Rownie breathed more easily. He took in a lungful of Southside dust. It was comforting. It was home. Still, he kept careful watch for Graba’s shack, knowing that it might be anywhere at all.

Gearwork hooves smacked the road at regular intervals. A few lonely street lamps lit either side of the lane.

“Are we near to Borrow Street?” Semele asked. “I am thinking that we are, but I would like to be sure.”

“We’re crossing it now,” Rownie said.

Semele jerked the reins to the left, and Horace made a precise left turn. The wagon nearly tipped over. Rownie grabbed the bench to keep from flying off, and almost flew off anyway when the wagon settled back onto all four wheels with a crunching sound. Essa and Thomas made angry noises inside.

“Thank you,” said Semele, unconcerned. “We have not far to go now, yes.”

Rownie examined the familiar streets and avenues around them, trying to guess at their destination. “Where are we headed?” he asked.

“Home,” said Semele. She drove through the entrance gate of the Fiddleway Bridge. “It is no small thing that we are showing you our home and inviting you to stay with us. It is not something that we very often do.”

They drove as far as the middle of the bridge, and then Semele tugged the reins and pulled the wagon to a short, sharp stop.

“I cannot hear any other feet or wheels, in either direction,” she said, “but please be taking a look around to see if there is someone nearby who might be watching us.”

Rownie looked. He saw only fog and the empty causeway. The windows of the shops and houses on either side of the bridge were all shuttered and dark. It was very late. The Fiddleway slept.

“I don’t see anyone else,” he reported.

“That is a good thing,” Semele said. She steered the mule and the wagon into a small alley on the upstream side. Then she made another turn, and pulled up in front of a featureless stone wall.

“Please open the stable doors, yes,” she told Rownie.

Rownie stared at the wall in front of them. “I don’t see any stable doors,” he said.

“I invite you to see them,” said Semele, and now he did. He couldn’t see how he had missed them the first time.

Rownie climbed down, unlatched the tall pair of doors, and pulled them open. Semele drove the wagon through, and Rownie shut both doors behind them. The orange coal-glow of the mule’s belly cast the only light inside. Rownie couldn’t see much more than stone walls and old straw.

Essa stumbled out through the back of the wagon. “Home,” she said. “Good. Somewhere there’s a bed that isn’t a hammock, and I’m going to find it.”