Chapter 1

Being one of the best pickpockets in London came with certain advantages. For one, Rhosyn was able to easily spot those less practiced at their craft. As her deft eyes swept the street on her normal patrol, they zeroed in on a skinny child bumping into a well-dressed gentleman with a little too much intention. She pulled her standard-issue police baton from her belt and swung it casually in her hand as she veered towards the side of the narrow, cobbled street. Her gaze trained on the urchin darting off toward a shadowed alley, with a prize clutched to his chest.

She intercepted him just before he turned off the main drag, thrusting her baton in his path before he could scamper off into the darkness. He froze in place, gaze trailing up Rhosyn's torso and eyes widening in his dirt-smudged face as he took in the golden buttons and badge emblazoned on her Royal Police uniform.

Before he could turn to run, Rhosyn grabbed him by the kerchief around his neck, not hard enough to jar him, but firmly enough that he couldn't escape. She held out her hand expectantly.

With a degree of wide-eyed innocence that could only be coaxed from a guilty child, he shook his head. "What have I done, ma'am?"

"I'll warrant that watch in your pocket wasn't there when you left home this morning," Rhosyn prodded, propping her free hand on her hip.

With a thick swallow, the urchin reached into his jacket and produced an engraved pocket watch, swinging on a thick golden chain. Rhosyn had half a mind to let him keep the thing, to punish the owner for carrying such an ostentatious accessory through a part of town where every streetcorner was occupied by pickpockets and gangsters, all searching for their next mark.

Instead, she plucked it from his grip and let go. The boy hesitated, clearly wanting to run away, but unsure if it would get him into any more trouble. After all, Rhosyn towered above him, with legs even longer than most of the male police officers, making catching a running youngster all too easy.

"If you look around like you're wondering if you've been spotted, you give yourself away," Rhosyn told the child against her better judgment. "Don't let me catch you again."

He smiled tentatively, the hint of a sparkle in his eyes before turning and disappearing among the shuffle of people in the street. Rhosyn sighed, knowing he was likely to be trouble again, but she didn't have it in her to arrest every person who committed petty theft in the lower city. After all, that would probably be half the populace of the streets she patrolled. She was interested in the more sinister criminals who prowled these blocks, knives up their sleeves and revolvers tucked into their jackets.

A judgmental voice in the back of her mind nagged that she was letting the thieves go because she was one of them. She shoved that voice aside with a practiced hand, and it retreated to the shadowy recesses of her mind with a grumble.

She returned her focus to the task at hand. Rhosyn cut across their street, people giving way for her when they caught sight of her uniform. She stopped before a man smoking a pipe outside of one of the nicer gambling dens in the area.

"I believe you dropped this." She held up the watch, letting it swing on its chain in front of his surprised expression.

Patting his pockets, he found that she was right. "My goodness, I don't know how I could have been so clumsy. Thank you, ma'am."

"Just doing my job." Rhosyn deposited the watch in his outstretched palm. "And keep a wary eye on your purse."

With a brisk nod, she turned and strode up off the street. She swept the area with her gaze constantly as she walked, alert for the trouble that never seemed far away. Many eyes caught hers as she observed, greeting her with a brief nod of familiarity. After several years as a Royal Police officer, the residents of the lower city were familiar with her presence. Many new officers left the lower city beats as soon as they had paid their dues, but Rhosyn had asked Chief Thorne if she could stay on this patrol. As harried as he was in the years since the end of the Inquiries, he hadn't been of a mind to object.

Rhosyn preferred to keep an eye on her old stomping grounds, and if anybody remembered her as the young rascal who ran jobs with the Lions, they had the sense not to say anything. Not to mention, she still felt more at home among the crooked flats and smoky air of the streets here than in the middle city where she now lived. Maybe she always would.

As the sun lowered behind crooked chimneys in the bruised sky, Rhosyn turned her steps uphill, toward the police station at the border of the middle and lower city. The night watch would be heading out and it was time to turn in her report for the day before heading back to her rented room. Her mouth watered at the thought of the scones waiting for her there, carefully wrapped in paper by Gregor and handed to her with a smile when she left the Woodrow's house early that morning.

Before she could contemplate whether she might be able to borrow some jam from the couple she rented from, shouting grabbed her attention. Rhosyn immediately broke into a run, darting into an alley, trying to cut over to the next block where the racket came from.

No sooner had she turned the corner than a solid frame crashed into her, knocking her down with a bone-rattling thump. Glaring up, she found a shape dressed in all black, a hood pulled low and obscuring his eyes, another piece of cloth covering his lower face.

"Sorry, ma'am. I'm afraid I have to run," the man said in a light tone, only sounding a little out of breath, despite having been running full tilt just seconds earlier. Before Rhosyn could think to order him to halt, he threw himself at the wall to the right, scaling the uneven bricks with all the ease of a bird taking flight.

Rhosyn sprang to her feet, just in time for two other officers of the Royal Police to materialize at the other end of the alley. Their batons swung in their hands as they huffed and puffed.

"Where'd he go?" one officer wheezed.

"The roof." Rhosyn pointed.

The officers looked up just in time to see the man's coat flaps disappear over the eaves, faces falling in dismay. They turned and retreated back down the alley, apparently planning on pursuing him from the street. Granted, with how fast the man climbed, the two men would likely lose him faster than a gambler could throw a hand of dice if they tried to follow him across the buildings.

Rhosyn, on the other hand, was far more comfortable among the chimneys and gables of the lower city.

She flung herself up the wall in hot pursuit, using an obliging drainpipe to help her shimmy up the building. She crested the edge, jumping to her feet and looking around. The dark silhouette was already on the next building over, about to leap to a third.

Rhosyn wasted no time in breaking into a sprint. The gap between the first two roofs was narrow enough that she leaped it without having to break her stride. Her long legs carried her swiftly enough that she should gain ground on her quarry.

However, the gap between the next two buildings was larger, almost twice as broad as Rhosyn was tall. The man ran at it full tilt, launching himself into the air and even performing a flip as he arced over the distance, hovering for what seemed to be a moment too long—or maybe that was just the way time stretched in a chase. He landed lightly on the balls of his feet, as if his joints were spring loaded.

Rhosyn didn't have time to gawk as she grit her teeth for her own jump. If she were being judged on style, she certainly would have lost to the pursuant, but she managed to make it over safely, tucking her head in and rolling to absorb the impact as she landed.

Coming to her feet again, she dashed across the slanted rooftop, boots clacking against the chipped shingles. She gained a few meters on the man, but he was deceptively fast for all that he appeared to be a few inches shorter than Rhosyn and much more densely built. Still, he couldn't run forever, and a drop between buildings loomed just ahead.

The hooded man leaped over the edge without hesitation, and without second thought, Rhosyn barreled after him. Her heart stuttered through a moment of free fall before relief restarted it at the top of the adjacent building just a story below.

She landed heavily in a crouch, ready to pounce forward and tackle her target. Instead, her head snapped back, as if somebody grabbed her by her collar.

The hooded man stood a few meters away on the edge of the roof, one arm raised to reveal a small crossbow mounted to his forearm and pointed directly at Rhosyn. He had fired so fast and so sure that she had barely registered the bolt whizzing past her face, piercing through the jacket of her uniform, before embedding in the wood paneling behind her. She yanked on it to no avail, the arrowhead clearly buried deep in the side of the building.

"It's been a while since any of the Royal Police gave me such a good chase, but I'm afraid this is where we part ways." The man lowered his arm.

Rhosyn strained to see under his hood, but he had fastened it well around his face and his features were fully obscured by the shadows of rapidly descending twilight. Instead, she let her eyes rove over his physique, trying to generate as thorough a description of him as she could without seeing his face.

He was clearly athletic, which she could tell from his speed and agility, but the notion was only driven home by his thick, shapely thighs and broad shoulders that tapered to narrower hips. Rhosyn blinked. She would not be writing shapely thighs on the report she filed with Chief Thorne under any circumstances.

The hooded man turned away from her as she continued to tug fruitlessly at the bolt pinning her in place. The thin sunlight peaked through the clouds long enough for her to tell that his clothing was actually a dark forest green, instead of the black she had originally thought.

"There's nowhere for you to run," Rhosyn insisted.

Indeed, they had reached the corner of the block, and all the nearest rooftops were far too distant to consider jumping. Crashing and shouting told Rhosyn that the other officers in pursuit had arrived in the street below, blocking him in if he were to climb down.

"Come quietly and I'll put in a good word," Rhosyn offered reasonably, even as she surreptitiously began unbuttoning her jacket under the guise of continuing to struggle. If she could slip out of the garment that kept her trapped, she could tackle the man before he tried to run again.

Instead, he looked over his shoulder, posture casual, as if there were nothing dire about his situation.

"Although this has been fun, I have no interest in being on good terms with the Royal Police."

Pulling free of the jacket, Rhosyn lunged, but her arms closed around open air. The hooded man had leaped into the open space between buildings, arms spread wide as if diving off a cliff into the ocean.

Rhosyn teetered on the ledge, watching in disbelief as he made it a surprising distance into the street, but still nowhere near the building on the far side. As he started to fall, he twisted, grabbing onto a clothesline hung between buildings. With all the skill of an acrobat, he swung around it once, twice—building up momentum before launching himself at the height of his swing. With a light thunk, he landed neatly on the far roof.

Rhosyn stared slack-jawed as he had the audacity to look back and offer her a mock salute, before darting off into the rapidly thickening shadows of evening. Jerking herself from her shock, she turned and scrabbled down to the ground as quickly as possible. Dropping from a little too high, her heels hit the cobbles with enough force to rattle her teeth in her skull. Still, she knew the moment she turned to dart across the crowded street that the hooded man would be long gone by the time she managed to scale the next building.

The two officers she had encountered earlier were waiting for her, still staring up at the clothesline above them where moments earlier a man had flown.

"What were you trying to bring him in for?" Rhosyn asked, bringing their attention back to the present. As they lowered their faces to look at her, she cocked her head in curiosity. While their faces were vaguely familiar, she couldn't recall names, and she thought she knew everybody that patrolled the lower city.

"Officer Rhosyn Walsh," she offered.

"Officers Fletcher and Davies," the taller of the two introduced himself and his partner. "Why don't we get back to the station and we can fill you in while you help us file our reports." He looked around pointedly at the crowded streets. Whatever had happened, it wasn't something he wished to be overheard.

Chief Joseph Thorne shuffled through endless stacks of paper, trying to clear enough space on his desk for him to write on and failing. While Rhosyn could tell there was a system to the stacks of reports, the cramped desk in the corner was not nearly large enough to accommodate the amount of work Chief Thorne was burdening it with.

For that matter, Chief Thorne himself didn't seem able to accommodate the amount of work he was trying to complete, if the pallor of his skin and the shadow of a beard that had not been shaved in several days were any indication. Still, he pushed on doggedly, gesturing Rhosyn and the two officers with her to take a seat in the wooden chairs across from him.

The whole setup was rather cramped, shoved into a cordoned-off corner of the Royal Police's headquarters. While there was a perfectly good office down the hall, with more space and a bigger desk, Rhosyn didn't have to wonder why he didn't use it.

The weathered brass plaque on the door to that room still read Chief Cook, despite the man's imprisonment years ago. Chief Thorne could easily have his former mentor's name changed out for his own, but Rhosyn got the impression that it was left there as a sort of reminder for all who passed through. After all, the echoes of the corruption bred by Chief Cook's leadership still cropped up every once in a while. The aftereffects of the Inquiries still ruled the city's underworld, and too many of the rich and influential still disagreed with their sudden end, despite the passage of years.

"Officers," Chief Joseph Thorne greeted. "I take it your sitting here means you were unable to apprehend the thief."

"I'm assuming the man you were chasing was the thief?" Rhosyn asked as the other two officers nodded dismally.

"There have been a series of jewel thefts from some of the wealthiest households of the city. We've had shockingly little intel on them, even from our ears in the black market. We finally got an anonymous tip from somebody implicating the man in the hood," Officer Fletcher explained.

"Seems to be causing a lot of trouble for a simple jewel thief. Who is he?" Rhosyn asked. It struck her as odd that such a case would be reported directly to Chief Thorne, but he did have a rather hands-on approach. Rhosyn got the impression he liked to have his fingers in every investigation, to prevent something like the sloppy case that allowed Chief Cook to get away with the murder of his wife.

Chief Thorne scrubbed a hand over his face. "He certainly has picked targets that have made my life difficult. Several of the houses that were broken into belong to those who have sponsored Talented. Given that they have spent a substantial amount of money helping us give the Talented of the lower city another chance, I would prefer not to seem incompetent at catching a petty thief."

"Which is why it is unfortunate that we still don't know who he is. Our informant only gave us a tip on his location," Officer Davies commiserated.

"Perhaps your encounter with him today can help us identify him. With a detailed description, you could use your connections in the lower city to see if anybody has noticed him around," Chief Thorne gestured to Rhosyn, who shook her head.

"He wore a hood and mask over his face. I can give you a general description, but not enough to get a solid identification on him," Rhosyn explained.

The expression on Chief Thorne's face seemed to indicate that he would be banging his head against the solid wooden surface of his desk if it wouldn't be deemed unprofessional. "Well, write up everything you saw and add it to Fletcher and Davies' report. Every little bit of information helps."

"Do you want me to join them in the search?" Rhosyn offered. "I might be able to recognize his voice or movements if we encounter him."

The man had displayed a certain grace in his movements that Rhosyn wasn't sure she would be able to put into words for an official description. She had the distinct impression she would recognize it if she encountered it again, though.

"No." Chief Thorne waved Rhosyn's offer away. "I have a different job I need you to focus on. Fletcher, Davies, go start your report while I finish here with Walsh."

The other officers shuffled from the corner and off to their desks. Rhosyn furrowed her brow at Chief Thorne, wondering what could be so important. To her knowledge, the lower city had been as peaceful as it ever was. Her regular watches kept her fingers on the pulse of the lower city, and she had not noticed the undercurrents of impending trouble. While turf wars between gangs were inevitable, and every so often skirmishes and crooked dealings ignited into full-fledged violence, there had been nothing as sinister as the Wolves' illicit fighting rings in several years.

"I need your help gathering intel on a gang," Chief Thorne admitted. He pulled out a thin stack of papers from a pile and held them out to you. "The Foxes."

"The Foxes?" Rhosyn frowned at the few sheets of paper in front of her, a handful of very sparse reports. "They must be new. Or at least they weren't around when—before I joined the Royal Police."

Rhosyn corrected herself out of habit. Chief Thorne certainly knew Rhosyn had formerly been a member of the Lions, and a key member at that. After all, he had met and recruited her after his best friend married the leader of the Lions and the gang formally dissolved. Rhosyn had jumped on the opportunity for a new purpose, with her role as the Lions' den mother ripped out from under her. Still, Chief Thorne and Rhosyn had an unspoken rule about keeping police business official, and only mentioning the murkier aspects of her past when in the Woodrow's home.

"They've only just started cropping up, but for several weeks there have been skirmishes and thefts that we haven't been able to track back to any known gangs. If they are responsible for even half of those, then they are worryingly active for a new organization," Chief Thorne explained.

"There's not much to go off of," Rhosyn pointed out as she skimmed the reports in her hand. A few overheard conversations from their moles in the Raptors and Rattlesnakes comprised most of the information before her.

"That's why I'm asking you." Chief Thorne lowered his chin, looking at her meaningfully. "The people of the lower city have been oddly quiet about this new group, when normally gossip isn't hard to come by. They trust you though, and you might be able to find something others can't. I trust you can take advantage of…discreet sources."

Rhosyn raised a single brow. That was as close as Chief Thorne came to suggesting Rhosyn use her connections to former Lions to gather information. He must know that he himself could ask Kristoff for help if he ever wanted to do some investigating in a less than official capacity. In this delicate dance, though, he preferred to have a degree of separation—even if Chief Thorne often brushed shoulders with Kristoff with friendly familiarity at the Woodrow's dinner parties.

Paper crinkled as Rhosyn's fingers tightened around the reports. Try as she might to help London in the best way she could think of—protecting the lower city on the right side of the law—Chief Thorne still saw her as the officer to turn to when he needed somebody to brush elbows with residents of London's underbelly.

She forced her grip to relax. This is what she had signed up for, and she had done her job well for years now.

"I'll see what I can do," Rhosyn assured him, tucking the reports into the front of her jacket, retrieved from the roof where it had been pinned before she returned to headquarters. The bolt in the pocket would go with Davies and Fletcher's report to help them track down the hooded jewel thief.

"First, fill out your report and then get some rest. We have a social obligation tomorrow." Chief Thorne made a face of distaste at the reminder.

Rhosyn nearly chuckled at his reaction to the thought of leisure. He was almost as bad as Nate, burning the candle at both ends. Then again, Rhosyn wasn't really in a position to judge.

"You're coming with the Woodrows to the ball at the palace tomorrow?" she asked.

"Unfortunately, making sure the public sees the crown and the Royal Police as a united front is as much a part of the job as actually policing the streets," Chief Thorne sighed. "I guess I'll just have to get as much of tomorrow's work done tonight as I can."

As Rhosyn headed to join Davies and Fletcher, Chief Thorne was already absorbed in reading a paper on his desk, chewing his bottom lip as he frowned at it. She did not envy him.

The creak of Rhosyn's boots on the stairs echoed deafeningly through the quiet house, no matter how lightly she tried to creep. The home in the middle city belonged to two former Lions who had gotten married after the Inquiries, acquiring jobs as a butcher and a seamstress. Not having children of their own yet, they were more than happy to rent a spare room to Rhosyn, having spent their youth running jobs with her.

As Rhosyn passed their bedroom, she paused for a moment, only hearing the deep, measured breathing of people resting peacefully. Sometimes, as she passed them on the stairs in the morning, she considered asking them how they slept so soundly in the quiet, after years of living in crowded safehouses with constant comings and goings—Lions gambling and laughing through all hours of the night.

Shutting the door to her own bedroom, Rhosyn looked around the small space with a sigh. The bed was nicer than any she had slept on in the Lions' Den, the mattress plush and an embroidered quilt to keep her warm even on the coldest of winter nights. As she toed off her boots, she frowned at the empty space.

After years with the Royal Police, she had hoped she'd adjust to the luxuries of a comfortable bed and a room with a door she could lock. Instead, she looked forward to another night of awakening every hour to a phantom cry of a child having a nightmare, only to realize she was no longer responsible for a pack of youngsters. It was still odd to awaken alone in her bed every morning instead of finding a child, usually one freshly rescued from the cruelty of a factory, tucked into her arms, having climbed in to join her as she slept.

As she changed into her sleeping clothes, she chuckled at the irony. For years, she sat on the rooftop of the reclaimed warehouse she and the youngest Lions called home, wondering what it would look like to be free of the responsibility of being a universal big sister to all those Nate and his associates tried to give a better life.

Instead of freedom, the lifting of that burden only made her feel untethered.

Rhosyn splashed water from the bowl on the washstand onto her face, chiding herself for being dramatic. She just wasn't used to the quiet of the middle city at night and was restless after too many weeks of poor sleep.

Maybe she would ask Chief Thorne to let her switch back to nighttime patrols, so she could sleep during the day, soothed by the backdrop of city traffic. After she gathered the information she needed on the Foxes, she would do just that.