The men on the roof of this coffeehouse had fallen foul of a sudden change in the wind’s direction. The boom had jibbed, and all hands were now busy working to bring the boat back into the wind. None of them noticed a short figure scaling the stone steps that spiraled up Goodman Sussuratch’s pillar, and then crouching, ready to jump. Their ears were too full of the deafening crack and slap of the slack sail to hear a gentle weight drop onto a corner of the roof.

Thump.

Not a loud noise, but loud enough to wake a man.

The man it woke did not move immediately but lay, frowning, for a few seconds, as if becoming gradually aware of the awkward posture of his head against the chair back, and then he opened eyes the color of verdigris.

He blinked at the discolored walls, at the tired faces of the drapers who chatted over the Tradesman’s Companion, at the copper gleam of the coffeepots beyond the hatch.

Lapsing back into his chair, he dozed off with the speed of one used to sleeping on the move. Only when the entire room jolted to starboard, causing regulars to lunge with a practiced gesture to save their coffeepots, did his eyelids flicker open again.

A farewell word for his host. He had a pleasant voice, with a reassuring quality like warm milk. A smile for the girl who brought his hat and walking cane. He had a pleasant smile, as frank as a handshake. A few steps through the door and his hat was knocked from his head as something pale and pointed descended on wings of muslin as if from the heavens, to land a-crumple at his feet.

Mosca blinked up into the sun. The man standing above her seemed young. He seemed startled. He seemed to be wearing a long gentleman’s traveling cloak.

She seemed to be sitting on his hat.

Perhaps she could hand back his flattened hat with a curtsey, and make a bolt for it before his surprise turned to anger? She stood unsteadily, and the man instinctively reached out to catch her arm and prevent her falling through the crack between doorstep and jetty.

“Steady, there,” he said, not unkindly.

Mosca did not answer, but froze, staring past the stranger’s shoulder.

“What’s wrong?” He turned, and saw what she had already seen, the figure of Partridge on the quay, shielding his eyes to stare at the roof of the coffeehouse. It suddenly occurred to Mosca that, for all their busily swelling sails and struggling kites, the coffeehouses moved at something less than walking speed, and Partridge had probably been keeping pace with her along the shore. The barge captain seemed to have lost sight of her for the moment, but it would not be long before he spotted her. She shrank back behind the man in the traveling cloak, who turned to her to look a question.