The street outside was sliding to the right and a dark mouth of a gap slowly opening between the waterfront and the doorstep. First one man and then a second leaped for the doorway, and each was caught by a forest of waiting arms and pulled to safety. When the doorway cleared, two coffeemaidens knelt on the threshold, bracing a broom and a warming pan against the street’s edge to push it away.

“Miss Kitely! We’re like to catch our door scraper in the figurehead of the Spry Squirrelhawk!” squeaked the shorter and plumper of the two coffeemaidens, sidling up against the jamb to brace herself.

Miss Kitely snatched up a long mop and beat the handle end against a trapdoor in the roof until it cracked open.

“Mr. Stallwrath, hard a-chimneyside, if you would.” A harassed-looking sailor above gave a hurried salute.

Mosca pushed her eye against a knothole. She could see a group of Duke’s men pushing through the crowd carrying cudgels, and two of them seemed to be shouldering muskets. Their leader was calling something aloft, hailing the sailors up on the deck of the Bower. He pointed at the jetty, as if ordering them back to their moorings. As the coffeehouse drifted farther away, his mouth shrank to an angry crack across his face. He started to drive his way through the crowd with a new fierceness and resolution.

“Up kites, Mr. Stallwrath!”

“But, Miss Kitely, we ain’t ten paddle lengths clear of the bank . . .”

“We shall worry about the fine later, Mr. Stallwrath.”

There was a squeal of consternation from the coffeemaidens as the first Duke’s man reached the jetty side.

“Grab their lines! Stop that coffeehouse!” someone was shouting. “There are fugitives and cell breakers aboard!”

“Sussuratch smile!” murmured Miss Kitely. “She’s gathering away—we are finding our pace at last.”

Perhaps they were. Perhaps this was fast for a coffeehouse. Mosca could not help noticing that they were still being overtaken by ducks.

A shout of triumph. One of the Duke’s men lifted a dripping boat hook with a trailing line looped across the end. Four deputies seized hold and braced their weight against it, the drift of the Laurel Bower dragging them toward the brink in stuttering steps. Drawing his sword, Blythe pushed his way to the doorway and swung himself out and to one side. Mosca recollected the rungs set in the outside wall.

A blade flashed downward once, twice, and the cluster of deputies fell backward, the severed rope end flicking back into their faces like a cow’s tail swatting flies. Blythe swung back into the room and turned to stand in the doorway, daring anyone on the jetty to leap for the boat. No one seemed ready to take up the challenge.