Essa grabbed the sword of the Wrongful Heir away from Patch, poked it through the burning blanket, and flung it away from the stage and out over the River.

Then the pigeons came.

Birds swooped down from all sides, snatched up the burning blanket, and kept it airborne. The fire spread and changed color from pale blue to an angry orange. It spread to the birds themselves. Pigeon feathers burned with greasy flame, and still they flapped their wings and flew above the audience with the burning sea-blanket between them.

The birds screamed and died and fell. The blanket broke into pieces, and fell. Fire came down on the audience. It came down on the nearby barge-stalls of the Floating Market. People screamed and pushed each other. Some fell splashing off the pier in their haste to get away from burning things. The awning of a barge-stall caught fire.

One pigeon smacked onto the stage and smoldered there. Essa flicked it away with the sword. The dead bird hissed and steamed where it struck the River.

Thomas took off his mask and looked sadly at their former audience. “The show is done, I think,” he said to the rest of the troupe. “We had better hoist anchor before the crowd gets organized enough to have us lynched and drowned.”

Semele came backstage. “Take us upstream, Nonny.”

Patch and Essa untied the moorings that held the wagon-raft to the pier. Nonny cobbled together some wire and springs, stuck four oars through it, and tied the whole contraption to the back of the raft. The oars spun around and pushed the wagon-raft upstream, away from the pier. They passed beneath the Fiddleway and over the spot where Rownie always dropped pebbles, where Rowan had taught him to drop pebbles for their mother. He felt for the pebble in his only coat pocket, the one Semele had given him in the litchfield, the one that was Rowan’s hello. He thought about dropping it over the side to say hello to the mother he did not remember. Instead he kept the pebble in his pocket.

The screams and shouting of the Floating Market faded behind them. Rownie saw Stubble-Grub stand apart from the crowd. Vass stood with him.

“This was for me,” he said. “The show was cursed, because of me.”

Semele stood beside him. “This was for the both of us,” she said in a voice that she probably meant to be comforting. “These curses were fashioned for you and me both.”

Act II, Scene VII

THE WAGON-RAFT SPUTTERED UPSTREAM. Rownie sat on the edge of the roof, dangled his feet over the side, and watched the River go by. The city was out of sight already. The Fiddleway Bridge disappeared behind a bend. Rownie could not remember any place other than Zombay, and now he could no longer see it.

Nonny stood in the back and steered the raft by poking her paddle contraption with a pole.