This was a fancier part of the Floating Market, a pier with the glass awning still intact above it. Those who gathered here sold more fragile things, like bolts of fabric and delicate gearwork—things that needed to be kept out of the weather. One barge displayed strange animals in gold cages. Soap makers invited passersby to smell their wares. A tall man with pale, deep-set eyes sold trinkets carved out of bone. Another barge-stall showed off small and cunning devices that did useless things beautifully.

Rownie glanced up at every face he passed, to see if anyone looked like his brother. He paid particular attention to people with beards, in case Rowan had painted or pasted on a fake beard to hide beneath. He looked at the barge crews on each deck, in case Rowan had signed up with a crew in order to escape Zombay and the Captain of the Guard. Rownie wondered if his brother would really set sail without him. He flinched away from the thought.

On the farthest edge of the upstream pier, just underneath the Fiddleway Bridge, a simple raft had been tethered. The goblin wagon floated there, lashed onto the raft.

Patch stood in front of the wagon, still wearing his half mask, with his arms folded in front of him. The goblin stared down a thin and scraggly looking man with a fishhook charm around his neck. The man was shouting, and an audience had gathered around the argument. Rownie slipped into their midst.

“This is my pier!” the man shouted in a scraggly sounding voice. “I put on my show here!”

Patch raised one eyebrow, high enough to appear on his forehead above the mask he wore (which had its own eyebrows). “Show?”

“Yes, show!” the man said, pointing at Patch with one finger as though trying to knock him over with it. “A respectable show, with no masks! I can swallow a fish for four pennies, and I’ll swallow any other sort of scuttling creature for five. Can you do that, goblin? Bet you can’t manage that.”

The man had a bucket with him. Small things scuttled around inside the bucket. Patch reached in, took a handful, and showed the crowd a bite-sized crab, a snail, and a wriggling bait fish. He tossed the crab in the air, and then the snail, and then the bait fish. He juggled them all. Then he added two juggling knives, and their blades flashed in the sunlight. He caught the crab and the snail and the fish in his mouth and swallowed all three while catching a knife in each hand.

The crowd cheered. Rownie clapped. The scraggly man took a step forward, furious—but then he eyed the knives Patch casually held. He stepped back, snatched up his bucket, and stormed away.