JI WORKED IN silence, scrubbing dung, oiling leather, polishing buckles, and mending tassels. His back and neck throbbed, but that was nothing new. Bits of him had ached every day for the past three years, from hunching over boots.
“What’re they having a house party for, anyway?” Sally asked.
“Who knows?”
“Fun, I guess,” Sally said.
“Stupid fun,” Ji muttered.
Sally snorted in agreement, though she actually liked fun—just not as much as she liked truth and justice. She should’ve been born a knight with a gleaming sword and spent her life riding into battle against the mountain ogres. Instead, she’d been born a servant.
After Sally’s mothers disappeared from Primstone, she’d raised her little brother, Chibo, all by herself. She dreamed of becoming a squire, but shoveling horse manure every day didn’t leave much time for battling monsters . . . though she wasn’t afraid to fight. When the tapestry weavers dragged Chibo away last year, she’d tried to stop them with a pitchfork. They’d broken one of her arms and she’d barely even cried.
Ji took the dainty boots from his bag, and the stench filled the chimney. His eyes watered and he wanted to spit.
“What is that?” Sally asked.
“Swan poop.”
“Gross.”
“Look who’s talking.” Ji breathed through his mouth as he wiped the filthy boot. “You smell like horse manure.”
“Horse manure doesn’t stink.”
“Only you think that.”
Ji rubbed the leather with lavender oil until the stench faded. He picked the seams clean, then wiped and polished every surface. He rinsed and dried the laces, rethreaded them, and finally eyed the decorative bangles at the ankles.
“Hmmm,” he said, jingling them with his fingertip.
“Uh-oh,” Sally said.
“What?”
“Are they silver?” she asked. “I’m feeling conflicted again.”
“They’re not only silver,” he said, feeling a spark of excitement. “They’re pure silver.”
“If they’re worth that much, maybe you should leave them alone.”
He jingled the bangles again. “Why?”
“Because, y’know . . .” She shrugged. “Stealing’s a crime?”
“Who cares? With this much silver, we’re done. We’ll have enough to save Chibo!”
Sally tugged at her frizzy hair. She needed the money to buy her brother from the tapestry weavers before he died. That was what happened to kids who worked at the looms all day: if exhaustion didn’t kill Chibo, the fumes would.
As the youngest of fourteen, Ji had always been the baby—until he’d met cheerful, impish, reckless seven-year-old Chibo. Finally, he’d felt like a big brother. Chibo was ten now, but he’d always seemed younger. Ji had taught him how to snag food from the kitchen and where to hide from Butler. He’d taught him how to play dice and tie knots and catch eels. He’d always wanted a little brother, and he’d finally had one—until the tapestry weavers dragged him away.
So Ji had started stealing boot ornaments to pay for Chibo’s freedom.
“Nobles don’t need fancy beads and buckles on their shoes,” he’d told Sally. “They don’t even care. They drag them through the mud.”
“Stealing is wrong,” she’d said.
“So is leaving Chibo to die at the looms.”
“We can’t steal stuff that doesn’t belong to us!”
“We can’t steal stuff that does belong to us,” Ji had pointed out. “That’s not stealing.”
“You know what I mean!” She’d narrowed her eyes. “It’s wrong, Ji. It’s dishonorable.”
“Honor’s useless,” he’d told her. “Just like boot beads.”
She’d glowered at him. “What if they catch you? I won’t let you hang, not for me and Chibo.”
So Ji had told her the truth: “I’m not just doing it for you and Chibo.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know my brother Tomás?”
“Which one is he?”
“The oldest. Pa says I look just like him. He started as a tea boy and rose all the way to footman before he caught the fever. His lord and lady wouldn’t let him rest, because they liked how he served soup. He got sicker and sicker . . . .” Ji scowled at the floor. “Until he died. So they hired a new footman. They replaced him like a worn heel. And in Tomás’s whole life, he never did anything that mattered.”
“Like what?” Sally asked.
“Like trying to save a friend, no matter what it takes. Or like . . . breaking free of all this.”
“All what?”
“All the bowing and scraping,” Ji said, his face suddenly hot. “All the stupid boots and stupid rules. Trying to help Chibo is the only worthwhile thing I’ve ever done, Sally. That’s what I mean. I’m doing this for me. Because otherwise, I’ll just live and die and never matter.”
A tangle of silken cords bound the silver bangles to the dainty boots. “This is the most fashionable knot this season,” Ji said, tugging at a loop.
“You’ll never unravel that,” Sally said.
“Want to bet?”
“Not without cutting through the—”
Ji flicked the untied cords. “Done.”
“Whoa! Not bad.”
“I’m a boot boy. I’m good with knots.” He tossed the silver bangles to Sally. “Here. The first part of our crime spree is done.”
She made a face but stood and pulled a stone from the fireplace wall. She tucked the bangles in a hollow niche packed with beads, ribbons, and even a tiny pearl. Those were Ji’s most prized possessions.
Working fast, Ji tied a pair of cheap tin bangles from his box in place of the silver ones, copying the elaborate knot.
“You really think we have enough loot to save Chibo?” Sally asked, shoving the stone back in place.
“I’m pretty sure.”
“If we can find someone to buy it.”
Ji finished the knot. “I heard you can sell anything in the city. In the rough neighborhoods.”
“Because they’re full of criminals.”
“Right,” he said.
“And we’re bringing stolen stuff there,” she continued, “which means we’re criminals too.”
“Only because we have to be.”
“That’s what all criminals think!”
Ji started packing the clean boots. “Yeah, but there’s one big difference.”
“What’s that?”
“We’re right.”
“It’s not funny, Ji.”
He thought it was a little funny, but he kept that to himself. “So how do we get to the city?”
She glared at him. “We are not going to steal horses.”
“Some of us can’t even ride them.” He kneaded his aching forearm. “But what I meant was, there’s no way they’ll give us a week off, to get there and back.”
“We’ll probably have to lie and cheat,” she grumbled.
“And steal!” Ji said. “Don’t forget stealing.”
“Jerk,” she said, and threw a candle stub at him.
So he tossed the swan-poop rag at her and fled.