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alive. Kethe, she was gorgeous. I guessed her for a Tolmattin, and off the top of my head I could think of two guys in the Lower City who'd commit cold-blooded murder to get their hands on a genuine Tolmattin and a double septad more who'd pay through the nose for it. Miss Thomson hadn't been kidding about the value of the commission.
    And it had been easy, the kind of job a guy like me prays for. Got myself back out of the house and started home across the roofs like I owned the whole city.

    There's only four packs that run the rooftops. I was on pretty good terms with three of them, but the guy who led the fourth wasn't going to be happy until he had my balls on his watch chain. So—you can see it coming, can't you?—there ain't nobody I can meet, coming home across the Corandina's roof in the dark, excepting only Rindleshin and a septad-worth of his pack. It's the way things work.

    We stared at each other, Rindleshin and me, like we couldn't neither of us believe our luck. Then I took off running like an alley cat. If Rindleshin caught me—well, I might not be dead before the sun cleared the city walls, but I sure would wish I was dead by then.

    Rindleshin hated me because of something stupid—a knife fight, almost a septad ago, where I'd made him look really fucking dumb. It's easy to do if you're good and the other guy only thinks he is. And I was too young and too dumb myself to see that it's better to leave the other guy some face. I thought I was quite something back then, like I was another Charlett Redding and they were going to have my hands plated with gold when I died.

    Anyway, Rindleshin's hatred of me was pure poison-green, and his pack hated me right along with him. That's what you got a pack leader for, I guess, to tell you what to think. I knew, the same instant I bolted, that I had to make it to the Badgers' territory. Rindleshin would follow me into the streets, but he wouldn't follow me there. Badgers and Rindleshin's pack were about half an inch this side of war, and Margot was a friend of mine. She'd render him into lard if he took me down on her turf.

    Rindleshin's Pack ran mostly in Simside and Queensdock and almost never came up farther than Engmond's Tor. Kethe only knows what they'd been doing in Lighthill. They didn't know the ground, and I thought, running, to be glad for small favors. On their turf they would've had me cold in a septad-minute, tops.

    They couldn't catch me, but I couldn't fucking ditch them, either. I was lucky to get across the Corandina ahead of them, and I just about killed myself vaulting down into the maze of tenement roofs. It bought me a little time, though, because you got to have training to do it that way, and not all of them did. They were smart enough to know they didn't want to split up.

    I dragged in a breath, got my bearings against Ver-Istenna's bronze dome, and then I put my head down and ran. Ver-Istenna's marked the north side of the Badgers' territory. I could hear Rindleshin's pack yelling behind me, like I was cheating or something. I wanted to turn around and tell them to go fuck themselves sideways with a barge pole, but my lead wasn't long enough. I just ran, and they didn't quite catch me.
    Up the fire escape on Lornless's sweatshop like a madman, praying the rungs wouldn't break under me. Rindleshin's pack was shouting ideas about what they wanted to do with me. I ran full tilt across Lornless's roof and didn't even stop at the edge. I just jumped, like a squirrel in Richard's Park, and caught hold of one of Ver-Istenna's gargoyles, the ones that watch all the time, in all directions, to tell her where balance is slipping out of true.
    I glanced over my shoulder then. I couldn't help it, because I was a big fat target, spread out there with my fingers digging into the gargoyle's neck like I was trying to strangle it and about half a foot braced on the cornice or a window. Anybody in Rindleshin's pack fancied themself a knife-thrower, and my