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The long-awaited whistle came from high above. Trouble was coming.
Theia was only six when she was left to the mercy of Ketterdam's streets. She was eight when the Dregs recruited her. Two years of working for Ghezen left her in desperate need of escape. She fled through one of the windows in the basement, fighting her way back onto the dirty streets. It was when she accidentally came across the network of children spies, whispering secrets to one another.
She was a little bird in a flock. A crow in a murder.
No one felt the brutality of Ketterdam's streets like she did. You'd think she knew better not to return to the Barrel, but once you got the taste of it, you couldn't run away.
She looked up as Raaven, one of the boys made a shrill whistle. It was her cue.
She ran as fast as her little eight-year-old feet could hold her. She ran down from the roof, onto the stairs of the abandoned building and then into the street. She sought the further corners of the Barrel, the ones no one would dare to use. She was just a child, someone who could be easily snatched by a slaver or a woman of very wrong morals, but the tattoo she bore on her wrist granted her safety.
It wasn't wealth, food or warmth she was after, it was surety she would live another day. The Emissary gave her just that. There was a warehouse where all the children could lie down and have a taste of clean water, but when one of them went missing, the Emissary went raging.
Theia really met her only once. It was when she was recruited and even then it was brief. She proved her loyalty long before she struck a deal with the woman. She only remembered the ridiculous maroon colour she covered herself in and the way her green eyes glinted in the street's light. She was the closest to a mother she had, to someone who protected her.
