Beware of Spilling Ink!
"A book belongs to everybody, in the end, doesn’t it? The stories, the lessons, the discoveries, they all belong to everyone, when it’s all said and done."
—Barrison Belamy, a.k.a "The Iron Wind"
Skate the Thief (Book 1 of the Rag and Bone Chronicles) is a young adult fantasy novel written by Jeff Ayers, published in 2020.
The titular Skate, an orphan in a street gang reminiscent of the Artful Dodger's crew in Oliver Twist, bungles a burglary of a reclusive old man, who turns out to be a powerful wizard. He offers her a deal: "borrow" books for him from other libraries in return for room and board - and the chance to learn to read and write.
With the gang (called the Ink) breathing down her neck and expecting results, Skate has to navigate new loyalties, old rivalries, strange creatures, and dangerous incursions into unwelcoming libraries. There's also a flying eyeball spider who likes to cook.
The book is getting a sequel in September of 2023, Skate the Seeker.
This book provides examples of:
- Abusive Precursors: The elves are long gone; records that exist of their exploits don't paint a pleasant picture of how they treated humans (or each other, for that matter).
- Action Girl: The title character certainly counts, being a young girl who gets in fights, runs from the police force of the city, and takes on dangerous burglary jobs.
- Addictive Magic: Skate is warned that using the Crystal Ball unsupervised is dangerous because of this, though other magic is not mentioned to have this particular danger.
- After Action Patch Up: Thanks to a magical bottle helpfully exhibited by Belamy, Skate recovers from a high fall with little fuss after escaping from a "borrowing" session.
- All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Late in the book, thanks to Kite, a group of ruffians walks right into Belamy's (mostly) empty home.
- Alliterative Name: Barrison Belamy, introduced in the first chapter when Skate's bungled burglary backfires.
- Amplifier Artifact: Skate has to use a golden gyroscope to help her use the Crystal Ball, since she has no magical training.
- Batman Gambit: In their fight, Belamy lures Hugo into close range, refusing to strike back or even defend himself, in order trap him for the sake of blowing them both up with the rubies on his robes.
- Black Market: Trafficking in stolen and otherwise illegal goods is how the Ink makes its money.
- Bling of War: Belamy received a gift of extravagant red robes from the king after the war. He keeps them locked up in the basement for most of the book.
- Blue Blood: Laribel Ossertine is descended from a famous hero Knight in Shining Armor of the past, and considers Belamy's decision to house a common child off the street as misguided at best and dangerous at worst.
- Bookcase Passage: Belamy has one that leads to an alchemy lab in the basement, opened by the classic method of pulling the right book on the shelf.
- Born of Magic: Rattle. Belamy calls its creation an accident, saying that Rattle was not what he had meant to make at all when casting the spell that made it.
- Borrowed Without Permission: Belamy’s Insistent Terminology regarding what he’s asking Skate to do, which is stealing. He does actually want to return them when he's done, though, to Skate's surprise.
- The Caper: several chapters revolve around Skate’s burglaries.
- City of Adventure: The port city of Caribol, the seat of a barony, offers dangers and exciting secrets. It's got armed guards, witches and wizards, and dangerous thieves. The whole story takes place in this city, and it's large enough to have specific named districts that locals are familiar with.
- Colliding Criminal Conspiracies: The Ink's plans for Belamy bump into the robberies planned by Tillby's crew in the finale.
- Combat Pragmatist: Skate and Twitch fight dirty, having never received any formal combat training.
- Cool Old Guy: At 107, Belamy is willing to take in a street orphan and teach her to read and write, has the respect of several competent wizards and scholars, is a War Hero, and takes on a criminal organization to help his friend out of a jam without a second thought.
- Crystal Ball: Belamy has one, and Skate uses it with Petre's guidance to find Twitch. Using these is considered dangerous, as spying on people is addictive, often causing people to neglect things like eating and sleeping to spend more time looking into the ball.
- Crystal Prison: Petre is trapped inside of a crystal ball filled with blue smoke as a punishment for a murder he committed. The truth is more complicated; he didn't actually murder Alphetta, but through a combination of his negligence and her recklessness, she ended up dead. He blames - and punishes - himself through Belamy.
- Deadly Euphemism: "Spilling ink" is used by Ink members as a stand-in for spilling blood; Ink members are told that "spilled ink flows both ways," meaning that any blood drawn against a member will be repaid in kind.
- The Fagin: The Ink as a whole is happy to use children as burglars and pickpockets. Boss Marshall fits the role most nicely on an individual level.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Hugo was a teenager who tried to flee the horrors of the war while under Belamy's command. Belamy's adherence to military law ends up accidentally getting Hugo turned into a vampire, who later becomes a vicious crime lord, and eventually goes out in a blaze of fire in a fight with Belamy.
- Groin Attack: Skate delivers a well-deserved one to Kite, delivering a swift kick to the jewels in order to get away from the older boy in one confrontation.
- Honor Among Thieves: The Ink has their rules on how business is to be done, and breaking any of them is suggested to be a death sentence.
- Idle Rich: Other than her occasional visits with Belamy and other magic users, Ossertine doesn’t seem to do much, choosing to while away the days reading books in her impressive library. Belamy also doesn’t appear to have a day job.
- Jerkass: Kite is a violent, selfish, opportunistic bully.
- King of Thieves: The bosses of the Ink are all under the direction of the Big Boss, who turns out to be a ruthless vampire with an understandable vendetta against Belamy.
- Lady of Black Magic: Ossertine is a proper, titled Lady who holds etiquette and class in high regard and also studies magic with other scholars in the city.
- Little Miss Con Artist: Skate, a ten-year-old girl, shows proficiency in maintaining a disguise during a burglary.
- The Lost Lenore: Alphetta Belamy died in a magical accident. Her death set in motion Barrison's transformation into a lich and is why Petre's chooses penance in his Crystal Prison. A statuette of her is thought to be Belamy's Soul Jar, but ends up being more of a beacon for bringing back her father after his destruction.
- Memory Jar: The red stones that Skate examines in the first chapter turn out to be these, memories of Belamy's that he's stored in physical form. He can share them with people.
- Mob War: A rival gang, the Claws, have tried to move into Caribol in the past, but the Ink has always shut them out.
- Nice to the Waiter: This is one of the guiding rules of the Ink. Being open with gifts to tavern and coffeehouse workers means the Ink is less likely to attract trouble, and the generosity may even engender enough good will for owners to send the Baron's Guard off in the wrong direction in a pinch.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Rattle is a spider bat eyeball.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Big Boss Hugo's confrontation with Belamy in the climax mostly consists of the vampire pummeling the lich's body hard enough to knock chunks of skin off, with Belamy not even trying to fight back.
- Oh, Crap!: Hugo, in the final confrontation, has one of these moments when he realizes he's trapped with what amounts to dozens of timebombs.
- Our Liches Are Different: Belamy pursued some alternative path to getting to undeath, citing foul magic he wasn't willing to do to get there, but does call himself a lich. The magic keeping him going seems to work the same way.
- Papa Wolf: Best not to threaten Skate around Belamy; her being threatened is the one time in the book we see him lose composure.
- Police Brutality: The Baron's Guard is noted for having few qualms about violently dealing with thieves in Caribol.
- Protection Racket: The enforcers of the Ink use this as a source of free income, made easier by the fact that the Ink doesn't allow any criminal activity other than its own in Caribol.
- Purpose-Driven Immortality: Belamy feared that his life would end before he could catch up to Petre, so he paused his pursuit to figure out how to make eternal life work without doing something horrible in the process. Having caught Petre, he seems to have decided to spend the rest of eternity reading books.
- Red Baron: Belamy picked up the nickname “The Iron Wind” during his time in the war decades past, and other characters still know him by the moniker rather than his real name.
- Robbing the Dead: An interesting example, as (1) Belamy is an undead, and able to thwart the attempt in the first chapter; and (2) Skate didn't know he was not alive when she broke in.
- Self-Restraint: Petre. He mentions that all he would have to do to leave the glass ball is ask Belamy to release him.
- The Shut-In: Before breaking into his house and learning his name, Skate notes that Belamy lives alone, never goes anywhere, and rarely has any visitors.
- Significant Wardrobe Shift: After moving into Belamy's house, Skate gets some new clothes to replace the tattered rags she'd been wearing before, and she keeps the nicer outfit as her new look.
- Smart People Wear Glasses: Haman, the wizard in Boss Marshall's employ, is very knowledgeable and is the only character described as wearing glasses.
- Soul Jar: Belamy, as a lich, must have one, and Skate is tasked by the Ink to find and take it for the purposes of pressing the old wizard into the Ink's service. Skate thinks it's a statuette of dancing woman, but after Belamy's destruction, the figurine is revealed to be some sort of pathfinding tool rather than the soul jar itself.
- Speech Impediment: Twitch has a p-p-pronounced stutter, but it doesn't get in the way of others understanding him.
- Street Urchin: Skate, Twitch, and other children either sleep on the street or in the hideouts maintained by the Ink, having no families to take care of them.
- Taking You with Me: Belamy takes himself out in the end with a set of timed fireballs inside a forcefield to make sure Hugo can't get away. Being a lich, he should have plans to get better, though.
- Tattooed Crook: Ink members all get matching tattoos somewhere on their bodies, with Skate getting hers on her back at the age of six.
- Thieves' Guild: The Ink, and though they're the only such group in town, we're told of at least one more (the Claws) who are active elsewhere.
- Through the Ceiling, Stealthily: Skate gets into Ossertine's house through a straw-covered hatch on the ceiling, and manages to get to the library without being found.
- Time Bomb: A magical version is used to devastating effect near the end of the book. It's one of Belamy's specialties.
- Unnamed Parent: We don't learn Skate's parents' names; they lived in obscurity in the slums of Caribol and died when Skate was very young.
- War Hero: Belamy served his kingdom as an officer, earning a commendation from the king and picking up "The Iron Wind" as a nickname in battle. He became disaffected by the war after learning there wasn't much cause for it, and isn't particularly proud of his record.
