Jackdaw by Kj Charles

main hall, on the ground floor, near the great wooden door, a fellow constable on the other side of the room. The first floor was mostly open, just a walkway round the walls lined with cases, so he could see up to the ceiling.
    He was expecting something—the justiciars had seemed quite certain of that—but it was still a jolting shock as angry voices shattered the silence. There was a crash from the first floor, and a flare of some bright yellow light, and Ben saw a dark shape run to the railings that ringed the first-floor landing, and vault the iron with effortless grace, leaping over to the thirty-foot drop onto marble below.
    He cried out, thinking he had seen a man plunge to his death, and then he cried again because the man didn’t fall. He landed on thin air as though it was solid ground, foot braced on nothing, ran a few steps, and hurled himself sideways as something like a rush of wind hissed through the air, making Ben’s ears pop.
    The other copper was swearing devoutly, gaping up. Miss Nodder leaned over the balcony, making another throwing gesture, green eyes narrow and intent and glowing like a cat’s. The burglar was changing direction in midair, leaping like a squirrel bouncing between branches, and Ben heard him laugh aloud.
    That laugh.
    It couldn’t be.
    Ben stared up, mouth open in sickened shock, as the burglar danced through the air above him. The burglar looked down, and their eyes met.
    Jonah’s gleeful, wild smile dropped away. He dropped too, suddenly scrabbling at the air, as if whatever held him up had vanished. He lunged out for an invisible handhold, pulling himself up as something sizzled through the room above his head. Jonah glanced round, and at Ben one last time, and then he was moving once more, diving through a window on the ground floor that broke before he was anywhere near it.
    He was gone, leaving Miss Nodder shouting orders from the balcony, and Ben with a gaping hole in his chest that he knew nothing would ever fill again.
    Now
    Ben had given the justiciary a public house as his address for contact, since he had not wanted to admit he was sleeping in a dosshouse, and he had not been sure if he wanted them to find him. It was the Red Lion, just down the road from his grimy lodgings, where gangmasters gathered to look for casual work, and when he went in there the next morning he was greeted by the landlord’s cry.
    “Hoi, mate! Constable Marshall, right?”
    Reddening, aware of the scornful glances cast at his shabby clothing, Ben took the letter the man held out. It was a tersely worded request for his attendance at eleven that morning from Peter Janossi, giving no detail of the reason.
    He couldn’t imagine why the justiciary wanted him. He didn’t need them now, and he should be looking for work. But the fruitless search was draining, and this might be useful, and he was curious. He breakfasted on a stale roll and coffee from a street stall, and killed the time till the meeting in a church, for the sake of the seat and the quiet.
    At eleven he was at the Council, being shown in to Janossi’s office. The justiciar had been joined by another man, a small, rather shabbily dressed fellow with a mop of dark red curls that needed cutting. He looked rather younger than Ben’s own twenty-six years, except for the lines round his remarkably vivid golden eyes. He stood, holding out a hand, and Ben was startled to see that he was no more than five feet tall.
    “Stephen Day,” said the short man, and his fingers closed around Ben’s.
    “God!” Ben recoiled at the electric crackle against his skin, snatching away his hand. It felt as though it had been bitten by a snake.
    “Sorry,” said Day. “My hands do that. Are you Constable Marshall, of Hertfordshire?”
    “Yes, sir.” Ben held himself straight. It seemed prudent. Day didn’t look like much, but he remembered Jonah’s words. Senior justiciar. Absolute sod.
    “And you’re looking to arrest Jonah