“Mm. I see.” His tone was slightly tremulous, and Mosca realized that he was trying not to laugh. “Well, I daresay that if you had been setting out to deceive, you would have come up with a story that made rather more sense than that. So I think I must accept your words as the truth. And anyway, even if it is a lie, then I am sure it is a great improvement upon the facts.”

“It’s true!” It seemed too hard that on one of the few occasions when she was trying to be honest, she should be doubted.

“All right, my apologies. What’s your name?”

“Mosca.”

“Pleased to meet you.” He held out a hand. “Linden Kohlrabi.”

She shook the offered hand, not sure whether she was being mocked.

“You are not from Mandelion, are you? Your accent sounds familiar, but I cannot place it.”

“I just come here with a poetic practitioner. I’m his secretary.” Her declaration was proudly defiant. The corners of his mouth trembled with another suppressed smile. Suddenly she wanted to impress the man before her.

“I’m only doin’ that for now,” she added, “’cause soon I’m going to work . . . over there.” Above the sandstone wall and the mosaic of roofs she could see the pale needle of the Eastern Spire. “That’s where Lady Tamarind lives, and I’m goin’ to be workin’ for her.” She grinned up at Kohlrabi, and was delighted to see that, yes, his eyes had now paled to a startled green. “I’m goin’ to get a place there, an’ read her poetry, an’ carry in her letters on a tray, and . . .” She lost words as her mind drifted away to a serene cold place where nothing could jostle her and no one could lift her by the collar. “That’s where I’m goin’.”

“What a coincidence,” Kohlrabi answered smoothly, his expression deadpan. “I was thinking I might drop in there myself—call upon Her Ladyship, admire the tapestries, and I hear there’s a rather fine view from the topmost room . . .”

Mosca looked at his muddy boots and sly smile, and laughed aloud.

“You’re making fun,” she said. “You don’t believe me. ’S all true, though. You’ll see!” She gave the Eastern Spire a wave, and then turned and sprinted away along the alley.

Mosca’s good mood carried her halfway home before she remembered the back-alley school. Bitter thoughts stung her again and again, like a wasp in a clenched fist. I could’ve sat sentry for ’em up on the wall, she thought. I could’ve lifted pens for ’em from the Stationers. But then she remembered the clothier’s apprentice elbowing her off her feet, and felt the bruises to her limbs and her pride. She didn’t want to go to that school, she’d never wanted to go to that school, it was rotten and radical and full of traitors.