“Reports from Scurrey? There are no reports from Scurrey. Since Scurrey became a Locksmith city six months ago, there is a new city gate, solid oak and heavy with locks, and hardly a soul has been permitted to leave or enter.

“Goshawk undoubtedly was in Scurrey. His Thief Takers too, secretly hiring half the felons in the city, and claiming rewards for ‘catching’ any criminals that would not work for him.” Toke’s bitter little mouth gave a twitch which might have been a smile. “When Goshawk’s tame cutthroats and pilferers were causing enough trouble to frighten the mayor, the Locksmiths came forward and offered to crush the crime wave. That buffoon of a mayor agreed, gave them half his treasury, and signed charters to give them special powers. The next day a boatload of guards in Locksmith liveries turned up with masons to rebuild the city walls. And now, anything might be happening in Scurrey, for all we know.

“Now the Locksmiths have sent Goshawk to Mandelion, and he is trying to play exactly the same trick with our Duke. The Duke’s dearest dream is to see his beloved Queens ruling Mandelion, and he has a morbid fear of seeing them assassinated by insane radicals. The rogue pamphlets read like something from his worst nightmare—raging against the Twin Queens, and calling them ‘A Monster of Nature Which Might Count to Twenty-one on Its Fingers.’ It has thrown the Duke into frothing and fits, and he would do anything to find the people responsible.

“Of course, he first turned to us to hunt down the perpetrators. For the last month we have trawled the city for the press. We arrest anybody found with one of these pamphlets, but it always turns out that they found it pinned to a tree, or pushed through their window. There is no pattern to where these pamphlets appear—east side, west side, the press seems to dance where it will. The paper is crudely pulped and unfamiliar, and we can learn nothing from it. Every few days more scandal sheets from this invisible press appear in our streets, in spite of our efforts. The Duke is fast running out of patience.

“Who stands to gain from all this? Why, the Locksmiths themselves. Goshawk has promised the Duke that if he will call in Locksmith troops and give them special powers, they will find the rogue press where we have failed. I believe that Goshawk himself is writing these scandal sheets, in order to persuade the Duke that there is a radical conspiracy, so that the Duke will call in Locksmith help to crush it. If we do not find this accursed press, and fast, the Duke will agree to Goshawk’s terms, and another city will fall into the hands of the Locksmiths.”