"Tell her I love her, I'm sorry, and goodbye. Go!"

"Yes, M'...Lord..." Piper lost her grip on the wall, and half slid, half fell down to the ground. She landed on her butt and got the wind knocked out of her for a moment. She kept watching both ends of the alley even as she waited to get her breath back.

The man's belt was too big to go around her waist and too short to go around it twice, so she had taken off her tunic, looped it over her left shoulder and right hip, and put her tunic back on. It really was heavy, like he said. Now, she stuffed the wand in her tunic too.

How do I get from here back to the elves? Piper considered her options.

When she stopped by the elf house, as she thought of it, the elves had been worried about Mr. Walker, and offered her three silver coins to go find him. They told her where he was supposed to have gone. Because she had gone to the bakery, Mr. Trader's store, the Temple, the carriage house, Ms. Houser's, back to the carriage house, and then to the jail, it was already late afternoon. If I wait another hour, the lumberjacks will start walking back into town and I can move with them. I don't think they're all extra angry like the guards are. If I go now, I'll probably be all right, but...

The street kids had declared a truce on Sixday. It was just getting too dangerous. After Timmy had been found beaten almost to death by a guard, they all agreed not to steal from each other or snitch on each other for a while. A couple of them had even offered hiding spots. Piper was impressed. The same boys who had stolen every copper she had, more than once, were asking her if she was all right.

So, the danger from the other kids was...lower. The problem was that the guards were starting to grab people for almost no reason and dragging them off, and some of them came back, but angry. Plus there were grown up thieves, but they usually left kids alone unless they had just made a big score.

Some of the guards had regular walks at regular times, but others just sort of wandered where they felt like. She had to be on the lookout for them all the time now. That was why tracking down Mr. Walker had taken all afternoon.

She really wanted to hurry up, but he'd said it was life and death that she bring these things to the elves. Better slow and sure. Piper always tried to go that way in life. She wasn't doing well, but she also wasn't in prison or sold into slavery. Whenever she got spotted while trying to pick a pocket, she always dumped the coins out on the ground, showed her empty hands, and ran away as fast as she could. The grownups always decided it was more important to pick up their coins than to chase her.

She went to bed hungry, sometimes, but she never went to jail. Well, inside the jail, anyways, she thought, looking at the wall behind her with a faint grin.

Piper did want to get at least a little away from the Guardhouse before then, though, so she went to the north end of the alley and watched Crafter's Row for a while. Once Kigran Guard walked by on his regular patrol, Piper followed a fair distance back until she reached the next alley connecting Crafter's Row and Market Street. She considered which of the shops would let her dawdle inside for safety, and concluded that on a warm day, most of them wouldn't. Some of them were kinder when it was really cold, but the season wasn't quite there yet.

The alley it is. Piper tucked herself into a doorway with a view partly blocked by barrels, and settled down to wait. She had eaten well the past few days because of the money from Mr. Arven and Mr. Walker, so she wasn't too hungry. She focused on not getting too cold. She was curious about the stick—Mr. Walker said it was a wand—but she wasn't going to pull it out where someone could see it. So, she just peered down her shirt at it.

It looked weird. It felt like it was made of wood, polished and not painted, but it was bright white. There were at least a couple of gems embedded in it. She abruptly lost her curiosity when she realized that almost anyone she knew would gladly kill her for gems. If people found out she had this before she could get rid of it, she was dead. She pressed her tunic closer to her neck as best she could, without making it really obvious that there was something down her shirt.

Piper forced herself to be calm, and sighed as she waited for the work day to end.

∘ ⛥ ⛯ ⛥ ∘

Piper's parents liked to drink.

They weren't mean to her at all, they just...weren't very good at being people. By her fourth birthday, Piper had figured out that much. Pa was a nice man. But he was too nice. He let everyone yell at him, even Ma. Even when Piper got mad at him, he never yelled back. He just told her he loved her. And that was good, but it wasn't enough. Piper didn't know why, but it just wasn't.

She learned to close her eyes whenever he went to pat her head after the second time he poked her in the eye with a stray finger. He apologized, but it hurt, so Piper always closed at least one eye whenever Pa was too close and waving his hands around. Ma was more of a hugger, her breath stinky like a tavern as she planted sloppy kisses on Piper's cheek.

The houselord was one of the people who yelled at Pa a lot. Pa never had enough silver, but he always gave some, and so they got to stay. Sometimes one of her parents nagged at the other one not to spend so much on drink, and they seemed sort of happier and sadder at the same time. They didn't laugh as much, and they sweat a lot, but they were quieter, gentler. It was nice. But, sooner or later, the other one would get them to drink again.

They even tried to get Piper to drink too, but she got sick all over the floor, and firmly decided that she would never drink that awful stuff again. They kept giving her a drink now and then, and she pretended to drink it, then poured it into one of their glasses when they weren't looking. She got good at doing things when people weren't looking.

She went out while Ma and Pa were sleeping off their drink, and did small errands for coppers wherever she could find them. One of the boys saw and started stealing from her, so she started stealing from him right back, only she did it when he was looking somewhere else. Sometimes she even ended up with more copper than she had before, which was funny. And she learned to hurry up and spend her coin on food and to gobble it down fast, so it couldn't get taken from her again.

She also had to get good at climbing things to get away from the boys sometimes, and learned all the spots that she could climb and they couldn't because they were too heavy.

Then one day, when Piper was six, Pa didn't come home.

Ma cried for days. They went to the death fire and heard the Temple songs, and the houselord didn't come by for a month. Piper got better at cooking, and Ma even stopped drinking for a little while and helped. When the houselord came around again, he didn't yell, but Ma packed up all their things, and they moved to a smaller room.

∘ ⛥ ⛯ ⛥ ∘

Piper stirred as the sounds of the lumberjacks returning reached her in the alley. She looked back and forth, over and over, and decided to chance Market Street. She waited for a big group of men who were talking and laughing together, and then popped out of the alley and walked nearby, shifting around to keep them between her and any guards she saw.

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It worked to get her two blocks up Market Street. She just had to get one block farther, turn right onto Maple Road, and then left onto Summer Street, and she would be there. Her luck ran out, though, when Pudding Guard looked right at her, and decided to start walking her way.

Oh, demon dung, demon dung, demon dung! She waited until a couple of men blocked their view of each other, then darted down the long alley connecting Market Street to Temple Road. He's going to catch me, unless somebody else distracts him. I've got maybe ten heartbeats before he enters the alley and sees me.

She ran, counting buildings and looking for crates, stacks of firewood, and the walls on either side. She spotted the place she wanted, pulled out the wand, and threw it as hard as she could. I don't dare look back to check whether he saw or not. If he watched that throw, he'll know where it is. Piper grinned coldly. Doesn't mean he'll be able to get it, though. Hopefully, I can double back and grab it before he can.

She kept running, as hard as she could, hoping that Pudding would lose interest. She wished she could check, but no good would come of that, so she just ran. Finally, she burst out onto Temple Road, and dashed sideways, mixing in with a group headed for Temple.

She needed to turn left on Maple Street, double back north a bit, and then turn right onto Summer Street. When she went to Maple, Geoff the Guard was walking her way. Demon poop. Piper rejoined the group she had walked with and went inside the Temple, sitting down on the floor to catch her breath.

∘ ⛥ ⛯ ⛥ ∘

Ma and Piper walked around the markets sometimes, not doing much of anything, and one day a performing troupe came to town. Every day for a week, the actors put on the same plays, and Ma and she both loved to watch. At bedtime, Ma would pretend she was the actor, and put on the same play just for her, with a candle and shadows and lots of funny voices. But the best part, for Piper, was seeing her Ma smiling when she pretended.

The next time a playing troupe showed up in town, they went every day. Ma would perform for Piper at night, and Piper would point out her mistakes until they were all gone. By the third day, Ma had learned the new stories word for word.

On the fourth day, a wooden step broke under the woman playing Princess Lovely, almost at the very start of the play. The woman fell down, hurt, right in front of her and Ma. The actors all sort of stopped for a moment, until they had made sure the woman wasn't bleeding. But she couldn't stand on that foot, much less stomp around on the stage like she was supposed to. The boss of the theater started to say something.

Then Ma shouted, "What evil bird is that on my windowsill!" exactly like the other woman had done the day before. Everyone just sort of looked at her as she climbed up onto the stage, then stomped over to the pretend window, where an actor was sort of squatting halfway through. "How dare you come here! The king will have you hanged for this!" Ma shouted.

"But...I had to follow my vision, my dream, my heart!" the actor answered, the way he was supposed to.

And then Ma said the next line, and the actor said the line after that, and someone grabbed the big fan the woman had dropped when she fell, and threw it to Ma, who snatched it out of the air like it was nothing, and beat the actor on the head with it like the princess was supposed to, and somehow Ma was Princess Lovely, and did it even better than the woman who fell. She only fumbled a bit figuring out where to go off the stage so they could throw the costume on over her clothes for the next act.

Piper clapped until her hands hurt. Ma looked so happy!

After the play finished, and Ma took her bows with the others, she started talking excitedly with the actors—the other actors. Piper walked up to tell Ma how great she was, and Ma's face fell. She hurried over and crouched down in front of Piper.

"Piper, sweetie, I need to talk to these people for a while, by myself." She pressed a couple of coins into her hand. "You can get yourself some sweets, and go on home. I'll be along as soon as I can. Go, go, quick!" she whispered, then stood up, twirled, and walked back to the actors. It looked like she was doing a performance already.

Piper went.

∘ ⛥ ⛯ ⛥ ∘

Halfway there.

She walked around inside the Temple, feeling safe. Guards never made trouble inside the Temple. I need to get to Summer Street. She had a wild thought: I wonder if I could pay a grownup to walk me there? Normally, that would be crazy, but if the elves were going to pay her, she could pay someone else with some of that coin.

She decided against it, because she didn't want to deal with the questions an adult would have for her. She didn't want anyone finding the belt under her tunic, either. So, she went back to the entrance of the Temple, and looked out at the plaza.

The way looked clear, even when Piper took a couple of steps outside, stood on her toes and looked farther. She walked behind a couple up Maple Street, and turned right onto Summer. Almost there.

She was so close, she broke into a run, hoping she could get there before anything else went wrong. Nobody paid her any attention. She dashed up the street, ran up to the door, and pounded on it as hard as she could, which wasn't very. She waited a few beats, trying to pretend she was just a regular person, then pounded on the door again.

Finally, it opened, and Piper ducked and darted inside before anyone could stop her. The elf man named Kervan closed the door right away, and everyone turned to stare at her. Miss Eubexa stepped forward in her veil, and didn't wait for Piper to catch her breath.

"Piper? What happened? Did you find our Master?"

Piper nodded, and held up one finger. She heaved a few more breaths, then said, "Mr. Arven, Mr. Kervan, please look away for a minute."

Miss Eubexa said that in Elvish, and the men looked puzzled. Miss Diavla sounded like she was explaining something, and then the two men nodded and turned away. "No peeking," Piper warned.

After they heard that in Elvish, Mr. Arven held up both hands, and Mr. Kervan nodded.

Piper whipped off her tunic. Miss Diavla gasped. She started talking rapidly, sounding upset. Piper pulled the belt over her head and gave it to her, then started wriggling back into her tunic as fast as she could. The men turned around to stare at Diavla and the belt.

"Hey! I said no peeking!" Piper finished struggling into her clothing and smoothed it down. The adults all looked upset now.

"Piper, where did you get our Master's belt?"

"He gave it to me. He's in jail."

"What Tom say?" Diavla demanded. "Please, Piper! What Tom did say?"

"He said..." Piper closed her eyes and acted as well as she could, deepening her voice. "Tell her I love her, I'm sorry, and goodbye. Go!"

Miss Diavla put both hands to her mouth and sank down onto a bench. The others started talking a lot in Elvish, while Miss Diavla stared at nothing and her eyes got wet. She started repeating something quietly, over and over, and Piper was pretty sure it meant "no." Then she said something else.

Piper tugged on Miss Eubexa's sleeve and mouthed, "What's she saying?"

Miss Eubexa leaned down and whispered, "she's saying, 'he'll come back. He has to come back.'"

Piper felt stricken.

∘ ⛥ ⛯ ⛥ ∘

The day after the lady actor fell and hurt her foot, Ma played Princess Lovely again. The lady actor argued with her boss, but he said they couldn't spare the coin for a visit to the Temple to heal her foot, since the physicker had told them that it would heal on its own. Ma gave Piper coins again, and said that she would be busy after the show because there was a lot to do at the end of a play to clean up, and Piper should leave right when they finished their bows.

It made Piper a little sad not to get to talk to the actors, but Ma was having so much fun! She hadn't smiled like that in forever. She even cooked dinner twice that week. She seemed to lose her smile a bit when she looked at Piper, though. So, she stayed quiet and out of the way, and let Ma be happy.

The day the traveling show left town, Ma sent Piper on an errand, and gave her extra coins. She said Piper could buy her very own toy at the toy shop, and to take her time picking out the right one. She felt strange about spending so much coin, when she knew they didn't have enough for the houselord, so she just looked for a long time, imagining which toy she would get. She almost gave in and bought a spinning top, because it was one of the cheapest and still looked fun. But she couldn't get past a bad feeling. She dodged the boys who tried to rob her, walking with a guard partway, then running back to the room she shared with Ma.

There was a bag on the table. When she poked at it, Piper found more money inside it than she had ever seen before. It must have been every copper they had. Next to it was their slate, and Ma had drawn a smiling face and a heart for her. That cheered her up. She settled herself to wait for Ma to come home and tell her more about the actors before bed.

Ma didn't come home that night.

She didn't come home the next day, either.

It's my fault—I can't read. Ma would have left me a written note if I could read it. She drew that she was happy and she loved me. I'm sure she'll come back soon.

She has to come back.

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