The Dalnan temple in Wayfarer’s Street was better maintained than the one in the Lower City, but not by much. A priestess greeted them and listened with concern to Seregil’s tale of a missing child.

“It’s not like her to run off, being just a little one,” Seregil told her tearfully. “I seen her with a beggar the other day, and now I fear she’d fallen with the sleeping death somewhere, and no one to care for her. Is she here, sister?”

“We’ve only had two of the sleepers: a man and a boy,” the priestess told him. “But the bluecoats came and took them.”

Seregil clung to Micum’s arm as they made their way out and down the street. When they were well out of sight of the temple he straightened up and carefully patted his face dry with a corner of his shawl, so as not to disturb the cosmetics of his disguise.

“Just as you thought,” Alec said softly. “Now what?”

“We keep hunting,” Seregil murmured back, slipping his arm through Micum’s like a wife out with her husband.

They continued on, wandering down squalid side streets edged with offal and full of dirty children playing with whatever they could find. One had found a rusty barrel hoop and was rolling it down the street with a stick. Micum caught it as it rolled by.

“Hey, give it!” the boy cried, seizing up a stone from the muddy street and cocking his arm to throw.

Micum grinned. “Just want to ask you a question, boy. The answer’s worth a penny and your hoop back.”

The boy sidled closer, as did several of his playmates. They all had rocks.

“We’re lookin’ for raven folk,” Micum told him.

“What you want with ’em?” the boy demanded.

“What do you care? Or don’t you want my money?”

The boy lowered his arm. “Yeah, we seen ’em around. I traded one for a yellow stone, but I lost it.”

Just as well, thought Seregil, wondering if that might save the child. “Who did you trade with, dearie?”

“Yellow-headed fellow on a crutch.”

“Where was this?”

“Over near the Ring wall, end of Barrow Lane.”

“Have you seen any others?” asked Alec, pulling off a reasonably feminine voice.

The boy shrugged. “There’s an old woman, and a blond-headed young feller. Seen ’em around here and there.”

“When did you last see one of them?” asked Micum.

The boy consulted with his comrades.

“I seen the woman yesterday,” one of the taller boys replied.

“And I seen the woman, over by the nail maker’s stall,” a ragged young girl put in.

“Me too, me too!” several others clamored, and Seregil guessed that most of them were lying in hopes of a penny.

Micum handed out coins all around and gave the boy back his hoop. The children darted away like a flock of dingy swallows.