Mosca stowed Saracen in a nook beside Goodman Blackwhistle of the Favorable Wind, then scrambled in through the nearest shrine opening, bruising her hands on coins. Some connecting passages were little more than cracks in the masonry, and as she squeezed up through them she tried not to imagine herself getting trapped like a sweep in a chimney kink. Just as the pressing wall of the warren was stirring panic in her, she saw light ahead and realized that she had reached an empty shrine, set twenty feet above the cathedral floor.

. . . there she is where how did she get up there . . .

For a while Mosca heard scufflings around and below her, and then one by one the children of the Floating School emerged back from the warren and peered up at her. She had no idea how she had reached her current precarious position, and it was pretty clear that they hadn’t either. They stood by the font of the Little Goodkin, and as they discussed her in whispers, each reached without thinking into the font to rub a handful of petals against his or her face and murmur the traditional benediction. It almost seemed as if they had gathered to pay their respects to Mosca, and it was a shock when the first flung stone stung her shin.

But a new set of steps rang out across the mosaic floor, and soon the stones ceased to clack against the stonework by her head. Mosca took a few deep breaths, drew her knees away from her chin, and peered from beneath the brim of her bonnet.

“Hello, little god,” said Kohlrabi. “What are you the deity of, may I ask?”

“Hiding, and staying alive.” Mosca rubbed at a new tear in her stocking, and felt the edges damp with blood. Someone had a good aim.

“Who are you hiding from?”

“Other children.”

“Is it a game?”

Mosca shook her head.

“I don’t see any other children.” Indeed, the children of the Floating School had chosen this time to float elsewhere. “In fact, I suspect you have been waiting here in ambush to swoop down and crush my hat again. But let’s see.”

Kohlrabi paced a few leisurely steps to the main aisle, swept back his cloak, and raised both his fists in an exaggerated yawn and stretch. There was a rapid patter of feet, and the cathedral door banged and juddered. “Well, I was wrong. Lots of children. What did you do to bring such wrath on your head?”

For a moment Mosca thought about lying and telling him that it had been a game after all. But instead somehow she found herself pouring out the truth for the third time that day: the arrest of Pertellis, the murder of Partridge, the denunciation of Clent, and the vengeance of the schoolchildren.