" Fear not, my doves!" Thorn jumped as someone flung an arm around her shoulders. The strange woman who had watched Thorn fight Brand a few days before thrust her gray-stubbled skull between her and her mother. "For the wise Father Yarvi has placed your daughter's education in my dextrous hands."
Thorn hadn't thought her spirits could drop any lower, but the gods had found a way. "Education?"
The woman hugged them tighter, her smell a heady mix of sweat, incense, herbs and piss. "It's where I teach and you learn."
"And who . . . " Thorn's mother gave the ragged woman a nervous look, "or what . . . are you?"
"Lately, a thief." When that sharpened nervousness into alarm she added brightly, "but also an experienced killer! "

― Joe Abercrombie , Half the World (Shattered Sea, #2)