The Gentleman Bastard Series by Scott Lynch

carved into his neck by none other than your old master. He had to go buy one of those lovely shark’s teeth from the Capa, and that one got used . So … why?”
    “In the hill, some of the older boys and girls stopped going out to work.” Locke wove his fingers tightly together and stared down at them as though they might sprout answers. “They would just take things when we came back each day. Shake us down. Make our reports to the master for us, leave things out sometimes.”
    Chains nodded. “Privileges of age, size, and ass-kissing. If you survive this conversation, you’ll find that it’s just the same in most of the big gangs. Most .”
    “And there was one boy. Veslin. He’d do more. He’d kick us, punch us, take our clothes. Make us do things. Lots of times he’d lie to the master about what we’d brought in. He’d give some of our things to the older girls in Windows, and all of us in Streets would get less food—especially the teasers.” Locke’s small hands pulled apart and curled slowly into fists as he spoke. “And if we tried to tell the master, he just laughed, like he knew about it and thought it was funny! And after we told, Veslin would … Veslin would just get worse.”
    Chains nodded, then tapped his index finger against his palm once more.
    “I thought about it. I thought about it a lot . None of us could fight him. He was too big. None of us had any big friends in the hill. And if we ganged up on Veslin, his big friends would all come after us.
    “Veslin went out each day with some of his friends. We saw them while we were working; they wouldn’t mess with our jobs, but they would watch us, you know? And Veslin would say things.” Locke’s thin-lipped scowl would have been comical on a less dirty, less emaciated, less hollow-eyed boy; as it was, he looked like a slender wall-gargoyle, working himself up for a pounce. “Say things when we came back. About how we were clumsy, or lazy, and not taking enough. And he would push us more, and hit us more, and cheat us more. I thought and I thought and I thought about what to do.”
    “And the idea,” said Chains, “the fateful idea. It was all yours?”
    “Yes.” The boy nodded vigorously. “All mine. I was alone when I hadthe idea. I saw some yellowjackets on patrol, and I thought … I thought about their sticks, and their swords. And I thought, what if they beat up Veslin? What if they had some reason not to like him?”
    Locke paused for breath. “And I thought more, but I couldn’t work it. I didn’t know how. But then I thought, what if they weren’t angry with Veslin? What if I used them as an excuse to make the master angry with Veslin?”
    Chains nodded sagely. “And where did you get the white iron coin?”
    Locke sighed. “Streets. All of us who didn’t like Veslin stole extra. We watched and we clutched and we worked hard. It took weeks. It took forever ! I wanted white iron. I finally got one from a fat man dressed all in black wool. Funny coats and ties.”
    “A Vadran.” Chains seemed bemused. “Probably a merchant come down to do some business. Too proud to dress for the weather at first, and sometimes too cheap to see a tailor in town. So, you got a white iron coin. A full crown.”
    “Everyone wanted to see it. Everyone wanted to touch it. I let them; then I made them be quiet. I made them promise not to talk about it. I told them it was how we were going to get Veslin.”
    “So what did you do with your coin?”
    “Put it in a purse, a little leather purse. The kind we clutched all the time. And hid it out in the city so it wouldn’t get taken from us. A place we knew about, where nobody big could get to. And I made sure that Veslin and his friends were out of the hill, and I got the coin, and I went back in early one day. I gave up coppers and bread to the older girls on the door, but the coin was in my shoe.” Here Locke paused and fiddled with his little lamp, making the red glow waver on