39. Poked the Hornet’s Nest
“Sis, sis, have mercy!” The little thief yelled, face to the dust like a fallen sparrow.
Lilith had her pinned. Her knee pressed like a river stone.
She hated being called “little sis”, so she leaned in harder, like a mountain.
“What did you call me?” Lilith tried to sound imperial, thunder behind silk.
But the Little White Dragon’s voice was soft and sticky with a chocolate cone.
It slurred like a kindergarten kid skipping out the gate, all sugar, no steel.
“Big sis, big sis—fairy sis!” The thief switched fast, like a sparrow dodging rain.
A blade kissed her throat, cold as a winter moon.
Fear froze her; she dared not twitch, afraid Lilith’s knife would fall like lightning.
“Hmph. Smart kid.” Lilith finally stowed the Ancient Ark, like folding a storm into a box.
Nidhogg took the chocolate ice cream from the little dragon’s tail with practiced grace.
With her tail free, Lilith tugged down the thief’s hood, pulling shadow off a face.
Just as she’d guessed, the thief was a dark, skinny beastkin girl, a little wolf.
Her eyes were wet and wide, two rain-glossed lanterns fixed on Lilith.
“Beastkin?” Nidhogg was surprised and crouched, gaze like a hunter over snow.
“A werewolf? Why’s one in Lamter?”
“Mmm-mmm!” The girl clamped her mouth, a clam in cold surf, and shook her head like wind-bent reeds.
“Beastkin can’t be in Lamter?” Lilith rose off the little wolf, breath steady as frost.
She looped her slim tail around the wolf’s fluffy tail, a silk cord on a kite, to keep her put.
“Rare, usually.” Nidhogg spoke offhand, like tossing a pebble in a pond.
“Kuri once had a queen tricked by a beastkin in love.
After that, Kuri shut its doors to anything too furry, for a long while.”
Lilith nodded. The Little White Dragon saw it again: strange laws, knots carved by old heartbreaks.
“How’d you get here, little thing?”
“How would I know? I was born Lamter!” The little wolf howled, face to the stones.
“I was born right here in the South Market.
I grew up on a hundred kitchens’ rice.”
“What kind of ‘hundred-household rice’ is that?” The Little White Dragon rolled her eyes, cool as rain.
She pressed down on the wolf girl, foot like a millstone.
“Growing up on stolen goods counts as community meals to you?”
“Anyway it’s hundreds of people… ow, ow!” the wolf muttered, voice small as a field mouse.
Lilith’s hearing was sharp, a hawk above grass; she caught every word.
She put more weight into her step, and the little wolf yowled for a long while.
“Enough. Tell me your name first.” Lilith listened to her cry, foot steady as an anchor.
Around them, passersby watched for a bit, then flowed on like a stream returning to errands.
In South Market, scenes like this were common as dust.
Two pretty girls scuffling, yet not a drop of blood—boring as stale tea.
Bored. I want to see blood run like a river.
“Call me Liya,” the little wolf sniffled, voice hiccupping like rain on tin.
“But I’ve got several sisters with the same-sounding name.
So I’d prefer you call me Boss.”
“No.” Lilith wasn’t buying it; the kid lacked skill but had fox-bright craft.
“I’ll call you Liya. You said your home is the South Market?”
“Yeah. I grew up here. A shopkeeper lady, kind as spring, took in us three sisters.”
Liya perked up at Lilith’s interest, eyes lighting like lanterns, then flipped to sorrow like a stage mask.
“I never saw my parents.
Our a-ma—the shop lady who took us—said our parents had us while traveling.
They split up mid-trip and left the three of us in the South Market.
If a-ma hadn’t taken us, we’d have starved among the stalls.”
“She took you in, yet taught you to steal?” Lilith frowned, a cold ripple before the storm.
In Lamter, theft is risky, whether in the honest South Market or in better-policed districts.
Get caught, and you’ll take a beating like summer hail,
or end up tossed into a dragon pit to ‘find enlightenment’.
“Because a-ma’s poor too.” Liya’s ears drooped like wilted grass.
“Running her little shop drains her dry; she can’t spare energy for us.
So we three sisters make a-ma relax.
She trains us to take other people’s things, and shows us the other kids she’s taken in.
We’re all good at taking. We hand everything to a-ma.
She gives the kid who takes the most the most food.
I’m amazing. I took the most all last year.
A-ma gave me loads of tasty snacks.
But I know our third sister needs them more, so I gave them all to her.”
Liya looked proud, chest rising like a small drum.
She really believed she was doing right, and glowed with it.
But the more Lilith listened, the worse it felt, like a chill creeping under robes.
She’d heard this before.
Isn’t this child trafficking—training kids to beg and steal for cash?
“Can someone who can run a shop in the South Market be too poor to feed three kids?”
Lilith tugged Nidhogg’s sleeve, rose on tiptoe, and whispered like a sparrow in a pine.
“No.” Nidhogg answered, voice steady as bedrock.
“Even on low profit, running a shop in Lamter’s South Market means you’re not poor.
Feeding three kids is nothing.
One person could feed twenty or thirty.
Lamter’s got orphanages designed to care for kids whose parents died in accidents.
Tourists’ abandoned kids count too.
That ‘a-ma’ clearly has other plans.”
“I think so too.” Lilith nodded, excitement sparking like fireflies.
The Little White Dragon decided to shadow Liya and take a look.
She might crack a big case.
Too bad for Abaddon and Litt; she’d planned a fun outing with them.
That plan just got blown away like leaves.
“Nidhogg, go tell the City Lord’s office about this.
And get the little ones sent back,” Lilith told the Black Dragon.
“What about you?” Nidhogg agreed, iron in her tone like a night watch bell.
She also thought Lamter’s lawkeepers should put in some overtime.
“Me? I’m going with Liya to see their place.” Lilith bared a wicked smile, sharp as a crescent.
“I thought I’d nab a pickpocket,
and instead I poked the hornet’s nest.”
