“It’s in the history books. The first Old World settlers came to Alt Coulumb after a plague hit the city, around the fall of the Empire in Telomere. Before the plague, locals used rallybirds to talk with people a long way off, because the birds’ minds tie together. In plague years, the birds escaped, bred uncontrolled—and the more there were, smarter they got. Millions of them lived in the forests at the height. They’d eat crops ripe for harvest, pick a man’s flesh from his bones if they wanted.”

“And the gracklet?”

“A trader went to Southern Kath and found that even though the coastal jungle near Ajaia’s land was full of wild rallybirds, they didn’t get so smart. She asked around and learned that gracklet kept the birds in check. Their song breaks up the bird-mind, and then they eat the birds. The trader, she went into the heart of the forest and came back with a chest full of gracklet eggs. Planted them in the Geistwood, and here we are today.”

“Where did you learn all this?”

“I read a book. Besides, it’s part of the language.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well—the larval stage of your gracklet, called a vurm, looks like a centipede yea long.” He held his hands a foot apart. “They make cocoons in the trees. The rallybirds didn’t realize what was going on until it was too late. But the more they lost, the dumber they all became, and grackle can eat a lot of rallybirds. More food makes ’em breed faster.”

“Okay,” she said, warily.

“Why do you think, when we talk about the virtues of industry and clean living, we say, ‘The rallybird gets the vurm’?”

Golem feet trod down the road with unbroken stride, and wagon wheels rolled.

She hit him in the shoulder, hard.

“Ow.”

She hit him again, then pushed him so he almost toppled over.

“Careful. You’ll spill my coffee.”

“Do you know what a dad joke is?”

“Nothing wrong with a good shaggy-gracklet story.”

“You are a horrible person.” But she had to say it through laughter. He rubbed his shoulder where she’d punched him. “I thought Corbin’s jokes were bad. Do you get them from the same guy? I could tell the Blacksuits and get him locked up, for a nice reasonable time like let’s say forever.”

“Your dad tells jokes?”

“Not as much as he used to.”

He remembered that, dimly—Corbin Rafferty never precisely pleasant, but at least wry, vicious in a way that put all the room but him to chuckling. Recently, though, just mean. “How is he, at home?” Felt dirty to be talking about this after a good laugh, but for once, and maybe because of the laugh, Claire seemed in a mood to talk.