“Ah, Mistress Bessel give you my name, did she? If you’re a friend of Jen, come in and be welcomed by Bockerby. You must take a pinch of snuff with me before you sleep.” His every sentence began in a deep, sonorous, church-bell voice, and ended in a chatty tone like a peddler’s shamble.

Mosca and Clent were led through a cramped, ill-swept corridor into a cramped, ill-swept parlor. The tabletop was crowded with vases. These were filled not with flowers but with bunches of dried, branching honesty plants, crowned with glossy seedpods the size of sovereigns and the color of jaded paper. On a stand stood a name-day book, so that each couple who came to the marriage house could see if a match between their names was auspicious.

A host of tiny Beloved idols sat in rough-cut recesses in the wall, as if the little gods had gouged out their own homes like nesting birds. Many of the Beloved shown were unfamiliar to Mosca, but with some apprehension she recognized Goodlady Mauget of the Almost-Truth, Goodman Happendabbit of the Repented Oath, St. Leasey, He Who Lends His Cloak to the Sly-in-the-Night, and Goodlady Judin of the Borrowed Face. The largest shrines were to Leampho of the One Wakeful Eye, a goodman who according to legend would smile upon contracts and unions that Torquest the Joiner of Hands would not touch with the tiniest finger of his steel-gloved hand.

Mosca knew that all respectable weddings took place in church, but for couples with too little money or too much to hide there were the marriage houses. Girls with child, forbidden love matches, would-be bigamists, anyone who did not want their affairs boomed to the congregation—all of these could creep with their sweethearts to a marriage house, and have a license for a handful of shillings. To judge by his outfit, Bockerby served as cleric and master of ceremonies for this establishment.

Bockerby had fetched a mahogany box from the mantel, and now he offered it to Clent, who placed the daintiest pinch at the base of his thumb, before lowering his nose to his wrist and taking an energetic sniff.

“So”—Clent settled in a large rocking chair and gestured Mosca toward a stool by the wall—“what news in your brave city, Mr. Bockerby?”

“Been here before, sir? No?” Bockerby gave a one-shouldered shrug and drew in a pinch of snuff, creasing his brow into a map. “Ah . . . truth is, Mr. Clent, you find us in a bit of a hubblebubble.”

“I noticed your city wall was badly burned.”

“Mostly old fires, Mr. Clent. Yus, Mandelion’s a battered old nell.”

“The old war?”

“The old war. And then . . . the Birdcatchers. We was hit bad, worse than most. I was only about eleven when they took over, but I remember it, clear as clarion.”