“Quite right,” said Thomas. “Mask yourselves, everyone. And pay careful attention for any glimpse or news of young Rowan. Apart from the Fiddleway, the docks are the second best place in the city to hide.”

Semele gave the egged hair of her own mask one final tug, and then put it on. Thomas and Patch did the same with their own. Rownie peered through fox eyes again. He tied the string above his ears and behind his head.

“Be on your several ways,” said Semele.

“Break your face, everybody!” said Essa. She said it with so much hope and cheer that Rownie was sure he must have heard her wrong.

They left the wagon. The sun was up and bright. It had already burned away most of the morning fog.

Nonny waved from the driving bench, and then set off. The rest followed on foot, through the litchfield and through the gates. Rownie looked around for Graba’s shack. He did not see it. Maybe she had taken it up into the hills. Maybe she was nowhere nearby.

The troupe separated, moving down different streets and alleys to the east and south. Semele took Rownie’s gloved hand before he could choose his own way.

“Take care,” she said behind the high cheekbones and waving hair of her ghost face. “If anyone puts a hand to you, run. It will mean that they know you are not Tamlin. UnChanged folk do not touch Tamlin, as a rule. They seem to believe that it would give them freckles. You will be mistaken for Tamlin, and this should keep you safe, yes. But take care. While masked you will also be vulnerable to changes.”

Rownie held the old Tamlin’s hand, to show that he wasn’t afraid of freckles—but he wasn’t at all sure what she meant by vulnerability to change. “Is that bad?” he asked.

“It all depends,” Semele said. She seemed to be smiling under the ghost face, but of course he couldn’t tell.

She turned and went her own way. Rownie chose his.

All roads to the docks ran downhill. They wound and switchbacked across a steep ravine wall, with Southside above and the River below. Some of these streets were so steep and narrow that they had to be climbed rather than walked on. Stairs had been cut into the stone or built with driftwood logs lashed together over the precarious slope.

Rownie took these staircases on his own way down to the Floating Market. He remembered dockside errands he had run for Graba—mostly picking things up or bringing things down, and usually without ever knowing what the things were that he had carried. Pick up a small package from a barge woman missing her left ear, Graba might say. Bring it back to me, now—but never be peeking inside it, and make sure it’s her left ear that’s missing.