The walls of this coffeehouse, however, were almost completely hidden under a jostling patchwork of sun-bleached, slantwise posters and printed snippets. Along the guttering, newspaper cuttings fluttered loosely like scarecrow rags. Each page bore the red blot of the Stationers’ seal, so that the coffeehouse seemed to be suffering from a slight case of measles.

“Eponymous Clent, poet,” Clent declared airily, brandishing his scrawled poetry at a quiver-cheeked man at the door. “Here to speak with Mabwick Toke.” The door swung back, and Mosca followed Clent into the Telling Word.

They entered a large square room filled with tables that bore a startling resemblance to writing desks, complete with ink splashes and glass quill stands. Several customers, indeed, had their own writing boxes open before them, quills and steel pens nestling on the green felt lining. Coffee fumes mixed with the metallic scent of ink, and instead of brisk tavern chatter there was the deadened murmur of voices hushed through habit.

Mosca’s eyes were helplessly drawn to the sheaves of words pinned here and there on the walls, and the advertisements behind glass. Words, words, words. This was her gingerbread cottage. The smell of ink, however, seemed to be dizzying her. From time to time she could swear that the floor was gently dipping and rising.

Mosca and Clent were led to an unsmiling little man of fifty with a gnawed, yellow look like an apple core. The little man’s mouth was a small, bitter V shape, and seemed designed to say small, bitter things. His wig frightened Mosca; it was so lustrous and long, so glossy and brown, one could think it had sucked the life out of the little man whom it seemed to wear.

“Ah . . . Master Printer Mabwick Toke? Ah, I am honored to meet a man so celebrated among the Stationers—”

“What I would like to know, Mr. Eponymous Clent, is why you have chosen to meet me at all,” Toke interrupted sharply. “We have agents of our own in Mandelion. Our whole reason for bringing you here was our wish to use someone who was not obviously connected to us.”

“Assuredly, assuredly.” Clent spread his plump hands reassuringly. “However, as a poetic practitioner it would be strange if I did not approach the Stationers about publishing my works. On this occasion”—he passed his scroll of paper across the table—“I have taken the precaution of preparing an excuse for my visit.”

Mabwick Toke ran a quick eye over the ballad, droning the words to himself in his throat. Absentmindedly, he caught up a quill to jot and correct, occasionally licking at the nib to wet it. This was clearly a habit of his, since the tip of his tongue had become as black as that of a parrot. He drinks ink, thought Mosca, looking at his black tongue. He eats nothing but paper, she added to herself, noting his dry, pale lips and the crumpled-looking skin of his face and hands.