Free Division of the Marked (The Marked Series) by March McCarron

said, examining him with dislike, “though I did on occasion conduct business in the green district.”  
    “Conduct business?” Arlow asked dryly. “What kind of business?”
    Rinny gave him a wide smile, revealing a large gap between her front two teeth, then tossed something to him. Arlow caught the object in his hand and stared at it dumbfounded. “My wallet?”  
    “It was already empty,” she said.
    “I’m aware of that fact,” Arlow replied, jamming the item back into his pocket. “And you could hardly call that business .”
    She shook her head. “You’d be surprised; ever since the Pauper’s King took charge, theft in the city has gotten real organized.”
    “Have you met him?” Bray asked. She knew his face from the ubiquitous wanted posters. Was he as handsome in person?
    “The King?” Rinny asked, rubbing her nose. “Sure I have. Well I’ve seen him, anyway. He doesn’t have much to do with street runners like me.”
    “So you’re a real professional pickpocket?” Ko-Jin asked. Unlike Mi-Na, he had no discernible accent. “I’ve always wondered how that’s done—how do they not feel your hand?”
    “I’ll show you,” Rinny said and hopped up to her feet. “It’s a real art, you know.”  
    Ko-Jin pushed himself up off the sand, leaning the majority of his weight on his one good foot.  
    “Now the trick is to have them bump into you. If you bump into them, it’s more suspicious…”
    Rinny began guiding Ko-Jin through the proper etiquette of thieving, and he listened with rapt attention.
    “How long have you three been here?” Adearre asked.  
    “Just two days,” Peer said.  
    “That’s quite a redrre you have.”  
    Peer’s brow quirked in confusion, so Adearre pointed to his swollen eye.
    “Aye, my shiner,” Peer said, touching the purple skin with delicate fingertips.
    “ Shiner ,” Adearre repeated, trying the word on.
    “You’ll probably have one of your own soon enough,” Arlow said.
    The sound of the waves lapping rhythmically against the beach was lulling Bray to sleep. She looked up at the sun—the morning had grown late. In a few hours they would need to return for their third round of testing. She wondered what would happen if they just refused to go. Would they be dragged into the ring?  
    She aroused from her stupor at the sound of Ko-Jin sitting down next to her and Rinny rejoining the other side of the circle.  
    “So Ko-Jin, what’s your story?” Roldon asked, his soft brown curls dancing in the wind.  
    “Yeah,” Rinny said. “What happened to your foot?”
    Bray thought this rather rude, but Ko-Jin merely shrugged and said, “Nothing happened. I was born this way.”
    “You’d be good on the streets, you know,” Rinny said. “Cripples always are.”  
    Ko-Jin frowned, a touch of color blooming on his cheeks. The circle grew uncomfortably quiet.
    “What? Did I say something wrong?”  
    Ko-Jin shook his head. “I just don’t like that word—cripple. It isn’t even accurate. It comes from the old Dalish word for ‘creep.’” He offered them a wide, dimpled smile. “I don’t creep. I shuffle.”  
    They laughed, and the tension eased. Mi-Na asked him a question in Chaskuan and he answered in that language, leaving the rest of them in the dark.  
    “How do you speak such good Dalish?” Peer asked.
    “My step-dad is Dalish. He’s a fisherman in Ucho Nod.” Ko-Jin tucked his deformed foot underneath him. “So, is there something we are meant to be doing now?”
    “Not really,” Bray said as Magery nodded agreement. “We have to be in the gardens for testing every day, but other than that we’re allowed to do as we please.”  
    “We were thinking on a game to play before you lot showed up,” Peer said.
    Roldon perked up, a boyish smile crossing his face. “I know a great game.”

Roldon and Peer bent over a hand-drawn map of the Temple grounds, intent. Bray and her new friends had taken refuge in the