“I do,” said Tarlak. “Good luck. And remember, I can’t pay you if you die on me.”

“I won’t be the one dying tonight,” Haern said, feeling the cold persona of the King’s Watcher coming over him.

He left the tower and ran the short distance toward the city. A dozen secret passageways, ropes, and handholds were available to him as a way to cross the wall, and he drifted to the southern end before climbing over. Alyssa’s potential conflict with the thief guilds was a greater threat in the long run, but Haern could not bring himself to focus on it just yet. His target was a piece of scum named Brann Goodfinger. He operated in the far south of the city, and it was there Haern went.

Normally he felt pride as he traversed the rooftops, carefully observing the doings of the various guilds. Ever since the thief war ended, the factions had settled into an uncomfortable truce. The first few months had been the worst, but Haern’s sabers had spilled the blood of hundreds. Through sheer brutality, he had brought both sides to their knees. He was the silent threat watching all, and tolerating nothing. But this accomplishment felt bitter. For the first time, his plan had been turned against him in a most cruel, personal way.

Thieves who stole from the Trifect died. They all knew this. And so Brann had recruited children, a bold dare against the Watcher’s threat.

“Where is it you hide?” Haern whispered as he lay flat atop a roof. For two days Brann had eluded him, and his children had gone unchecked. No longer. He spotted one of their youngest, a boy surely no older than seven. He was exiting the broken window of a shop, a handful of copper coins clutched to his chest. He ran, and Haern followed.

The boy tried to vary his pattern, as he’d no doubt been trained to do, but against someone like Haern it was a minor inconvenience, nothing more. Haern kept far out of sight, not wanting to alert him to his presence. Twice he’d tracked Brann’s child-thieves, but one had spotted him, abandoned his ill-gotten coin, and fled. The other had been killed by a different thief guild before he could question him. Children bled out on the streets of Veldaren. The Watcher’s wrath would be terrible.