They marched Rowan to the door beneath the ticking glare of the Guard Captain, who still stood on the table. Rowan’s mask grinned up at the Captain. Then Rowan kicked one of the table legs. It broke. The Guard Captain fell forward with a clang and a crash.

Rowan jumped aside, dodged around flailing arms, and disappeared into the back rooms, where the kitchens were. Rownie could hear broken plates and angry yells after two of the Guard followed Rowan. The Captain got to his feet and shouted in his very loud voice. One of his copper boots was dented, and the foot stuck out at an odd angle.

“We’d better go,” said Greasy.

“Obviously,” said Vass.

Rownie stared at the kitchen doorway. He wanted to follow his brother. He wanted to know for sure and certain that Rowan had gotten safely away. But too much had happened, too quickly, and now the commotion was already over. He held Rowan’s coat tightly to him while he followed Vass and Greasy. They all slunk out and away from the alehouse.

Rownie had hoped that his brother would be waiting for them at Graba’s shack, even though he was too old and too tall to still sleep there. He couldn’t bunk with the rest of his troupe, not now that everyone had been arrested, and the shack would be a very good place to hide him from the Guard. The Guard always kept clear of Graba. But Rowan didn’t show up to hide in the shack. Days and weeks went by without any word.

He’s still hiding, Rownie told himself, over and again. Maybe he sailed away downstream to get clear of the Guard. But he’ll come back, and then we’ll sail away together and fight pirates, or else we’ll be pirates. He’ll come back.

Rownie wondered how his brother would find him now that he had run away from Graba’s household and was curled up in an abandoned railcar and listening for diggers in the tunnel.

He tried to remember the giant mask on his shoulders. He tried to imagine himself as a giant, towering and untouchable. He also tried to imagine himself Rowan-like, moving easily through the world and laughing along with everything in it. He wrapped Rowan’s coat more tightly around himself and curled up on the cushioned railcar seat. He felt very small.

Sleep was impossible. Then the rushing excitement of running and hiding drained away from him and left exhaustion behind. Somehow he slept.

He dreamed that Rowan still wore the vice mask he had been wearing at the alehouse. The mask grinned. That was what it did best.