Before he could remonstrate, the sedan was lifted smoothly and, as if nothing had happened, the unseen chairmen set off at their obedient jog. A moment later this accelerated to a disobedient canter, and then to a downright rebellious gallop.

While he tried to right himself, his phantom carriers took a left, a right, a left, a left, a right. Caveat could hear more than two pairs of feet clattering on the cobbles, and the echoes spoke of dank, empty alleys and high walls.

Then the echoes were gone, and there was the slap of flat soles on wet wood. Wind’s laughter, a fanfare of gulls. The mad gallop halted. The entire sedan swung giddily sideways, then plunged. Caveat struggled himself upright and leaned out of the window, just in time to see the caramel-colored surface of the river rising to meet him.

A throaty splash. Cloudy water surged in from the cracks around the doors. Caveat lurched for one door, and the sedan tilted, shipping water through the open window. In terror he flung his weight the other way and righted it, not a moment too soon.

As he sat rigidly in the very center of his seat, feeling the rising water tickle his calves with cold, he heard a loud banging-scrabbling sound not far from his head. Looking up, he saw a black iron claw had hooked itself under the upper frame of one window. Three more bangs and scrabbles, and grappling hooks had secured the remaining windows. The sedan ceased its whirligig, and with a long, dragging gush rose into the air.

After a few minutes of hushed paralysis, Caveat pushed up the lidlike roof of the sedan, and stood. The sedan hung, dripping, from four sturdy ropes in the shadow of a narrow footbridge, the battered boards of which leaked sky through seam and knothole. Inches below his feet, the Slye chewed the city’s flotsam like stale tobacco. On the dismal jetty nearby, three men in gloves stood watching.

“Funny sort of a fish,” said one. He had a rippled scar like mackerel markings down his left cheek. “But you never know what you’re likely to hook at Whickerback Point. All kinds of brackle washes up here.”

“You’re very lucky we was passing by, Mr. Stationer,” his taller companion called, scratching the corn stubble at the corner of his grin. The third said nothing, but blew pipe smoke out through his teeth.

“Perhaps”—Caveat halted—“you might fetch the. Beadle to help me if so there’ll be a. Shiny. Shilling. For you.” The men on the bank could not have seen his guildsman’s insignia, and yet they knew who he was. Despite their rough apparel, all three wore gloves of good quality.

“Wouldn’t like to leave you a-dangle, sir,” called the tall man. “What if you was to fall? Notorious for accidents, this place.”

“Acca- acksi- acc-” Caveat’s broken sentences disintegrated completely.