Rownie understood very little of the conversation, though he listened carefully. He sifted words through his head like fine dust through his hands, and he caught what he could. As the youngest he was used to piecing together his understanding from snatches of overheard conversations, and the rest he set carefully aside on the shelf in the back of his mind.

Metal shrieked against metal somewhere outside. Rownie didn’t know what the noise was. He didn’t think it was Graba’s leg. He didn’t think so. It sounded like a gate fighting against its own hinges.

The wagon started up again, and this time there was no sound of accompanying Guard-boots. It rode over an even rougher surface than the Southside streets, and everyone inside braced themselves against the walls and floor. They went over an especially violent bump, and Rownie bit the tip of his tongue when the impact knocked his teeth together. It hurt, but he didn’t cry out. He tensed up his face with the effort of not crying out.

The wagon finally rolled to a stop. A small hatch in the front wall opened.

“We’re here,” Thomas said through the hatch.

“Where’s here?” Essa asked, but he had already shut it again.

The whole wagon jittered while the gearworked mule folded back in on itself. Semele opened the door in the back wall and went outside. The others followed her. Rownie came last, but Essa stopped him in the doorway. She was still holding the sword.

“The Guard might be out there,” she said in her loud whisper, “and they’ll be unhappy with us if they see you, because Thomas said, ‘Nope, officer, we don’t have any idea where that mask-wearing boy might be, and he certainly isn’t hiding underneath our very own wagon.’ So keep hiding for just a second.”

She peered outside and looked unhappy. She whispered curses under her breath. They were decent curses, spoken with a decent rhythm. “May the Guard Captain grow hideous ear hairs, and may his glass eyes both turn the wrong way around.”

“Are they out there?” Rownie asked. “The Guard?”

“No,” Essa told him, “but the graves are. We’re in the litchfield.” She left the wagon.

Rownie took a good-sized breath. He knew that Graba sometimes sent Grubs to run errands in the litchfield and collect the sorts of things that grow in grave-dirt. Blotches always came back with stories about fighting off ghouls. Rownie was sure that Blotches had made up the fights, but Blotches might not have made up the ghouls.

Rownie tried to feel like a giant. He adjusted his brother’s coat on his shoulders and went outside.

Act II, Scene III