Close by, a slender galleon gleamed like mother-of-pearl. High up on the deck sat Lady Tamarind upon an ivory throne. The threads that sang from her white spinning wheel stretched away through the mists to every unseen corner of the city. Other threads intertwined with them and linked them, until Mosca started to fancy that they formed a pattern like a great spider’s web.

“I’m trying to get to the Eastern Spire!” called Mosca. “I don’t want to drown in this black water!”

“Catch this thread, and my boat will pull you to the spire.” Lady Tamarind pulled loose a slender thread from the wheel and threw it in Mosca’s direction. It touched the open lid of the box and clung there, as if it sparkled with some sugary, sticky essence. Mosca reached for it, then she hesitated and took a moment to pull her sleeve down over her hand. She did so partly because the line seemed too bright to touch with her grimy fingers, and partly because it frightened her with its ground-glass glitter. While she hesitated, the thread peeled loose, fell into the water, and snaked away from her grasp.

“I didn’t catch it!” she called out, distraught. “Please, can you throw it to me again?”

“There is only ever one chance,” answered Lady Tamarind and, above her, white lace sails swelled despite the stillness. The web threads swung softly over their reflections as the pearl galleon slid away through the mist. “Someone wishes to speak with you.”

The wake of the galleon was a ruffled ribbon of white lace, and in its throes bobbed a sodden shape, face down, its hair floating like weed and its wet shirt ballooning on its back. It drifted toward Mosca in spite of the tug of the current and the drag of the galleon’s wake.

There were splintered oars in her hands, so in terror she started to row. The marriage house floated up to greet her, without bothering to bring the shore with it. She clambered in through the scallop-shaped window, and stumbled from room to room. Behind her she heard a dripping and a dragging and the flabby slapping of dead, wet feet against floorboards. She ran into her room and hid in her trundle bed, knowing that Goodman Postrophe could not stop the dead coming home, because she and Clent had eaten all his mellowberries.

And it was in her bed that she awoke, wondering why it was so light, and why she could hear only the lap of the water, and the screech of the gulls, and the sound of a town crier bellowing his news in the street.

“. . . Body found Stabbed through the Vitals with Brutal Force . . . Body found Tangling in the Trout Nets by Whickerback Point . . .”