Mosca’s voice had become fierce and loud, and the low hills passed her words to and fro, marveling at them. Kohlrabi’s face softened and took on the gentle, rueful smile with which he had always wished her farewell. The tricorn dropped from his left hand, and Mosca threw herself forward, bruising her chest against the iron mooring ring. Kohlrabi’s smile vanished behind a wreath of smoke. She felt a wind stroke her cheek, as if an invisible dog had licked her face with a long, cold tongue.

The pistol shot shocked Mosca’s ears into white, whistling deafness. Her trembling fingers forced the rough cords of the mooring rope to loosen. On the shore Kohlrabi would be advancing, testing his ground with a careful foot . . .

But there were other figures on the bank now, sprinting along the paths with swords drawn, calling words that made no sound. Kohlrabi drew his rapier and stepped forward. The foremost of his opponents slithered to a stop too slowly, and took a wicked kick to the kneecap. He staggered and fell to one knee, and the Birdcatcher aimed a vicious cut down toward his face. The stricken man flung up a parry too late, and fell back with a scream.

As Kohlrabi turned and ran, one of his attackers raised and leveled a pistol. Smoke gasped silently out of the gun, and then wind sucked it up greedily and swallowed it. Kohlrabi spun as if to face his pursuers, but somehow the motion did not end, and he kept on spinning right around, toppling sideways at the same time. Mosca saw him break the moon-gilded mirror of the river without making a sound, and then the current took pity on her and drew the ragman’s raft away.

Mosca was sure that the men on the bank would be calling to her, but she huddled herself in a nest of rags, and shivered in silence. It was only after she had drifted for an hour that the ringing faded from her ears. A low, soft booming seemed to sound from the hills like gunfire, but she could not be sure if it existed inside her head or out. At last she raised her head to look at the imagined figure of her father, whose desk was now perched up on the rag mountain.

“You weren’t much help,” she murmured bitterly. “Why didn’t you tell me anything about all this?”