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chimney swifts’ leader, would be hiding out in the Twilight somewhere, but the four swifts hustled me through the dark and deserted streets and down to the bank of the river, where they shoved me into a rowboat. Two of them, the woman and the burly man, Drury, got in; the other two stayed behind on the shore. So did Pip. The cat-dragon would find me on the other side of the river. Hopefully Pip would come soon, just in case I needed to do the dazzler spell or the needle-prickler to get away from the swifts.
    Drury rowed the boat across the river, past the dark and sleeping magisters’ islands. Heartsease was dark, too, except for one light shining from a window on the second floor. Hello, Nevery , I thought as the boat slipped silently past the island. He was up late, working in the study, reading a book or writing in his grimoire. If he could see me now he’d be furious, most likely, and so would Benet. So would Embre and Rowan and Kerrn, for that matter. They didn’t need to worry. Sure as sure I could look after myself.
    On the other side of the river, Drury and the woman, whose name was Floss, led me down the Sunrise streets and ’round the back of a plain-fronted house and took me inside. They put me in a room and told me to wait, which I did for a long time. I listened to the tromping sound of feet in a room upstairs, and then I lay on the hard floor and fell asleep. Finally they came back and brought me down a long hallway and up some stairs and into a dim-dark room.
    Three chimney swifts were sitting around a plain table with a lit candle on it. I looked carefully at them, just in case any of them were the men who’d tried to kidnap me from the Heartsease courtyard, but I’d never seen any of them before.
    In the room, heavy curtains hung over the windows, and the rest of the room was empty, not even any pictures on the walls or carpets on the floor. A fireplace gaped like an empty mouth, no fire burning there. The swifts ignored us as we came in.
    One of them pointed up at the ceiling. “He coming down again, Sootle?” he asked the man sitting at the end of the table.
    Sootle was tall and very thin and he had a pointy nose and long, black, stringy hair with a bald patch on the top of his head; and, like the others, he was smudged with soot. “No, we’re done. The men he brought in will take care of the rest of it,” he said. “Take yourselves off. Looks like I’ve got some other business here.”
    The other chimney swifts went out of the room, leaving me facing Sootle, with Drury and Floss standing behind me, blocking the door.
    â€œWell?” Sootle asked. He looked me up and down with sharp, black eyes. “You’ve brought me a gutterboy, have you?”
    â€œSays he knows about stolen wizard stones,” Floss said.
    Sootle’s sharp eyes narrowed. “What d’you know exactly, gutterboy?”
    I shrugged.
    The sooty hand flashed out and he cuffed me across the face. “I asked you a question, gutterboy. Answer it.”
    Shaking off the blow, I nodded. “I figured out about the stones. And I want to come work for you.”
    â€œDo you, now? We’ll see about that. What’s your name?” Sootle asked.
    â€œPip,” I said. It was the first name I could think of that wasn’t my own.
    â€œYou afraid to go up a chimney, Pip?” asked Sootle.
    â€œNo,” I said. I didn’t think I was. “I’m a lockpick, too,” I added quickly.
    â€œAre you, then?” Sootle drummed his long fingers on the tabletop. “What d’you think, Floss? Drury?”
    Floss stepped back to look me over. “He’s too tall,” she said.
    Sootle nodded. “He’s skinny, though. He might do. I might take him on myself. I could use an intrepid lockpicker charboy like this, especially after last night.” He got to his feet, then went to the hearth, where he squatted down, leaned into the