Balthazar stepped out of the baking boutique and looked up. The sun was now a fleeting memory on the horizon, barely an e streak left uhe starless night sky.

  Used to living by a pond most of his life, the crab always saw dusk as the time to retreat into the safety of your home, away from the dangers of the dark, until m came back.

  “It’s te,” he said to Suze. “Shouldn’t you be going bae now?”

  The little girl pced her hands on her hips and looked at him with sassy disapproval.

  “Hellooo? I live ireets, remember?” She threw her arms out. “This is my home!”

  “Uh, right, yes, but I mean…” the mert said. “A kid shouldn’t be out at night, right? It’s… dangerous?”

  Balthazar realized he didn’t actually know much of anything about children, but he was certain he was on the right track about how they shouldn’t go out at night. He just wasn’t sure if it was because they should be asleep, or because they’d spontaneously turn into a pumpkin if left out. It was one of those two, that much he knew.

  “Pfft,” Suze mocked. “Please… We’re iy, not out in the woods. There’s no more da night than there is during the day. Now e o’s go see what dangers we get ourselves into!”

  The street ur grabbed the crab by the wrist and pulled him behind her up the sidewalk as he protested, not used to being crabhandled so unceremoniously.

  But as the bickering duo made their Marquessa's streets, Balthazar began notig the differences between nighttime in the wilderness and in a city.

  The sky was dark and moohat evening. Yet, it wasn’t like the roads around the pond, or the forests he had slept in the past weeks, where ohe sun had set, one could not see a thing without a ntern or torch.

  All around the streets there were burning braziers by every er, and iron nterns mounted up on the sides of buildings. Some were still in the process of being lit by a town workman carrying a long stick with a fme on its tip.

  There was no sun in the sky, but the roads were still bright and visible, no darkness or shadows left for the imagination to wonder what dangers might lie hidden in them.

  “Where are you even taking me?” Balthazar asked the little girl, as she stomped up the street with the determination of someone who kly where she was going.

  “We’re gonna visit the guy who stole that dy’s mangoes,” Suze said with casual fidence.

  “Wait, what?” the puzzled crab said. “You already know who did it?”

  “Yep! It was Onion Jake.”

  “Who the hell is that?”

  “The leader of a small bandit gang down in the port district.”

  Balthazar’s frown grew deeper and more fused. “How do you know he has anything to do with it?”

  The street rascal stopped, turo the crab, and tilted her head while pursing her lips.

  “Hmm,” she said, while mogly stroking her . “Let’s see… Why do you think they call him Onion Jake?”

  The mert shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe because he smells like onions?”

  Suze snapped her fingers.

  “You got there on the first try!” she said with a grin.

  “Oh…” Balthazar said. “And because Margo said the pce where the mangoes were before being stolen smelled like onions, you think that means that guy was involved? Isn’t that a bit far-fetched?”

  “Pfft, no! The se of the crime smelled like onions, I know a bandit that always smells like onions, that’s as obvious of a clue as there is.”

  The crab scratched the side of his face with the tip of his pincer. “I don’t know, kid. I’m pretty sure I read in a book ohat corretio mean causation.”

  “You read?!” Suze said.

  “You ’t?” Balthazar asked back.

  “No, ‘cause I’m co-reted to the streets, dummy. Now let’s go, their hideout is down a few more streets.”

  Skittering as fast as his legs allowed him, the crusta followed the skipping child as she headed down the nearly empty streets of Marquessa, now devoid of all the busy crowds flowing through them earlier.

  “How do you even know where a bandit’s hideout is?” he asked her, beginning to question the pany he had picked.

  “I see lots of things around these streets,” she replied, while they tinued walking. “You have time to learn lots of stuff when you don’t have to go to school every day!”

  “Like what?”

  “Like how Onion Jake’s crew are some of the worst bandits in town, who ’t eveheir hideout hidden from a curious kid.”

  Balthazar cocked aalk at her. “If they’re so bad, how would they mao pull off all these thefts when the mayor herself is trying to catch them?”

  “Dunno,” the little girl said with a shrug. “That’s not my job to figure out. Maybe you should ask Jake that yourself.”

  “So, what, we’re just going to stroll into the hideout of a bunch of criminals like it’s nothing?”

  Suze rolled her eyes. “Of course not. We’re going to sneak into their hideout.”

  The crab’s eyestalks curved forward. “We are?”

  “We’re here!” the street ur excitedly decred, pointing down an alley.

  The narrow street was much darker, with no mp or brazier to illumi, except for the faint glow from a small window at the other end.

  Balthazar hesitated at the sight of the unknown alleyway, but before he could share his s, Suze grabbed hold of his cw again. “This way!”

  “Hey, what are you doing?!” he said, while being pulled into the shadowy passage.

  “Shhh!” the little guttersnipe said. “We gotta be quiet.”

  As they arrived he lit up window, Suze let go of the crab and nimbly hopped on top of a wooden crate o a tall fence.

  With one foot precariously tiptoeing on the box, and another held in the air as she maintained bahe small girl peeked over the fence.

  “They’ve got a guard,” she whispered.

  “What’s he doing?” the mert whispered back, trying to stand as high as he could on his legs, but still uo look over the feoo.

  “He’s guarding, duh!”

  Sg up his fa annoyance, Balthazar looked around. He spotted a small hole between the pnks making up the fence, and pg one of his eyestalks in front of the slit, peeked through to the other side.

  A ruffian was leaning against a wall oher side, o a closed door. He was humming to himself while idly ing under his nails with the tip of his pocket knife.

  “I guess we’re not going in through that door,” Suze said, struggling to keep her bah only one foot on the crate.

  The crab turned oalk up to look at her while keeping the other on the lookout. “Maybe we should go around to the other side and—Ow!”

  Without warning, the little rascal unceremoniously pnted her hanging foot on Balthazar’s shell for support.

  “You know that in crab culture that’s pretty rude?!” the crusta protested, while still keeping his voice down. “The st human that did that to me ended up sleeping with the rocks!”

  Suze scoffed. “Yeah, sure, mister tough-shell. Now hold still. If I fall and that guy hears it, we’re both gonna be in trouble.”

  “Just get down from there!” Balthazar said. “We have to look for another way in.”

  With a quiet hop, the little girl jumped down from the crate and the crab’s shell. “There’s no other way in, that’s the only door. I know this pce, remember?”

  The annoyed mert rubbed the top of his shell while exhaling sharply. “Fihen maybe we e ba the m when it’s not so dark and find a way inside.”

  “That’s dumb,” the kid bluntly decred. “We gotta sneak in, and that’s better done while it’s dark!”

  Balthazar groaned in frustration. “And how do you suggest we do that?”

  “Easy,” Suze said, pointing her nose up. “Climb up the side window and sneak in that way. That’s how I do it, all the time.”

  The traveler shook his shell while ping the space between his eyestalks.

  “First of all, a little ed with how you just said you climb through people’s windows all the time,” he said. “And sed, look at me! In what way do you think I’m built for climbing, let aloealth?!”

  “Hmm,” said the girl. “’t you just, like… walk oips of your… legs?”

  “Seriously?!” Balthazar replied. “Kid, have you ever heard the expression ‘a giant crab in a por shop’?”

  “No?”

  “Well, that’s because it was ied earlier, when I went into one and the owner nearly fainted when he saw me walk between his shelves!”

  “Whatever,” the kid said, crossing her arms. “I get inside, if you ’t, that’s a you problem.”

  “I’m not made for sneaking,” the crab said. “I have my own ways to get inside. I just—”

  He suddenly stopped talking as they both heard a noise ing from the other end of the alley and turo it.

  It was dark and hard to see, but the crusta was certain he heard someone moving.

  “I think there’s someohere,” Suze whispered o him.

  “Yeah, I noticed that!” he replied with an exasperated murmur.

  “If it’s a guard, I’m telling him yed me here by the hand.”

  The crab turo her with a frown. “Seriously?! You’re the one whed me!”

  As they bickered, the source of the sound approached, a shadow emerging from the dark recesses of the alleyway, ing closer to the faint light cast from the nearby window.

  Startled, Balthazar’s gaze jumped from Suze to the figure, squinting as he tried to make out who or what was ing towards them, until his eyestalks jumped in surprise.

  “What are you doing here?!”