Mosca clenched her eyes shut, and pushed her fingers into her ears. Let it be a dream let it be a dream let it be a dream . . . She gave the Beloved every chance to rearrange the world so that the events of the previous night had not happened, but when she pulled her fingers out of her ears the crier was still shouting.

Perhaps Clent had taken flight in the night? Mosca sat up carefully and peered hopefully toward the larger bed. But no, there he was, his great stomach swelling and falling in slumber, his nostrils widening and narrowing as he breathed steadily.

Saracen’s tiny wounds had faded from live-poppy red to dead-poppy red, and he was demonstrating his hearty good health by trying to eat the spluttered mess of candlewax. He looked up at Mosca as she swung a leg out of the trundle bed, and if he saw her as a murderer’s helpmeet there was no hint of it in his coal-chip eyes. Mosca knew that she could have laid waste to whole cities without losing his regard, and she felt a throb of comfort.

“Mr. Clent!” A token knock at the door was followed by the sudden entrance of the Cakes, her pointed face pink and excited. “The constable has come for to ask everyone some questions an’ can you come down to the breakfast room please?”

Clent sat up with impressive if graceless promptness, snatched his wig from a bed knob, and slammed it on his head back to front. Only then did he go about the business of actually waking.

“I beg a multitude of pardons . . . a constable?”

The Cakes nodded, pleased and self-important.

“He says I’m a sharp young thing,” she announced happily, “on account this morning I noticed our coracle was tied under the window, not to the tree how it always is. And I run down to report it to the beadle, and they says it might have something to do with a body they found this morning. An’ the constable thinks maybe it’s a gang of wandering cutthroats and robbers, who might have tried to get into our house to steal from the shrines and kill us in our beds . . .”

Clent and Mosca had remembered to return the clothes chest to its place. They had forgotten about the coracle.

Oh sweet Beloved Spare us Sores, thought Mosca. Look at us, we’re thieves, and mill burners, and spies, and one of us is a cutthroat as well. We’re Criminals of the Murkiest Hue, and we’re not even very good at it.

“We would of course be delighted to speak with your admirer, madam,” Clent assured her with haggard courtesy. “Perhaps you will allow us a few minutes to refresh and make ourselves respectable.” The door closed behind the Cakes, leaving Mosca and Clent to furious whispering.

“Yer wig’s on back to front!”