Several members of the Guard came marching toward Rownie, with their Captain in the lead. Rownie could tell that the Guard Captain had decided not to notice him, but he waited longer than he should have before moving aside. He knew they couldn’t detain him here on the Fiddleway. The bridge was a sanctuary. No one ever got arrested while still on the bridge. Rownie figured that most of the houses here had been built by smugglers and other sorts of people who couldn’t set foot in the city, on either side.

The Guard Captain tried to glare at Rownie and ignore him at the same time. He had an impressive glare. Every member of the Guard had gearworked legs, and some of them also had gearworked arms, but only the Captain had eyes made of tiny glass gears with dark stained-glass irises. Each iris was gear-shaped. They rotated slowly within the workings of his eyes.

Boots struck the bridge at perfectly regular intervals as they marched. The Guard always marched. The way their legs were made, they had no other option but to march.

“May your feet fall off,” Rownie whispered to the backs of them, once they had all passed. “May your breath smell like pigeon feathers.” He tried to chant the words, to make them into a proper curse, to make them stick. He wished he knew how to curse better. Graba knew excellent curses, of course, but she only shared their secrets with Vass.

In the very center of the bridge stood the Clock Tower of Zombay. A stained-glass sun climbed up the stained-glass sky of the clock face, high above the etched glass horizon of the cityscape. The face glinted, bright with reflected sunlight. When the real sun set overhead, the glass sun in the clock would set behind the glass horizon. Then, at nightfall, lanterns would light up behind the clock face and the miniature glass moon as it ticked its way across the sky.

The whole of Zombay was very proud of its clock, though the tower was said to be haunted by clockmaker ghosts. The big front doors were latched, locked, and chained shut. No one ever went inside.

Vass stood by the tower doors with her back to the road, chanting over Graba’s charm bag. Rownie did not interrupt her, though he did wonder why Graba would want to tie a gift of welcoming home to the Clock Tower. No one lived in the Clock Tower.

He continued on his way, looking for one particular stretch of low stone wall, and there he found Stubble and Blotches. They had the crate of eggs with them. They were sitting exactly where Rownie always threw pebbles over the wall’s side. Rownie didn’t want them to be there, but there they were.