“You will stay with your master, and find out more about him. He will bring you into contact with other Stationers, and can probably find you a place in a Stationer school. And once you have been schooled properly . . . it will seem less remarkable if a person of eminence should choose to employ you. When you have information for me, seek out the city Plumery. You will find a patch of pheasant feathers planted in front of the statue of Goodman Claspkin. Hide your letter inside the quill of one of these, and place it back in the earth. It will reach me.”

Mosca blinked hard, trying to commit everything to memory.

“Now listen, for your own safety’s sake. Beware men who wear gloves even indoors and at luncheon. Keep a close guard on your pockets and purse—the Thief Takers sometimes serve an enemy by planting stolen goods upon them. And, girl? If you think that you are suspected . . . beware of accidents . . .”

Clent drew a long, waking breath. His eyes fluttered open, and stared unseeing and glassy at the carriage roof. Tamarind drew back against her seat with impeccable composure. Mosca curled away from Clent, closing her eyes and feigning sleep.

It seemed to Mosca that she had spent barely five minutes leaning against the window frame and counting her employer’s breaths when the carriage lurched and woke her. The woman in white was staring out of the window, the scar dead white in the stony light. Mosca wondered if she had dreamed the strange conversation.

Mosca dozed, and woke, and found that villages had sprung up at the roadside. She dozed, and woke, and found that the road was running alongside the river, and above the bristle of sails quivered some half-dozen craft-dragging kites which bore the insignia of the Watermen, a silver pond-skater against a black background. She dozed, and woke, and found that the sky was dim and a harsh crosswind was flattening the curtain against the roof.

The carriage was crossing a bridge. Houses clustered along the bridge side as if to peer back at Mosca, and between them Mosca glimpsed a stretch of water so wide that at first she took it for a lake. But no, there were the far banks, curving away to clasp hands at the horizon. This was still the River Slye, and on the far side of the bridge the city of Mandelion smoked and sprawled and scored the sky with spires.