“Beloved are all right,” she murmured gruffly. “Wouldn’t want to go burning ’em.”

“Not even in the service of truth?”

“That’s not serving truth!” Mosca thought back to what she’d already said to Kohlrabi, and tried to make sense of her scattered thoughts. “I mean . . . if I told people what to believe, they’d stop thinking. And then they’d be easier to lie to. And . . . what if I was wrong?”

“So . . . if you may not decide what is true, and the men of letters may not, who may?”

“Nobody. Everybody.” Mosca looked up at the windows where the jubilant people of Mandelion swung their bells. “Clamoring Hour—that’s the only way. Everybody able to stand up and shout what they think, all at once. An’ not just the men of letters, an’ the lords in their full-bottomed wigs, but the street sellers, an’ the porters, an’ the bakers. An’ not just the clever men, but the muddle-headed, an’ the madmen, an’ the criminals, an’ the children in their infant gowns, an’ the really, really stupid. All of ’em. Even the wicked, Mr. Clent. Even the Birdcatchers.”

“Confusion, madam. The truth would be drowned out and never heard.”

“Maybe.”

“People would close their ears and beg to be told what to think.”

“Maybe.”

“Terrible ideas would spread like wildfire from tongue to tongue, and nobody would be able to stop them.”

“Maybe.”

Clent was right, and Mosca knew it. Words were dangerous when loosed. They were more powerful than cannon and more unpredictable than storms. They could turn men’s heads inside out and warp their destinies. They could pick up kingdoms and shake them until they rattled. And this was a good thing, a wonderful thing . . . and in her heart Mosca was sure that Clent knew this too. Mosca recalled the words she had heard Pertellis reading to the Floating School—words that she now knew had been written by her father, Quillam Mye:

. . . there is one thing that is more dangerous than Truth. Those who would try to silence Truth’s voice are more destructive by far . . .

In Suet Street, currant-scented steam eased through a gash in the diamond-paned window of a baker, lighting a flame in Mosca’s stomach and a concern in her mind.

“What ’appened to the Cakes, Mr. Clent?”

“She lives and thrives, though I fancy she will be busy for a time, tending to that young admirer of hers until his shoulder recovers.”

. . . the Cakes piling Carmine’s bedside with cinnamon treats and brandy-apple pies, open treacle pastries covered in flourishes of cream, and all the while wearing the pink-faced, bright-eyed look that made her seem less pert and pointed . . .

“What ’bout Mr. Pertellis an’ the radicals? They won’t be arrested, will they?”