The girl knelt by the gate’s lock. From a pouch at her belt she produced two metal tines, inserted one into the lock, twisted slightly, and inserted the second. The girl frowned at the lock like Mara frowned when working though a tense point of theology.

Mara. Where was she? The Craftswoman might have lied, might be responsible for her disappearance after all—if she had disappeared. People worked late. People had accidents. Kai hadn’t been home for a month after her disaster in the pool. But if so, why couldn’t she find Mara in her nightmares? Why couldn’t Ms. Kevarian?

And what did it mean, that the hospital nightmare wasn’t hers?

The lock clicked open. Izza stepped back with a curt, professional nod. “Come on.”

She helped Kai through, swung the gate shut after, and reached back to close the lock.

“Polite.”

“If the folks who own that lock see it doesn’t work, they’ll buy a better one. If I clean after myself, they won’t know I was ever here.”

“If you tell them their locks don’t work, and show them ones that would, they might pay you. Even give you keys to them.”

Izza shook beside her.

“Are you laughing?”

“You really think that might happen?”

“People earn a living that way, in my world.”

“You live in a strange world.”

“I guess.”

“A key’s the last thing I want.”

More silence. Another turn, down an alley that smelled of cat piss.

“What do you have against keys?”

“People with keys worry about keeping locks locked.”

They walked hidden paths behind and beside the streets Kai knew. Twice they crossed a main road only to dart again into cover. When other people neared, even beggars, Izza pressed the knife into Kai’s back. Kai didn’t need the reminder.

They smelled smoke four blocks from Margot’s apartment, and met the crowd soon after. Izza hesitated, but at last steered them into the human current. Drunks and salesmen and grandmothers squeezed her and Kai together. Men cried and men sang. Three women shouted at a crying girl. Boys scuffled on the sidewalk until the crowd forced them so close they had to make peace or bite each other. Sour-sweet musk of striving bodies, acrid breath, sandalwood and rosewater and leather. And smoke, always, beneath the other smells.

The crowd thinned and smoke thickened as they turned onto Margot’s street. Black billows dwarfed human works below. The curious crushed in a ragged line against a Penitent barricade. The house where Margot lived was a fire-licked ruin. A bucket line fought the flames. Across the street, a clutch of watchmen surrounded a bent gray-haired woman in a nightdress; others knelt beside a prone and shrouded body.

Kai and Izza reached the front line, and held the yellow barricade to bolster themselves against the crowd.

“You didn’t mention a fire,” Kai said.