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hearing them tumble and crash as Scar tried to follow him. It was hard to be light-footed when you were covered in armor.
    Malden grabbed a double handful of thatch and hauled himself up onto the roof. From there he looked out on a sea of rooftops belonging to the half-timbered houses he’d seen on the way to the inn. Most had slate shingles—which were hard to run on, as they tended to crack and shift under one’s feet. Far to his left, though, he could see the lead-lined roof of a church.
    If he could reach the church he could make some real speed. He jumped across a narrow alley to the top of the house nearest the inn and landed on his feet on the sloping roof. He’d come down hard on his left ankle but he merely switched his weight to his right foot and kept running. He heard the watchmen shouting for him to halt but paid no mind. He’d yet to meet a watchman anywhere who could run along roof ridges as nimbly as he.
    Malden was wise enough, however, to know he wasn’t free yet. As he jumped to the next roof, he passed over an alley choked with workmen and beggars—and two more kingsmen, who gestured upward with their weapons as he passed. Ahead he could see a public square where women were gathered around a well, washing clothes. More kingsmen were stationed there.
    “By Sadu’s eight index fingers,” Malden swore. How many men had they sent for him? But then he saw other figures mixed in with the kingsmen. Smaller men, wearing no armor—their hands tied together before them. They had bruised faces and some were limping. They looked broken, and he understood.
    The local watch wasn’t just after one thief who had entered the gate under false pretenses. They were sweeping up every criminal they could find. He had seen it happen before, in Ness, when the Burgrave of that city wanted to convince the populace of the grip he held on the streets. There was no better way to show one’s passion for law and order than rounding up a dozen thieves and hanging them all together in the market square.
    He’d stumbled right into a mess, coming to Helstrow when he did. What an ignominious way to end his career. He hated to think he’d be brought down by something so crass.
    Malden had no intention of being taken by the law, especially by the law of a town where he’d never actually committed a crime. He knew exactly what he would have to do, and having a plan put him a little more at his ease. For a while he would have to abandon his friends. He would have to find a cheap hostelry where he could lie low for a few days, then meet up again with Croy and Cythera once their business was done. He could join them after they dropped Balint off in front of a magistrate, when they were ready to leave again. Croy would probably urge him to turn himself in, but Cythera would smooth things over and the three of them could make a discreet exit from Helstrow fortress. If things got too hot in the meantime he could always climb over the wall and hide among the peasants outside.
    But first he had to actually get away. Looking back, toward the inn, he saw that Scar and Halbert had procured a ladder and were even at that moment preparing to come up and catch him.
    Had this been Ness, Malden would have known instantly which way to turn. He would have known some blind alley where he could lose his pursuers, or where the nearest bridge might be found so he could leap into the river, or he would remember the location of a root cellar where no one would ever think to look for him. But this was Helstrow, which he knew not at all.
    The church he’d been running toward was out of the question. It fronted on the square where the kingsmen were gathering their catch. So he turned and instead headed north, toward the wall that separated the outer and inner baileys. It was the highest point he could see, and he always felt safest up in the air.
    Leaping to a thatched roof, Malden tucked and rolled, knowing the tight-packed straw would offer only spongy,