“I think not. The radicals have spoken with the guilds, and I fancy an uneasy truce will be struck. Neither side will be happy with it, but Man is born to walk this world in misery.”

“So . . . really, the Locksmiths an’ the rest will be taking over the city after all?”

“Ah no—Blythe and his radicals would never allow that, and at the moment he has the backing of the whole city. And I think even when the hubbub has died down he will do well enough with Pertellis and that alarming ladle-wielding ptarmigan to advise him.”

. . . Blythe sitting uncomfortably in the Duke’s spire and scowling his way through sheaves of papers, while Pertellis patiently leans over his shoulder to point and explain, and Miss Kitely frowning at a map of Mandelion as if it were the pattern for a smock that needed adjusting for a new owner . . .

“Hopewood Pertellis asked a great deal about you while we were in the coffeehouse,” Clent added in a deliberately casual manner.

“You didn’t tell him I was dragged out of a burning building by a goose, or kidnapped by gypsies, or any of those things?”

“I was the model of candor. I told him that you were an inscrutable little animal and never told me anything, but that I believed your parents were dead.”

They were crossing the Ashbridge. Unexpectedly, Clent slowed and halted.

“Mosca, give me the leash for a moment.” She obeyed, compelled by the unusual seriousness in his manner. “The Guildmasters may have banished us, but their displeasure lies chiefly on my shoulders . . . and perhaps that of the goose. The truth is, they care little where you go. Pertellis has an interest in your welfare, and if you went to him I have no doubt he would take you in.”

It was true, Mosca felt it. And as if she were riffling the years of her life like the pages of her book, she saw in a very few seconds what would happen and how it would all go. Pertellis’s spring-blue eyes would brighten and he would take her in without hesitation or reproach. Miss Kitely would pick out some clothes for her, and she would find herself taking dictation in the Floating School, then teaching the younger children when it was noticed how well she read. In a hundred quiet little ways she would become trusted, and appreciated, and finally necessary. One day Pertellis would look up at her as she marshaled his library, and he would realize that she was not twelve now, she was twenty. And she would marry him, or someone very like him . . . as her mother had done.

“No,” said Mosca.

“You have a chance of security here—food, shelter, friends, prospects . . . books . . .”

“No.” Mosca bit her lip and shook her head firmly. Books no longer seemed quite enough. I don’t want a happy ending, I want more story.