The Orphan and the Thief

Chapter One: The Lost Thief

Toad, a boy of twelve with wild, messy hair and a coat far too large for him, walked down the streets of Hickory in a daze. He passed his favorite sweet shop without a glance; his eyes didn't even stray after a chattering woman, dressed in vibrant silks, her glittering, ring-covered fingers lazily holding a leather handbag, practically screaming to be pinched. He stumbled like a drunk, bumping into people and not bothering to reply to their curses.

"Watchit!"

Toad looked up in time to see a horse and buggy skid to a halt, inches from trampling him. He hadn't even noticed it.

"Look where you're going, louse!" the buggy driver yelled.

Toad merely looked away and shuffled on, his mind too preoccupied with looping the horrible conversation he had just sat through.

I had hopes for you. But I was wrong.

You ain't cut out to be a Rambler, boy. I don't want to see you back here, understood?

How could this have happened? How could Jack have kicked him out? So what if Toad wasn't the best thief in the city. He'd been getting better. Loads better. He just got overexcited, that was all.

How could Jack have kicked him out?

Toad stopped beside a large pet menagerie, his chest tight and painful. The shower that morning was gone and the hot summer sunlight bounced off the store's glass window, momentarily blinding him. He stepped under the striped awning. His reflection looked back at him in the giant front window: slump-shouldered and hollow-eyed. He looked far removed from the confident Rambler he'd been a mere day ago.

Behind the store's window were straw-covered cages, each with a Spit-Fire. Toad watched the miniature dragons smolder and chirp. They were the size of large cats and ranged from fiery red to cool blue. With a sickening twist of his stomach, Toad was flung back to Marsh Manor, where everything had crumbled around his ears: Lynch arrested, Madam Marsh's fine porcelain left behind as Toad bolted, an angry Spit-Fire at his heels.

It's time you faced facts, Toad, Jack had said. I can't keep paying for your mistakes.

Toad leaned close, resting his forehead against the warm glass, staring at a lavender Spit-Fire curled up into a tight ball, fast asleep; small corkscrew swirls of smoke escaped its nostrils. If only he had a Spit-Fire, then he'd train it to steal for him. It'd scale the sides of houses and slip through open windows, stashing whatever it could grab in its jaws, while he stayed on the street, safely out of view. No one - not even brutish Bone - would bully him if he had a Spit-Fire.

"Hey! You! Get away from there!" The owner bustled out of the shop, flapping a broom.

Scowling, Toad stuffed his fists into his pockets and slouched away, settling down onto a bit of curb once the menagerie was out of sight.

What was he going to do?

The panic in Toad's chest began to froth in earnest. He didn't know how to live without the Ramblers. They were all he knew - all he had ever known. He couldn't remember a day not spent as a member of the thief gang. Where was Toad supposed to go now? If only he could get in touch with his father! But Toad had never bothered to learn to read or write and he didn't have a clue where his father even was. Halfway across Calendula? In the middle of the Olgen Sea? How was a letter supposed to reach the pirate all the way out there ... and (Toad's chest constricted still further) would his father even want him once he'd learned his son had been kicked out of the Ramblers? Would a pirate embrace a son who couldn't even steal?

A thief wasn't anybody without his mates. Toad wasn't anybody without the Ramblers. The hot, bubbling panic boiled upward so that, much to Toad's horror, pricks of tears stung his eyes.