Also by Scott Lynch

THE LIES OF LOCKE LAMORA

RED SEAS UNDER RED SKIES

This is an uncorrected eBook file. Please do not quote for publication until you check your copy against the finished book.

The Republic of Thievesis a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Scott Lynch

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

DEL REY and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

[LoC CiP data]

ISBN: 978-0-553-80469-0

eBook ISBN: 978-0-553-90558-8

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

www.delreybooks.com

2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1

First Edition

For Jason McCray,

one man who in his time

has played many parts.

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CONTENTS

COVER

EBOOK INFORMATION

BY SCOTT LYNCH

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT

DEDICATION

MAP

PROLOGUE   THE MINDER

PART I HER SHADOW

CHAPTER ONE   THINGS GET WORSE

INTERLUDE   THE UNDROWNED GIRL

CHAPTER TWO   THE BUSINESS

INTERLUDE   THE BOY WHO CHASED RED DRESSES

INTERSECT (I)   FUEL

CHAPTER THREE   BLOOD AND BREATH AND WATER

INTERLUDE   ORPHAN’S MOON

CHAPTER FOUR   ACROSS THE AMATHEL

PART II  CROSS-PURPOSES

INTERLUDE   STRIKING SPARKS

CHAPTER FIVE   THE FIVE-YEAR GAME: STARTING POSITION

INTERLUDE   BASTARDS ABROAD

CHAPTER SIX   THE FIVE-YEAR GAME: CHANGE OF VENUE

INTERSECT (II)   TINDER

INTERLUDE   THE MONCRAINE COMPANY

CHAPTER SEVEN   THE FIVE-YEAR GAME: COUNTERMOVE

INTERLUDE   AURIN AND AMADINE

PART III  FATAL HONESTY

CHAPTER EIGHT   THE FIVE-YEAR GAME: INFINITE VARIATION

INTERLUDE   HAPPENINGS IN BEDCHAMBERS

CHAPTER NINE   THE FIVE-YEAR GAME: REASONABLE DOUBT

INTERSECT (III)   SPARK

INTERLUDE   AN INCONVENIENT PATRON

CHAPTER TEN   THE FIVE-YEAR GAME: FINAL APPROACHES

INTERLUDE   DEATH-MASKS

CHAPTER ELEVEN   THE FIVE-YEAR GAME: RETURNS

INTERSECT (IV)   IGNITION

LAST INTERLUDE   THIEVES PROSPER

CHAPTER TWELVE   THE END OF OLD DREAMS

EPILOGUE   WINGS

AFTERWORD

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PROLOGUE

THE MINDER

1

PLACE TEN DOZEN hungry orphan thieves in a dank burrow of vaults and tunnels beneath what used to be a graveyard, put them under the supervision of one partly crippled old man, and you will soon find that governing them becomes a delicate business.

The Thiefmaker, skulking eminence of the orphan kingdom beneath Shades’ Hill in old Camorr, was not yet so decrepit that any of his grimy little wards could hope to stand alone against him. Nonetheless, he was alert to the doom that lurked in the clutching hands and wolfish impulses of a mob—a mob that he, through his training, was striving to make more predatory still with each passing day. The veneer of order that his life depended on was insubstantial as damp paper at the best of times.

His presence itself could enforce absolute obedience in a certain radius, of course. Wherever his voice could carry and his own senses seize upon misbehavior, his orphans were tame. But to keep his ragged company in line when he was drunk or asleep or hobbling around the city on business, it was essential that he make them eager partners in their own subjugation.

He molded most of the biggest, oldest boys and girls in Shades’ Hill into a sort of honor guard, granting them shoddy privileges and stray scraps of near-respect. More importantly, he worked hard to keep every single one of them in constant deadly terror of himself. No failure was ever met with anything but pain or the promise of pain, and the seriously insubordinate had a way of vanishing. Nobody had any illusions that they had gone to a better place.

So he ensured that his chosen few, steeped in fear, had no outlet save to vent their frustrations (and thus enforce equivalent fear) upon the next oldest and largest set of children. These in turn would oppress the next weakest class of victim. Step by step the misery was shared out, and the Thiefmaker’s authority would cascade like a geological pressure out to the meekest edges of his orphan mass.

It was an admirable system, considered in itself, unless of course you happened to be part of that outer edge—the small, the eccentric, the friendless. In their case, life in Shades’ Hill was like a boot to the face at every hour of every day.

Locke Lamora was five or six or seven years old. Nobody knew for certain, or cared to know. He was unusually small, undeniably eccentric, and perpetually friendless. Even when he shuffled along inside a great smelly mass of orphans, one among dozens, he walked alone and he damn well knew it.

2

MEETING TIME. A bad time under the Hill. The shifting stream of orphans surrounded Locke like an unfamiliar forest, concealing trouble everywhere.

The first rule to surviving in this state was to avoid attention. As the murmuring army of orphans headed toward the great vault at the center of Shades’ Hill, where the Thiefmaker had called them, Locke flicked his glance left and right. The trick was to spot known bullies at a safe distance without making actual eye contact (nothing worse, the mistake of mistakes) and then, ever so casually, move to place neutral children between himself and each threat until it passed.

The second rule was to avoid responding when the first rule proved insufficient, as it too often did.

The crowd parted behind him. Like all prey animals, Locke had a honed instinct for approaching harm. He had enough time to wince preemptively, and then came the blow, sharp and hard, right between his shoulder blades. Locke smacked into the tunnel wall and barely managed to stay on his feet.

Familiar laughter followed the blow. It was Gregor Foss, years older and two stone heavier, as far beyond Locke’s powers of reprisal as the duke of Camorr.

“Gods, Lamora, what a weak and clumsy little cuss you are.” Gregor put a hand on the back of Locke’s head and pushed him along, still in full contact with the moist dirt wall, until his forehead bounced painfully off one of the old wooden tunnel supports. “Got no strength to stay on your own feet. Hell, if you tried to bugger a cockroach, the roach’d spin you round and do you up the ass instead.”

Everyone nearby laughed, a few from genuine amusement, the rest from fear of being seen not laughing. Locke kept stumbling forward, seething but silent, as though it were a perfectly natural state of affairs to have a face covered with dirt and a throbbing bump on the forehead. Gregor shoved him once more, but without vigor, then snorted and pushed ahead through the crowd.