“Hate has its uses, but it will serve you ill if you wear it so openly.”

The quiet voice jarred Mosca into wakefulness. Lady Tamarind was looking directly at her and, snatching for a fistful of her wits, she struggled to explain.

“He—”

“Your grievances do not interest me. Your master’s request does. Why is he so keen to mix above his station?”

Sparks of hate crackled in Mosca’s mind.

“Spying,” she hissed recklessly. “He’s a mangy old nookgazin’ spy. ’S got papers, signed by the Stationers—I seen ’em.”

Lady Tamarind’s immaculate mask of a face hung in the dusk of the coach and looked at Mosca. For several moments her features showed not the slightest motion. Perhaps she disapproved of Mosca’s indiscretion. Perhaps she did not believe her.

“A Stationer spy,” she murmured at last, very quietly and without rancor. “What is his name?”

“Eponymous Clent.”

“Eponymous Clent.” There was an odd, distant note in Tamarind’s voice that Mosca did not understand. “How a name changes everything!” Her gaze never moved from Mosca’s face. “A man’s face tells you nothing,” Tamarind continued in her usual tone, “but through his name you . . . know him. Eponymous. A name suited to the hero of a tall tale. But such heroes are seldom to be trusted. And you—are you a spy, like your master?”

“Not me, he din’t even mean me to see them papers.”

Mosca stiffened as one of Clent’s snores became a nasal hiccup. Then his sonorous breathing resumed, and she relaxed again. “I’m jus’ his secretary till I got something better. I’m going to school,” she added. “I can read.”

Now Lady Tamarind’s arctic stare held real interest. When she spoke again it was in a softened, urgent tone that reminded Mosca of velvet rubbed the wrong way.

“You seem interested in my pearls, girl. Would you like to have one?”

Mosca suddenly felt that to win just one of them she would willingly burn down Chough in its entirety, mill and malthouse, kiln and kitchen. She wanted to keep it, stare into it like a tiny, eider-gray crystal ball, and understand this strange new whiteness before it slipped out of her life again. She shrugged, not meeting the lady’s eye.

“If you do something for me, and do it well, you may have a pearl, and perhaps ‘something better.’ How much courage do you have, girl?”

“Enough to pluck the tail of the Devil’s horse, but not enough to ride ’im.” Mosca whispered the old Chough adage automatically.

“What is your name?” The lady sounded as if she might be pleased.