“Patch can’t swim,” Essa said. She didn’t say anything after that.

Rownie remembered the sight of Patch falling. Rownie watched him fall, and then watched again, and felt like he was falling with him.

In silence the troupe unfolded the gearworked mule and set off along Riverside Road, back toward the city. Rownie put his gloves and hat back on, to hide how unChanged he was.

They did not get very far.

At a crossroads, underneath the long shadow of a manor house and a few smaller shacks, a fallen tree blocked the road to Zombay. Children played a circle game near the tree, singing, “Tamlin, tinker man, beggar man, thief!” all together, all in one voice, and the one tagged “thief” had to chase the tagger around and around and around before the circle closed.

Rownie knew the game. He had played it before. He had run around the circle while Grubs sang the song. Curse thrower, charm monger, Change maker, thief! False face, fox face, clock face, thief!

The children stopped singing and stared at the wagon.

Rownie sat on the driving bench between Thomas and Essa. He peered out from underneath his own small hat and checked the faces of the children to make sure that none of them were Grubs. They weren’t Grubs. They wouldn’t be, this far outside the city.

“Can we go around?” Essa asked.

“No,” said Thomas. “We cannot go around. The crossing road leads to nowhere important in either direction.”

The old goblin climbed down from the bench and waved his cane angrily at the fallen tree.

“Why has no one in the village removed this roadblock? Why is no one doing so now? It is disrespectful to travelers to leave such a task until morning.”

The oldest and tallest of the local children came forward. “This is a town,” he said. “It’s not a village.” He said it with pride and disdain.

“Uh-oh,” Essa whispered.

“What is your name, boy?” Thomas asked, planting his cane firmly on the ground and leaning forward.

“Jansin,” the local boy said. He said it as though Thomas should recognize it, as though anyone and everyone should know who he was.

“This is not a town, young Jansin,” Thomas said. “This is a crossroads with a fancy house nearby, and I flattered the place to call it a village. And you should not, incidentally, be singing and cavorting at a crossroads. You might disturb the graves of innumerable scoundrels, buried here so that they can never find their way home to take up haunting. It is unwise to show disrespect to the dead—or to travelers, who have very far to go. Please fetch someone to help remove this tree.”

Jansin crossed his arms. He did not move otherwise. The other children gathered behind him.

“Why should we care about the crossroads-dead if they were all criminals?” he asked. “Why should we care about travelers if they’re only goblins?”