To Steal from Thieves

Book 1: Thieves & Kings

by M.K. Lobb

Genres: YA Dark Fantasy; YA Historical Fantasy

Synopsis

In this high-stakes heist novel, an alchemologist and a con man team up to steal a rare necklace—but complicated feelings of attraction and deception threaten to destroy everything and everyone they love—for fans of Alexandra Bracken and Judy I. Lin.

Within the dazzling halls of London’s Crystal Palace, the event of the season has arrived: The Great Exhibition. An opportunity for the greatest minds of the century to come together under one roof in an unprecedented display of art and invention. And for two unlikely partners in crime, it’s about to become the score of a lifetime.

Charming conman Kane Durante works alone—or on occasion with his best friend, Fletcher. But when his boss, the infamous Kingpin of London’s magical dark market, gives him the impossible task of stealing a priceless artifact from the Great Exhibition, he knows it’s a job he can’t pull off alone. Enter Zaria Mendoza, daughter of one of London’s greatest alchemologists. Ever since her father’s death, Zaria’s been struggling to keep her underground business afloat, and impatient clients are becoming violent. When the infuriatingly handsome Kane offers her the promise of enough money to get out of debt and leave London entirely, she knows she can’t walk away from this dangerous partnership.

But robbing one of the most public, heavily-guarded buildings in London isn’t going to be easy, especially when love and betrayal threaten to ruin everything they've worked so hard for.

Release date: March 25, 2025

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Print pages: 400

Sample

ZARIA MENDOZA EMPTIED A VIAL OF BLOOD INTO THE FLAME.

Rather than sputter out, the candle burned brighter, a column of orange stretching to the workshop’s low ceiling. There was a sparkling quality to the illumination—a result of the soulsteel Zaria had added prior to the blood. The ashy powder still clung to her fingers, and a distinctive grit filled her mouth as the flame continued to burn. She focused on it with narrowed eyes, waiting for the transformation to occur.

Perhaps it was the late hour, but the reaction seemed more sluggish than usual. Zaria felt a single drop of perspiration track a line down her temple. There was no room for failure. Not when she’d left everything until the last minute.

As she had this thought, the candlelight appeared to condense, blood and powder melting into one. Relief shot through Zaria like a well-aimed arrow. She dropped heavily into her chair, grasping the tiny crimson shard that crystallized into existence the moment the flame flickered out.

Primateria. The physical embodiment of magic was warm to the touch as Zaria rolled the gemlike object between her fingers, eyeing its faint yet enduring glow. It was weak magic—limited magic—but that was the only form there was. Nonetheless, its creation always leached her strength. Exhaustion unfurled in Zaria’s veins as the high faded, and for a moment, the world around her seemed a little less tangible.

Another tiny piece of herself gone, channeled into her work. Lapped up hungrily by the processes that made her creations what they were. It was the price you paid when magic was made, not inherent. Blood and soulsteel, soulsteel and blood.

Heart thumping in her ears, she turned to the revolver on her side table. Objectively, it was a beautiful thing: Its inner workings were visible through the intentional cracks in its alloy exterior, the cogs and gears moving like clockwork. She suspected it was sleeker than any gun the Metropolitan Police had in their possession, and stroked it fondly before prying open a hidden compartment and depositing the primateria. It clicked into position, embraced smoothly by the rest of the inner workings. Light flickered along the metal like tiny bolts of lightning—it was always enjoyable to watch magic force its way in—then settled. Zaria’s stomach gave a satisfied lurch as her shoulders relaxed.

“Lovely,” she murmured, and stepped back.

The revolver was not merely a weapon, but an entity of whirring parts and careful calculations. Alchemology—the creation of magical items—was a difficult study. One wrong measurement or maneuver could result in disaster. Despite its being a learned skill, some people were more innately capable of alchemology than others. It took years of practice. Of learning to retreat deep into your own mind while maintaining multiple threads of focus. Most people never achieved it at all.

Then again, few tried. Alchemology was illegal in Britain, considered an occult practice by Parliament and the monarchy. Even if it had been a respected trade, errors were common, and most practitioners either died or quit before they mastered it. As someone prone to making errors, Zaria was very careful with her work.

Her father, though, had commanded alchemology the way a skilled artist commanded a paintbrush. Itzal Mendoza’s arrival in 1830s London saw him catapulted to the heights of dark market demand, and he’d taught his daughter everything he knew. He’d been forever frustrated by her lack of focus, her poor attention to detail, and her penchant for leaving things unfinished. When she could focus, though, she worked for hours at a time, neglecting all else in favor of her creation. With Itzal gone, it was how she made her living. But in a world where the inexplicable was considered satanic, the products of alchemology were only trafficable by certain channels.

Usually illegal ones.

Zaria traced the barrel of the gun with a finger. Her father had died last year, leaving her with nothing but dangerous knowledge and an absurd number of unfinished commissions. Commissions that needed to be seen through, because everyone knew how risky it was to disappoint a dark market client. She had no choice but to continue her father’s work. Though she tried desperately to navigate the market the way Itzal had, she lacked his organization, his easy charm. His lingering reputation simply wasn’t enough to bolster hers. Then, of course, there was the fact that men dabbling in criminal transactions didn’t often trust a young woman. Not with magic, and certainly not with their money. But these were the slums, and Zaria tried to make it work. What other option did she have?

A light knock sounded on the doorframe, slicing the silence. Zaria turned, her attention immediately compromised. “Oh. Hi, Jules.”

Framed by the entrance to her workshop was Julian Zhao, son of the pawnbroker who owned the building. He was also her closest friend. Zaria wasn’t great at friends. She tended to approach people the same way she did alcohol: She kept them around while they were fun and shoved them out of sight when they gave her a headache.

But Jules was an exception. He couldn’t be shoved out of sight, though his slight stature might have suggested otherwise. With a shock of black hair turned brassy by the candlelight, he might as well have been part of the house itself.

“Your twelve o’clock is here,” Jules said slyly, thrusting his shoulders back as if to mimic a high-society butler. “Two of them. They’re waiting for you in my father’s office.”

Exhilaration surged through Zaria’s veins. She blew out the last candles in her workshop, casting the blueprints papering the walls into darkness. “It’s never just one, is it?”

Then she strode across the dirt floor toward Jules, the scent of smoke thick in her nostrils. He moved aside to let her emerge into the dusty hallway that connected the pawnshop with the rest of the tiny brick house. It was far from a charming property, but compared to the rest of the slum, it may as well have been a manor. Of course, operating a business in this area also meant you owed a weekly debt to the kingpin for his crew’s protection—whether you wanted it or not.

“Don’t look so nervous,” Jules said archly. “Think of the money.”

Zaria raised her eyebrows. She knew she didn’t look nervous, even if her stomach was in knots. She was wearing what Jules called her business face—which was to say, no expression at all. She was good at putting on whatever mask served her best. If anyone looked apprehensive, it was Jules. He was a twitchy sort of creature, his emotions presenting themselves in flashes that disappeared as quickly as they came.

“I’d like more money than they’re going to offer,” Zaria said bitterly, and Jules gave a thin-lipped smile.

“You’d like more money than you could carry.”

Who wouldn’t, Zaria wondered, in a place like this? When the nights were cold and people were forced most months to choose between food and rent?

“Enough money to fill a man’s pockets and drown him.”

“I can think of worse ways to go,” Jules said.

Zaria couldn’t argue with that. “Your father’s not around, is he?” she asked as they ascended the crumbling staircase. She could hear the tightness in her voice and made an effort to shove her nerves further down. Her head still spun with the painful sensation that always followed the creation of primateria, and she squeezed her eyes shut. When she blinked them open again, the world righted itself, though a low throb still pulsed at the base of her skull.

“He had business on Drury Lane. Why?”

“It’d be awkward if he found me doing dark market dealings in his office, now wouldn’t it?”

Jules gave a soft laugh devoid of humor. “Perhaps. But it’s not as though his hands are clean.”

That was true. After all, George Zhao ran a pawnshop in the heart of a London slum; he couldn’t very well be expected to have a strong moral compass. He did what it took, and Zaria didn’t begrudge him that. If you ever ceased trying to claw your way up in society, you’d be trampled in a heartbeat.

Jules caught up with her as she rounded the corner at the end of the hallway. The flickering candlelight lit his angular face in a strange way as he forced Zaria to hold his gaze. His dark eyes were made for seeing through falsities. “Are you sure you don’t want me in there with you? They’ll have guns.”

“And if they want another one, they won’t shoot me. I’ll be fine.”

In this part of London, women didn’t have the luxury of relying on people to do things for them. If their husbands weren’t dead from disease, then they were neck deep in drink or else slinking off to some brothel. Zaria Mendoza made her own deals, and she would see them through.

Jules spread his hands in good-natured surrender. “All right. Well, scream if anything goes wrong.”

“If you hear screaming,” Zaria said, “I assure you it won’t be coming from me.”

She watched with some measure of disconnect as Jules disappeared back down the stairs, then glanced down at her cracked pocket watch. Twelve-fifteen in the morning. Her meeting was supposed to have been at midnight, which meant she’d kept them waiting long enough so as to be fashionably late. She took a steadying breath. It had been so much easier when her father was alive. Not only because his commissions kept them afloat in the grime-encrusted belly of the slum, but also because he’d been the one to do the actual transactions. No matter how many times Zaria met with a client—or one of their hired grunts—she felt inadequate somehow. They always looked at her with confusion or distrust. As if her appearance would somehow impact the quality of her work.

Luckily, her work had gotten far better over the years. So she endured the gibes, the sideways glances, the far-too-low offers. Word of mouth was how any dark market vendor built a reputation, so satisfaction was crucial. If that meant accepting less money for the time being, then fine. She simply needed to be patient. The right deal would come along, and once she’d fulfilled all her father’s commissions, perhaps she could be free.

Besides, things were already looking up. Tonight, her buyer was one of the most powerful men on this side of London.

Zaria took a deep breath. Then she shook her hair back, stood up straight, and shoved open the door at the end of the hall.

She sauntered into George Zhao’s office, ignoring the two men who hovered on the far side of the room. It was always vaguely embarrassing to meet here, where her patrons could see the walls stained by water damage and the items cluttering every available surface. Where they might notice how much dirt caked the floor no matter how often Jules tried to sweep it aside.

But what mattered most in transactions like these was how you presented yourself. So Zaria stalked over to the chair behind the desk, sank into it, and propped her feet up. Only then did she make eye contact, forcing an expectant kind of confidence onto her face. “Evening, gentlemen.”

Now that she had deigned to look directly at them, she examined the men with interest. Both were tall and dark haired, though not in a way that made her suspect they were related. The older of the two was balding, with an angry face and thick eyebrows. The younger had a sharp jaw and straight nose, his expression bemused. They were clad in all black, their trousers and overcoats made of thick linens. Those who risked their necks to deal on behalf of the rich—provided they didn’t steal anything—were well compensated. And if they did steal something, it wasn’t difficult to find someone else willing to hunt them down.

Zaria leaned back in her cushioned chair, positioning the revolver wordlessly on the desk.

The older man grunted. “Is that it?”

“Yes.”

He started forward, eyes narrowed in distrust. “Looks more or less like a regular firearm.”

Zaria raised a brow, and even the younger man shot his companion a disdainful glance. The expression looked comfortable on him, complementing his high collar and the vaguely amused curve of his mouth. If trouble wore a face, Zaria thought, it was undoubtedly that of the boy before her.

“That’s the point.” She drew out the words as if speaking to a fool. “Unless you wanted to draw questions from the coppers, I suggest you thank me for my ingenuity.”

The man’s face reddened.

“Relax, Larkin,” the younger man drawled. To Zaria, he added, “Show us.”

Zaria shrugged, taking the gun in one hand. The thing about her style of revolver was this: It wasn’t a revolver at all. You didn’t have to go through the inconvenient, menial task of loading it every time you fired more than a few shots. The cylinder spun as it should, but that was merely for show. Her guns didn’t fire bullets; they fired magic.

Real magic was nothing like the stories described it—its sole use was manipulation. As long as you had the right tools and materials, you could use primateria to modify an object’s purpose into one that should otherwise be impossible. Simple, more common examples included perpetually burning lamps and unbreakable glass, but the dark market wasn’t concerned with items like that. People wanted weapons. So that was what Zaria made, because anything she didn’t get paid for was a waste of energy.

She pointed the revolver lazily at a thick panel of wood leaning against the wall—already riddled with holes from prior demonstrations—and pulled the trigger.

The gears whirled as light flashed from the barrel of the gun, leaving a barely visible shimmer in its wake that hung in the air, filling the space with a lightly acrid smell. There, in the panel across the room, was a fresh hole. Magic fired from a gun ate away at material in the same way a highly concentrated acid might. It worked faster, though. Much faster.

And unlike bullets, magic left no trace.

Zaria turned back to her audience expectantly. The younger man tipped his head back and laughed; there was something sharp about the sound. He ambled over to the wooden slab, dragging a finger over the new indent. Dark eyes found hers across the room.

“It’s not very big.”

Now it was Zaria’s turn to laugh, long and low in her stomach. “That a line you hear a lot?”

His brows lifted, though he continued to look more amused than anything else.

“Kane,” Larkin said chidingly, making the single syllable a long-suffering sound before addressing Zaria. “Fifteen shillings.”

Anything below three pounds struck her as an insult, but Zaria knew how to play this game. She didn’t respond, only let out a small laugh as she crossed her ankles on the desk. Her blood raced in the silence that followed. Their opinions didn’t matter; all she needed was for the gun to make it back to their boss, who would be impressed.

Larkin huffed. “Fine. A pound.”

She kept waiting.

“Two.”

Zaria dropped her feet back to the floor, sliding the chair forward to fix the duo with the full weight of her glare. “Does Lord Saville want this or not? If he can’t afford it, then get out of my house.” She scoffed. “Because I feel sorry for you, I’ll settle for three pounds.”

This time Larkin laughed, and Zaria did not.

“You don’t quite understand what I have here, do you?” she said. “You must be new to dark market paraphernalia. This is a weapon like nothing you’ve ever seen. It never needs loading, will never rust. It puts other market revolvers to shame. Hell, it’ll put the inventions in the Great Exhibition to shame.”

“How does a girl like you know what’ll be in the Great Exhibition?” Larkin said, his voice dripping derision.

“A girl like me always does her homework.” Besides, it was hard to miss the gossip. The docks were filled with ships as of late, each one supposedly delivering impressive feats of art and technology from all over the world to be displayed in London’s Crystal Palace. With them came slews of patrons who rarely talked about anything else. It was driving Zaria rather mad, though the rest of the city seemed abuzz with excitement. She suspected that had to do with the ongoing publicity campaign—the event had been continually redefined through posters, press releases, and handouts until the public response turned more favorable. Zaria wasn’t so easily convinced, suspecting it an excuse for British industries to flaunt their success.

“And you think you can compete with professional inventors, do you?”

She refocused on Larkin. “Yes.”

He grunted. “Two’s the final offer.”

Zaria crossed her arms. At the same time, something twisted deep in the pit of her stomach. “Don’t pretend your boss isn’t prepared to pay for it. He knew full well what it was going to cost. I’ll give you three seconds to accept my offer, or I’m going to find someone willing to pay double. Trust me—it won’t be hard.” She held up three fingers, then flicked one down. “Two seconds.”

Larkin looked furious, though the younger man—Kane—quirked his mouth. He was handsome, Zaria conceded to herself, though in the way of someone fully aware of it.

“One.” She stood as if to leave. The tension in the air was palpable, but she let it wash over her. She didn’t have another buyer, but they didn’t know that. What did it matter? She had the upper hand. She’d grasped it with ease.

“Good evening, gentlemen.” She gave them a curt salute.

Larkin slammed three pounds onto the desk.

She scooped the coins up lightning quick, tossing him the revolver in return. “Nice doing business with you. Oh,” she added as the pair made for the door, “and don’t get caught with that.”

Larkin thrust the gun at Kane, who handled it with the caution one might show a newborn baby. Zaria watched them go. They could find their way out alone.

She collapsed back into the chair, money clutched between her fingers, and let her forehead rest against the cool surface of the desk. The world spun behind her closed eyelids. How much longer would she be able to do this? She needed to make a living, and the dark market allowed her to do what she did best. But alchemology had a cost—or, rather, the creation of primateria did. It took from a person. Zaria had seen that much firsthand.

Her father had died after giving too much of himself to his craft. Zaria had been forced to watch him wither away, his skin turning paper-thin, his face desiccating into a skeletal likeness of the man she’d known. Yet even as he’d drawn his last breath, he hadn’t believed his love of alchemology was killing him. Denial had been his downfall.

Zaria still had time. She was barely eighteen. But creating magic was like a drug, and the more she did it, the faster she would burn out. There was a reason people didn’t commit to a life like this. And what did she have to show for it?

Three pounds. Three pounds wasn’t enough. Not when rent was due and alchemology supplies cost nearly as much as a finished product. She had promised Jules they’d leave this place—that he wouldn’t have to waste away like his father, relying on the desperation of others, on the come and go of clients on redemption day.

There was no life to be had in the London slums.

Either you died here, or you got the hell out.

KANE DURANTE WAS TIRED OF LARKIN’S COMPANY. HE’D SPENT days with the man, conducting dark market business like a hired grunt, yet he hadn’t learned anything useful. Frustration and impatience formed a poisonous concoction in his veins as he tossed the revolver from one hand to the other, marveling at its lightness. Unlike every other magical firearm he’d seen, it was sleeker, quieter, and if Kane wasn’t mistaken, more deadly accurate.

Magic wasn’t harmful by default, but it could certainly be made that way. Once laws forbidding alchemology had pushed practitioners into the shadows, the dark market had snapped them up, and now magic was all but synonymous with destruction. That’s the way it had been for centuries, and he couldn’t see things changing anytime soon.

For his part, Kane had never attempted to create magic. If you wanted to actually do anything with it, you had to understand mechanics and chemistry, physics and mathematics, and his smarts were more of the street sort.

“Put that away,” Larkin said, a hiss that sliced the night. “You heard what she said. Besides, if Saville saw you—”

“No one will see me.” Kane rolled his eyes but stowed the gun in his waistband nonetheless. “As far as I’m concerned, once we deliver it, Saville can shove it firmly up his—”

“Kane.”

Kane gave an easy smile, if a little impish. Larkin was a large man, all broad shoulders with an expression to frighten children, but he wasn’t the fool Kane had hoped for. Rarely did he reveal anything of use.

“You’d best watch your mouth, Hunt,” Larkin growled, saying Kane’s false surname with all the confidence of someone who didn’t know it was false. “If Saville heard you talking this way, he’d have your body in the sewers with a knife in the throat.”

“Your loyalty to Saville is truly admirable.” In fact, it was getting on Kane’s nerves.

Larkin snorted. “What do you know about loyalty? You’ve been working for him for—what? Five minutes?”

“Five days,” Kane grumbled. Five whole days, and he was no closer to finding the necklace. It was meant to be arriving on a ship from Ireland soon, then to be displayed in the Exhibition in two weeks’ time. The event had been advertised for months now by posters proclaiming THE GREAT EXHIBITION OF ALL NATIONS—1ST MAY, 1851! Once the necklace was in the public eye, stealing it would be next to impossible. Kane needed to work fast. If he failed, Saville would be the least of his worries.

It shouldn’t have been difficult. All Kane needed to know was which ship the necklace would be on and when it was arriving. Since Saville’s company oversaw the city docks, Saville was the perfect mark. It had been easy enough to get hired by the lord, but labor at the riverbank had quickly turned to less savory deeds. They weren’t something Kane was unused to, but running dark market errands gave him less time to keep an eye on the river. Less time to search Saville’s numerous offices or manipulate his other employees into talking. All Kane really needed was a schedule—a ledger—something. But Larkin, Saville’s longtime grunt, either didn’t know shit or was careful not to let anything slip no matter how many times Kane manipulated the conversation to that end.

And right now, Larkin’s eyes were a warning. “He won’t keep you if he finds out you’re talking like that.”

“Who’s gonna tell him?” Kane goaded. “You?”

“I ain’t no snitch, but not everyone’s as nice as me.”

Kane made a sound in the back of his throat. Larkin may not have been a rat, but he was about as nice as one. He said nothing, though, as they made their silent way down the street. The cobblestones were lined with shallow trenches carrying vile liquid matter to the cesspools, and one had to swerve every so often to avoid horse dung or buckets of human piss tossed from windows. London’s rich could afford brass piping and shower basins, but the only clean water here came from a single standpipe in each building. This particular slum was known as Devil’s Acre. It was a place for criminals, and for people so poor their morals had long since fled.

It was also the place they were to meet Lord Saville’s messenger, who would give them money if they showed up and put a price on their heads if they didn’t.

Or, at least, so the rumors went.

Kane preferred to avoid Devil’s Acre at all costs. No matter the season or time of day, the area was wet, loud, and generally gag inducing. Unsupervised youths went barefoot as they slunk between the crowded rows of terraced housing, and the overall state of filth was indescribable. If death could be a physical place, it was undoubtedly Devil’s Acre. Even being here for a short time was nauseating, and Kane set his teeth as he averted the sunken gazes of its unhoused occupants, a pit forming in his stomach.

The sulfurous stench was overwhelming as he followed Larkin down an alleyway, fighting the urge to cover his nose. The slum was a good place to conduct business, though, if only because the coppers had long since given up trying to force it into any semblance of order. The dark pressed in alongside the ammonia-stained buildings, which became tighter and more uniform. A beggar flung himself at Larkin’s feet, murmuring something about coin and blessings, and Larkin kicked him away.

“Can’t get nowhere around here,” Larkin said as Kane’s hand twitched to the knife in his waistband. “Not without being accosted by scum or guttersnipes, anyway.”

Kane wasn’t sure he shared the sentiment, but he could admit the desperately poor were sometimes vicious. He sidestepped a second man with a dirt-encrusted hat, scanning the shadowy street. “Where is he?”

Larkin shrugged. “We were late meeting the girl. He should’ve arrived before us.”

The alchemologist. Though he was aware of Mendoza’s reputation, it was the first time Kane’d had any dealings with her. He was still reeling from both the quality of her work and her obvious youth. He’d been picturing an older woman, not one on the cusp of adulthood. It was her overall presence, though, that had struck him most. Slim but somehow imposing. Mousy brown hair and a face like a predator, calculating and fierce. A little hungry.

Kane wondered what, exactly, she was hungry for.

Larkin rumbled, “There he is,” and Kane glanced up to see Fletcher Collins slink around the corner like the snake he was.

Kane knew from experience that rich lords tended to put their trust in one of two types of men: the charming, self-important bastard or the dangerous gentleman with no time for good humor. Kane played the first type, Fletcher the second. It had quickly become clear Saville preferred the latter, so Kane’s fellow con man had ended up in the role of confidante. No matter how hard Fletcher tried, however, he hadn’t been able to get Saville to divulge anything of import. And now Kane was wasting time fetching dark market weapons, of all things.

He did enough of that as Kane Durante. It was rather tiring to do it as Kane Hunt, too.

“Did you get it?” Fletcher said by way of greeting. He was blond with high cheekbones, his speech stilted to cover his Irish accent. It was a far more believable act than it had been when he and Kane were younger. When they’d pulled cons simply because they’d wanted to.

Things were different now. That was the way it was, Kane supposed, when you were the adopted son of the most feared man in Devil’s Acre. When you were the most loved, trusted, and depended upon of his circle.

But being loved by Alexander Ward, kingpin of the dark market, was like trying to escape the jaws of a wolf. A constant struggle and one you couldn’t possibly win. So you were forced to wait, poised among the teeth, until eventually you learned to use your own.

“Of course we got it.” Kane pulled the revolver from his waistband with a wink. “What are you going to give us for it?”

Larkin’s eyes bulged, but Fletcher ignored the barb. “The real question is, what did you end up giving her?”

“Three.”

There was a pause as Fletcher digested that. “Seems like a lot.”

“Saville gave us five,” Larkin pointed out. He’d made no secret of his disdain for Fletcher, and frankly Kane couldn’t blame him. Fletcher had gained Saville’s favor with inexplicable speed while Larkin was still a glorified errand boy. Much to Kane’s chagrin, Fletcher had been summoned away from the docks almost immediately. He supposed it was penance for having the build of a bodyguard and the poker face of a politician.

“Besides,” Larkin went on, “Mendoza was being difficult. Said she could sell it for twice as much if we didn’t accept.”

“That’s what everyone selling something says,” Fletcher snapped. He snatched the revolver from Kane’s hands. “You two are fools.”

“You don’t need brains to do someone else’s business” was Kane’s smooth retort. “We got it, didn’t we? And it’s the best of its kind, at least from what I’ve seen. I’ll eat my hat if Saville isn’t proper chuffed.”

Larkin’s face was wary, and Kane didn’t blame him. With his impassive eyes and sharp tongue, Fletcher put on an intimidating act. You never knew he was angry until his fist was already in your mouth.

Kane had a decent punch, but he had an even better smile, so he tended to use that more. He flashed it now, purely in a show of annoying his friend.

Fletcher glowered. “You each get five shillings.”

“Five shillings?” Kane repeated the words with mock incredulity but accepted the money. The little pouch was heavy, linen-smothered shillings rolling over his fingertips. Larkin opened his and peered inside, but Kane slipped the coins into his pocket without hesitation.

Fletcher arched a brow. “You’re not going to count it?”

“I trust you.”

Fletcher’s mouth twisted to hide his amusement. A few raindrops had begun to spatter their heads, and Larkin turned up the collar of his frock coat.

“We’re done here. Kane, go back to whatever hole you crawled up out of.”

“Until next time,” Fletcher agreed.

With a salute in Larkin’s direction, Kane slipped into the shadows, resigned to making the walk alone while Flet