“I am thinking that he is not dead,” said Semele. “I wish that I knew where he was, and that I could tell you where. I do not know, but I am thinking he is alive.”

“How can you tell?” Rownie asked, not yet allowing himself to be comforted.

Semele thought for a time before answering. “Your adoptive grandmother, she is very good at finding things. She is also very good at knowing when she should not bother looking. If she is still looking, then he is still somewhere to be found.”

She steered them around another curve. Rownie stared at the fog ahead with less anxiety, beginning to trust Semele to know the road.

He thought about Rowan, hiding somewhere in the fog, somewhere even Graba’s many pigeons couldn’t spot.

Rowan used to disappear for days. Sometimes he would put a new troupe together, and try to rehearse, but this rarely went well. They’re too afraid of masks to put one on, he complained once, while tossing several hellos over the side of the Fiddleway. They’re just willing to do a little play-reading, late at night, with the windows down and the shutters drawn, and someone playing a fiddle in the next room to cover the noise. What are they so afraid of?

The Guard, Rownie said.

But what are the Guard so afraid of?

Rownie wasn’t sure. Pirates? he suggested.

Rowan laughed. No, I mean, why would a little pretending in front of a crowd . . . Never mind. I just wish the rest of my troupe had more courage.

I’m not scared, Rownie said. Can I be in the next show?

Not this one, Rowan told him. There’s no role good enough for you in this one. And I’ll need you to be the one friendly face in the audience—if we ever get to stand in front of an audience.

Rownie was disappointed, and Rowan noticed.

Let me hear the speech I gave you, the older brother said. You’ve been practicing?

I’ve been practicing, said Rownie.

He tried to remember that speech now, while he sat on the wagon bench with Semele. The first line came back to him—I know my way, and I can guess at yours—but he couldn’t think of the next one.

Another thought itched at the back of his mind, on the shelf of things not yet understood.

“Thomas called the puppet show a personal history,” he said. “Whose history?”

“Only mine,” said Semele. “Our selves are rough and unrehearsed tales we tell the world. Hold on to something, yes, because there is an old tree root in the road ahead. There used to be, at least, and I am thinking it is probably still there.”

The wagon wheels hit the root. Rownie’s teeth clacked together. Thomas and Essa gave squawks of protest from inside.