“He was more than that.” Mosca gave Kohlrabi a sly, wary look. “He was Quillam Mye.”

“Quillam Mye!” Kohlrabi’s eyebrows climbed. “Quillam Mye’s daughter!” He sat back in his chair and stared at her, while in the city beyond the door, bell after bell raised its voice in excitement.

“‘I had to leave Mandelion because of an altercation’—that’s all he ever said about it to me,” Mosca said, feeling shy and alarmingly important.

“I saw him once!” Kohlrabi leaned forward again. Outside was a chaos of metal tongues, and he was forced to shout. “The height of the ‘altercation,’ Mosca! I was ten years old, and running with a crowd through the streets, because we’d heard that the Stationers were sending men to arrest Quillam Mye. Hundreds of us, you could not breathe for the press of bodies.”

Mosca leaned across the table, hands cupped around her ears to funnel his words into them.

“His windows were dark; he had sent his servants away so they would not be arrested. And when we got there, a Stationer carriage was at his door. He came out with no fear on his face, and climbed into the carriage, but we . . .” Kohlrabi gave a flinching smile and half-covered his ears. Mosca could only hear snatches of his words now. “. . . knew they would take him to his death . . . crowd swarmed the carriage . . . hurled off the driver, detached the horses . . . dragged the carriage through the streets ourselves . . . to safety . . . and I saw his face at the window . . . Hundreds of us, Mosca! Hundreds . . . all shouting his name . . .”

Her father, a hero then, drawn through the streets of Mandelion. Her father, dying amid the dull hostility of Chough, where nobody knew what he had been.

Outside the doors of the tavern a thousand strident bells argued like an army clashing their shields. Kohlrabi’s words were swallowed, but Mosca could see him still shouting and gesturing, his eyes bright with excited memory.

“I’m sorry!” she shouted, knowing that Kohlrabi could not hear her. “I want to tell you everything, Mr. Kohlrabi. I want to, but I can’t!”

Kohlrabi was still speaking, more somberly now, an earnest and rather sad light in his eyes, as if he had noticed some of the anguish in her face.

“It’s too late!” she went on. “I didn’t know ’bout Mr. Clent’s wolfkin ways, an’ now I’m in blood up to my wading breeches.”

Kohlrabi ceased speaking, gave her a wincing laugh and covered his ears.

“An’ I can’t bear to tell you now, not when I might get away with it, not when maybe you don’t ever need to know what Quillam Mye’s daughter done. I’m sorry, Mr. Kohlrabi, I’m sorry, I’m sorry . . .”