Holding on to the lichen-flecked stone lip of the pool, Hoegbotton plunged his head into the smooth water. The chill shocked him. It prickled his skin, cut through the numbness to burn the inside of his nose. A sob escaped him, and another, and then a third that bent him over the water again. The back of his neck was suddenly cool. When he pulled away, he looked down at his reflection—and the mask he had made to hide his emotions was gone. He was himself again.

Hoegbotton stood up. Across the courtyard, the Cappan’s men had abandoned the bodies to begin the task of nailing boards across the doors and windows of the mansion. No one pulled the shades open to protest being trapped inside. No one banged on the door, begging to be let out. They had already begun their journey.

One look at his face as he staggered to safety had told the Cappan’s men everything. No doubt they would have boarded him in too, if not for the bribes and his previous record of survival.

Hoegbotton wiped his mouth with his handkerchief. The merchandise he had bought would molder in the mansion, unused and unrecorded except in his ledger of “Potential Acquisitions: Lost.” Depending on which hysteria-induced procedure the Cappan had adopted this fortnight, the mansion grounds might be cordoned off or the mansion itself might be put to the torch.

The clock struck midnight.

The cage stood beside him, slick with rain. Hoegbotton had gripped its handle so hard during his escape—from every corner, Daffed’s infernal collection of dead things staring innocently at him—that he had been branded where the skin had not been rubbed off his palm. He bore the mark of the handle: a delicate filigree of unfamiliar symbols from behind which strange eyes peered out. In the fading light, with the rain falling harder, the fungi appeared to have been washed off the cover of the cage. Perversely, this fact disappointed him. With each new encounter, he had come to expect further revelations.

Blinking away the rain, Hoegbotton let out a deep breath, stuffed his mask in a pocket, wrapped the cloth around his injured hand, and picked up the cage. It was heavier than he remembered it, and oddly balanced. It made him list to the side as he started walking up the path to the main road. He would have to hurry if he was to make the curfew imposed by the Cappan.

Ambergris at dusk, occluded and darkened by the rain that splattered on sidewalks, rattled against rooftops, struck windows, hinted at a level of debauchery almost as unnerving to Hoegbotton as the way, whenever he stopped to switch the cage from his left to his right hand and back again, the weight never seemed the same.