“Poor thing,” someone next to Petra murmured, and tossed the girl a small coin.
The girl was about Petra’s age. She was dressed in rags and had large, sunken eyes that stared straight ahead. “I seen him,” she said, showing a broken tooth. “His hand is on the silks.”
It was clear to everyone in the small crowd that the girl’s mind was in ruins—broken, probably, by a scryer. People with the Second Sight, like Petra’s mother, can see into the future without any outside aid, but only into the future. Scryers, on the other hand, can look only into the past or present. They differ from someone with the Second Sight in another way: a scryer can never have a vision by him- or herself. The power always has to be channeled through another person, and a child is the best medium for a scryer. The scryer asks the child to look at a shiny surface like a mirror and say what he or she sees. The younger the medium, the better. The problem is that being a medium makes your mind very fragile while under the control of a scryer. And scrying is not an exact science, but one that offers conflicting images and false leads along with grains of truth. There were many stories of scryers who, impatient with results they couldn’t understand, forced children to stare into a mirror until their minds collapsed.
“I wonder who she was before,” Petra whispered.
“A person who could be used and thrown away,” Astrophil said pityingly. “I have read that there are thousands of orphans in Prague. She was probably someone who would not be missed.”
“Even if nobody misses her, I bet she misses the person she used to be.” Petra laid her hoska at the girl’s bare, dirty feet.
And that was when she felt invisible fingers dip inside her shirt and snatch away her purse.
10
The Long-Fingered Thief
PETRA SPUN AROUND and caught a glimpse of a dark blur ducking around a corner not far ahead. “Hang on,” she told the spider. She sprinted down the street. She was swift and nimble. She would have been pleased by how easily she jumped over obstacles and swung around corners if she hadn’t been so worried about losing sight of the boy running ahead of her. He had stolen just about all the krona she had.
The Gypsy was twisting and turning down the narrow lanes, hoping to lose her. But, as his bad luck would have it, he ran down streets that Petra knew from this morning, and she remembered very well how this area was laid out. Suddenly he turned right. Petra gave a satisfied half smile. He had just disappeared down a blind alley. His only way out of the street would be to slip brazenly into one of the shops or homes. Petra sped up to prevent him from doing exactly that.
When she turned down the alley, he gave her the look of a hunted animal. She seized him by the arm. “Give it back!”
“I ain’t got nothing of yours!” he shouted. “Let me go!” He kicked at her, but she gripped him firmly.
“What’s going on here?” The belly of an officer turned the corner of the alley, soon followed by the man who owned it. He trundled toward them. “Did I hear some shouting? This little Gyp stole something from you?” He looked with disgust at Petra’s prisoner.
The squirming boy froze, and stared at Petra with an expression of utter fear. It was the first time she saw his face clearly. His dark skin was scarred by the pox. The notch across his left cheek had probably been made by a knife. Beneath brows that looked like they were drawn by two strokes of a thick goose quill drenched in ink, his tawny eyes stared. Petra’s first impression was that they were cracked, because their yellow color was marked by so many flecks of green.
What do they do to thieves in Prague? she asked herself. In Okno, men and women were thrown into the local prison for various periods of time, but children who stole were usually left to the mercy of their parents and sometimes had to labor for whomever they had wronged. From the boy’s expression, however, Petra gathered that the law here didn’t send boy thieves out to the orchards to pick fruit for grocers. So she said, “Oh, no, sir. No, we were just playing a game.”
“Is that right? Thought you’d waste an officer’s time, then? Cause a big fuss for nothing? Get everyone worked up?”
“I’m very sorry, sir. You’re right. We weren’t thinking. We were playing Catch the Pig Tail.” She glared at the boy for remaining silent. Why did she have to come up with all the excuses? She kept a good grip on him with her right hand, for she suspected he wouldn’t think twice about running away at the earliest opportunity—and with her purse, which he must have tucked away somewhere inside his clothes.
“Hill-folk and their idiot games! I have a mind to take both of you in just for annoying me.” The officer’s red beard quivered as he frowned. “Unless you got a good reason why I shouldn’t.” He looked at Petra meaningfully. To her surprise, the boy did the same. They both seemed to expect her to do something.
“Well, yes. Um, I’m really, really sorry. Both of us. We’re—” she stammered.
“Petra.” Astrophil’s hushed voice in her ear was tired, as if he couldn’t believe he had to explain. “He wants a bribe.”
“Oh! Of course.” The officer and the boy relaxed as she reached into her pocket with her left hand and pulled out two small coins. She dropped them into the man’s outstretched hand.
“That’s it?” His face fell.
“Well, my people, they’re just poor brassica farmers.” She gave the boy a look that she hoped said “I can catch you again,” and slowly let him go. She reached into her pockets and turned them inside out to show their emptiness. The boy did the same.
“Street urchins,” the officer harrumphed, and turned to lumber back out of the alley.
When he had left, Petra pounced on the boy and ducked both hands inside his shirt.
“Hey!” he shouted. “You foul-handed harpy!” She plucked her purse out from under his armpit. “I was gonna give it back! Give a lad a chance!” He stumbled away from her, his stained and sweaty shirt askew. She glared at him and then glanced inside the pouch to make sure everything was in it.
The boy drew himself up and smoothed down his shirt. “Now, normally I’d expect you to buy me breakfast, seeing as how you almost sent me to the gallows. But”—he grinned, catching her outraged eyes—“since you’re a lady and I’m a gentleman, I suppose it ought be my treat.”