“And this,” said Rose, “is why we will follow you, even into doom.”

18

“So . . . you’re a Doll,” Isla said, uncertainly. “Do you have a name?”

The Doll had popped out of the front door of a barge that had come through the Gate this morning, scaring the hell out of the people who were steering barges into position to be linked into a string. Delia hadn’t blamed them. The thing was utterly uncanny, a human-sized jointed canvas contraption with only a hint of features that walked . . . and talked. And even worse, so far as everyone else was concerned, as soon as it had emerged from the hatch, it had ripped off the Imperial tabard it wore and tossed it violently overboard, leaving a completely naked human-shaped canvas contraption that walked and talked. Somehow a completely naked thing was much more disturbing than one partially clothed.

Maybe because we can kind of see it as an enlarged toy when it’s clothed, or something like a scarecrow, but when it’s just . . . there . . . it’s harder to accept?

Thank the gods, Ponu had sprung up from out of nowhere, taken the Doll under his skinny wing, directed the others where to moor the barge it had come in on, and gotten clothing for it. He must have raided his own stores, or those of his fellow Circle members, because now it wore loose linen trews, an equally loose linen shirt tied at the waist with a cloth sash—and a straw hat. Delia wasn’t sure why, but the clothing somehow made it look less unsettling, and that hat made it funny rather than threatening.

“This one has no name,” the Doll said, in a pleasant whisper.

“Hold still,” said Koto, coming up from behind Delia. He had a bottle of sepia ink and a feather, and with a few deft strokes with the tip of the feather, sketched in features that suggested something harmless and childlike. That made it less unsettling too. Then he stuck the feather in the band of the straw hat. “I’m calling you Feather. Do you like that name, Feather?”

“I—think I do. It has conceptual notes of lightness, aspirations, and transience,” Feather answered. Koto capped the ink, nodded to Isla, and left, going back to whatever he had been doing before he decided to give the Doll a face.

“Kordas said that what one of you knows, all of you know,” Isla continued. “Is that still true?”

“Yes, Lady Isla,” Feather replied.

Isla gave a little crow of glee. “Do you know what this means?” she said. “It means we won’t have to risk scrying anymore!”