The goblin started to juggle. Then he stomped his foot three times against the platform. A dragon puppet peered out through the curtain behind him. It was made of plaster and paper, and it glowed in golden colors. The puppet breathed fire over the stage. The goblin tossed his clubs up through the dragon breath, and each club caught fire at one end. Then the puppet roared and pulled back through the curtain. The goblin juggled fire.

Rownie tried jumping in place to get a better view. He wanted to be at the very front of the crowd, at the edge of the stage. He tried to push between knees and shoulders to get there. He couldn’t manage it. He clenched his hands and strained forward, but he couldn’t force himself to move.

“It will cost you two coppers to be any closer than this,” said a voice.

Rownie looked. A small, round, and wrinkled goblin stood beside him.

This one had white hair tied tightly behind her head, and a pair of thick eyeglasses on a little brass chain. She had flecks of gold and bright green in her eyes, which were magnified by the eyeglasses. She held out her hand politely, not too far outstretched. The skin of her hand was a deep green-brown, and her fingers were longer than Rownie thought fingers should be.

Rownie took Graba’s pennies from his coat pocket and dropped them in the goblin’s hand.

“Thank you,” she said, nodding once. “You have paid your way through the audience wall, which is the fifth wall, so you are free to cross it and believe it is not there and only made up of a song and a circle in the grass.”

The old goblin moved away. Rownie could hear her voice at the edge of the crowd. “Two coppers if you please, yes?”

He pushed forward, dodging around the knees of many tall people and working his way to the very front. It was easy enough to do.

The fire juggling ended. The tall goblin extinguished the burning clubs, bowed, and withdrew. A smaller goblin with a trim gray beard and a huge black hat stepped onstage. His face was wide and round, and as he walked, his chin went first in front of him. He leaned on a polished cane, which clacked against the floorboards. He was small—shorter than Rownie—but he moved like he knew himself superior to everyone else gathered there.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” he said. “You have no doubt heard that our profession has been prohibited by his lordship, the Mayor.”

Some booed. Others cheered. “We’re only here to see you arrested!” someone shouted from the back of the crowd.