I grow up, I’ll eat it every day.”

“That sounds expensive.”

“I’ll marry someone rich.”

Even Lowlers hung on to dreams while they were children. But eventually we grew up, albeit the Lowlers quite a bit sooner than children in the other quarters.

I swallowed the last of my cake—quite tasty, actually—and dusted the crumbs from my hand. “Jory Pearce?” I prompted.

“He’s a singer.”

“I already knew that.”

“Everyone thinks he’s bee-yoo-tee-ful. But he only likes boys. That’s stupid. Boys are stupid.”

“Frequently, yes.”

She shoved another bite into her mouth. “He sings at Two Gray Cats, but sometimes rich people hire him for parties. He drinks at the Second Hell.” She made a face. “The landlord there is mean. If he catches you nearby, he cuffs your ear and chases you off.”

I’d known landlords like that when I was a child. “What else?”

“One time my friend Tomi was real hungry and cold, and he says Jory Pearce saw him crying and gave him some bread and one of those fancy things he wears. It was pink. Tomi doesn’t have it no more, but he said it was real pretty.” She sighed wistfully.

So maybe he had a bit of a soft heart. That didn’t mean he wasn’t a thief. “Anything else?”

“Nobody sees him anywhere much except Second Hell and Two Gray Cats.”

“Who are his friends?”

“Dunno.”

And that, it seemed, was the depth of her knowledge. Not especially helpful. But after she’d licked her fingers clean of cake and frosting—and a lot of grime—I dutifully handed over ten briquets. She hid them away as quickly as any good Lowler. And then, because I was already tired of carrying my old clothes and because I’m a great fool, I handed her the parcel.

“What’s this?” she asked suspiciously.

“Clothing. Too big for you, but you’ll figure out a way to make them fit. Or sell them. They’re worth a couple of coins.”

She hugged the bundle to her chest and looked, for one brief moment, like a young girl instead of a calculating street scamp. “You need to know more stuff, you can just ask me. I’ll find out.”

“How will I find you?” I asked with a chuckle.

“Just ask around. I’m Wenna.” And she was gone into the crowds.

I could have spent the afternoon trying to learn more, but instinct told me the pursuit would be useless. I could ask half the city and still not know whether Pearce took the damned ring. It was time to turn to the subject of the accusation.