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I’m not keen to interfere without knowing the full story, but I’m able to watch the show since the speedy boy is headed in the same direction. He zigzags through throngs of marketgoers, leaps over a cart of potatoes, and trips over a distinguished-looking man, knocking them both into an ink stand.

People gather in a circle around the pair as they rise from the debris, ink all over them. The stall owner looks on aghast, speechless, as the man orders his aklo to hold the boy while he examines the stains on his elegantly embroidered robe in dismay.

The boy struggles for his freedom, but the aklo is well-practiced and restrains him easily.

I edge into the circle surrounding the scene and halt when I see the man’s face. It’s the judge who sentenced Akilah. The judge who presided so rigidly over the execution that took River’s life. I’ll never forget that face.

“Please, lemme go. Lemme go,” the boy pleads, the package he hugged now dangling from string looped around his finger.

The judge sharpens his gaze on the boy’s dirty face, his patched clothing. “This garment is worth more than a dozen of your lives, runt.”

The boy’s eyes open wide, panic settling into them. “Please, I have to go.”

“You’re not leaving until I’m adequately compensated.”

“I have no—”

“Thief! Hold that boy!” The aproned, now wheezing man barrels through the onlookers into the circle.

“Who are you?” the judge asks sharply.

“I’m from the dispensary two streets back. That boy stole a package of verdeflora.”

“A thief too.” The judge turns to the writhing, crying boy and snatches the package from him, tossing it to the apothecary.

The boy whimpers. “Please. My mama’s sick. She don’t get this—”

“One less beggar.”

My stomach balls into a tight knot. It’s hard to breathe. I recall it all. The judicial courtyard. The desperation. Being at the mercy of this man; the cruel reality that he doesn’t care about fairness.

“Hold on,” the judge says, a tight smile tipping his thin lips. “How could someone like you afford a mage to administer these herbs?” He barks a delighted laugh. “Quite a bit of law-breaking going on today.”

That vitalian, whoever they are, is me six months ago—saving people with spells we’re not allowed to touch.

“Aklo, cut off his hands.”

Aklo shoves the boy onto his knees and knots his wrists together with magic, stretching them out on the dirty stone before him.

I lurch forward and fling myself wide between the aklo and the boy. “Stop.”

Aklo looks to the judge, and the judge turns his sharp gaze on me, nose twitching. “Who are you?”

“I am the mage who agreed to treat this boy’s mother.”

“Arrest him!”

I brandish my soldad. “Qualified.”

The judge stares at my badge, face colouring, eyes narrowing. He huffs. “That still leaves the crime of theft. Of ruining my cloak.”

“Is there a law against ruining your outfit?” I pivot to block Aklo and steady my gaze on the judge. “What about your crime of assumption? The crime of no proper trial? The crime of being unjust?”

The judge laughs and holds a hand up for Aklo to wait. “A mere mage thinks he understands the law better than the head of the capital’s judicial court?”

The surrounding crowd becomes a collective murmur; the boy behind me stifles his sobs, and my rapid pulse rushes in my ears.

“There are intricacies I know nothing of,” I agree. “However. Civil laws are based on Goffridus Ethics, and Goffridus’s founding principle for judgement is the balance of good and harm. That means not only looking at the crime itself but taking in the circumstances of that crime. Who is the victim, what are their costs? Who is the perpetrator, what is their intent? The harm caused by a murderer for sweet revenge is far more egregious than an accidental death in pursuit of safety.”