1868, Fraysner's Harbour
There weren't many things that could scare the people of Fraysner's Harbour. Those that passed through called it 'the place that God had forgotten', and it was easy to see why. In Fraysner's Harbour, thieves and harlots were as common as rats. Most soldiers kept far away from the port-side city, turning blind eyes to the criminals inside it. If one day they decided to come in and make arrests, they'd be left with a ghost town.
Adelyn left the room with a pocket full off coins and watches and other jewels. The master keys to the inn's rooms jingled in her other pocket, but she payed no attention to the sound. Not even as she slipped into the building's main office and hung the ring back up it's hook, only a few feet from the chair that the owner slept on.
When Adelyn left, she did so without a care in the world. She'd been breaking into the suites at the old man's inn for nearly a year, and not once had she ever come close to being caught. On her way to the pawn shop, she found herself fiddling with the dials and buttons on the pocket-watch she'd snagged. Adelyn had never seen one so complex.
It made her smile, if only because she new she could make more than a few coins off of it.
The woman behind the counter at the pawn shop wasn't the usual person Adelyn met. It was a younger woman with curled ginger hair and skin paler than even Adelyn's, which was rare.
"Can I help you?" She asked when the bell above the door jingled, and Adelyn nodded. She emptied her pockets onto the counter next to the register.
Not many people in this town were fools. Adelyn and the lady behind the counter both knew where the collection of objects had come from, but neither dared to mention it. Neither cared, really, as long as they both got their fare share of money in the end. Adelyn figured she saw many thieves and pickpockets in a day—the business more than likely survived off of them.
One by one, the woman picked each watch, bracelet and ring up from the glass and examined it closely, writing notes onto the paper beside the register. Adelyn felt as though she'd been standing there for ages, and it made her nervous. She didn't like being in one place for so long, especially when she had stolen goods with her.
"I'll give you fifteen silver coins for the lot." The woman said, and Adelyn snorted.
"No way," she said, shaking her head vigorously. "That watch is worth 10 on it's own—you saying everything else is worth 5?"
The woman sighed, drawing in a breath, "Twenty. I can't go higher than that."
"Deal," Adelyn said, nodding her head. She felt a smile tug at her lips, but she kept it at bay. The watch couldn't have been worth more than five silver, but the lady behind the counter didn't know that.
If it'd been the old man Adelyn dealt with every other day, she would have never pulled that trick. Old Man Rick was good at what he did, and he knew exactly what prices things would sell at. Adelyn almost never argued with him over a price.
The stranger punched a series of numbers into the buttons over the wooden till, and the drawer below it popped open with a click. Adelyn watched with greedy eyes as the woman counted out twenty silver coins. When she dropped them into Adelyn's hands, she pocketed them right away, as if she was expecting them to be taken back.
Adelyn spun on her heels and left the pawn shop behind her, making her way back towards Anne Marten's house. It was where Adelyn had lived since she was eight, and it was where she would stay for the next two months. After that, she wasn't sure where she would end up, but Anne Marten surely wouldn't let Adelyn stay under her roof. The Old Hag had more than a few bogus rules for the kids to follow under her roof, but the most important one was that they could never stay once they turned eighteen.
Adelyn kept her eyes low and on the cobblestone below her feet. It was dangerous to be walking the street's with twenty silver coins in her pocket—especially a street just next to the docks.
Adelyn lifted her eyes for just a second, only to look at the ships in the harbour. Most of them had white sails and the king's emblem on the side, marking them as trading ships. Still, most of them was not all, and towards the back of the dock, two ships were tied to the boards with sails as black as night.
Pirates were not uncommon in Fraysner's Harbour, but they still were not something the people saw often. They were brutes that made Adelyn's skin crawl—and she knew she was not alone with the feeling. There were not many things that could scare the people of Fraysner's Harbour, but pirates could. And they did.
"Addie," Harlem's voice sounded behind her, and she turned towards him with a smile. All of the worry and fear she'd been feeling melted away the instant she saw him running her way.
Adelyn had known Harlem as long as she'd lived in Anne Marten's house. In the first eight years of her life, she'd lived in a cottage just out of the city with her mother. The only times she'd been allowed into the town were when her mother needed a hand bringing groceries home from the market, or she needed someone to help her snag a few more coins from pockets in the town square. Adelyn's mother had tried to keep her out of the family business of pickpocketing and thievery as much as she could, but sometimes it was all they could do to pay rent.
Adelyn had never minded pickpocketing, either, even then. It'd always been a thrill to her—every time she dipped her hand into a pocket or purse, her heart raced. The fear of getting caught was like a drug to her, sending adrenaline pumping through her veins.
Her mother had loved it, too, in the same way as her. In the end, it had killed her. She'd swung from rope in the town square for her crimes, and Adelyn knew that one day, she would too. It was just a matter of time.
With a father who'd left before Adelyn had even been able to ask him to stay, she'd gone straight from the cottage on the outskirts of town to the four-bedroom house on 3rd street. Anne Marten had been housing orphans for years, but no matter how long she did it for or however many new kids came to her, she never got any better at it. When Adelyn had first been there, she'd been a frail eight-year old girl crammed into a bedroom with six other girls and two beds.
Not much had changed for Adelyn over the years, either. She was still frail and living under Anne Marten's guidance, though she was nearly eighteen instead of eight, and instead of six girls, there were only three.
"Harlem," Adelyn said when the boy behind her finally caught up. Her eyes landed on his cheek, where it'd bruised over under a long angry cut. She clicked her tongue, "Ouch."
"You should see the other guy." He joked, grinning like the fool he was. Adelyn and Harlem were as opposite as two people could be. Dominic, the boy that Harlem roomed with back at Anne's, had once said that Harlem was the brawn and Adelyn was the brains. She hadn't denied it.
Ever since he'd learnt to punch and kick like he meant it, Harlem had been fighting. Somewhere along the line, he'd learnt to hit first and ask questions later, and he'd always been getting into trouble. It was rare for Adelyn to see him without some kind of new cut or bruise.
"Who was it this time?" Adelyn asked, cocking her eyebrow. Just yesterday, he'd gotten into a brawl with a man in the Rat's Den tavern over who got the last shot of whiskey. By the time Harlem had gone back inside to claim his prize, it'd been given to someone else.
That had called for another fight, of course.
"Freddie Grangers." He said, sounding anything but happy.
Adelyn frowned, "Freddie Grangers?" She held her hand at a level just above her shoulders. "Freddie Grangers?"
Harlem snorted, mimicking the boy's height the same way that she had. "Yeah. Freddie Grangers."
"He looks like he's eight. Why would you fight him?" She said, shaking her head. "I mean, he's got to weigh like four pounds."
"Four pounds or not, I wasn't having what he was saying." Harlem said, kicking a rock in front of his boot. It went to the left, falling over the edge of the cobblestone and splashing into the harbour below.
"And what was he saying?"
"That Anne Marten only ever raises thugs." He said, swallowing.
Adelyn turned towards him, her eyes narrowing. Harlem had been called a thug on several occasions, and it never bothered him. She knew him well enough to know that that was not it. "And?"
Harlem sighed, "Thugs and harlots."
"Ah," Adelyn said, nodding softly.
Over the years, they'd both seen people leave Anne's house without a penny in their pocket, leaving them to fend for themselves on the street. This was mostly because of the Old Hag's second most important rule: all money collected from jobs or other forms was meant to be turned into her immediately. This left everyone under her roof poor and unprepared for when they turned eighteen and were kicked to the curb. Several of the girls that had once lived at Anne Marten's now lived at Franny Jenkins' house across the street, all because the Old Hag was greedy.
Franny Jenkins' house was not one that many people wanted to be affiliated with. It was the kind of house that had women leaning their heads and chests out windows to holler at sailors and men that had come in from the docks just a street below theirs. The kind of house where the men had pockets full of coins when they came, and none when they left.
The kind of house that Adelyn would never, ever, let herself reside in. She'd hang before she fell became one of Franny Jenkins' girls.
"He's a right bastard," Harlem said, shaking his head. "Doesn't know what he's talking about."
"True." Adelyn said, looking up the way ahead. The doors to Franny Jenkins' house were wide open and welcoming, where as across the street and two houses down, the door to Anne Marten's house was shut and likely locked. One house depending on visitors, and the other wanted none at all.
Still, even Adelyn couldn't deny that they were linked.