He found a place for the fox. It was low to the ground, so he didn’t need a pole to put it back. He looped the mask’s string over the nail and set it against the wall.

The fox mask moved. It lifted away from the wall and pulled against the string that held it there. Then it settled back into place.

Rownie took a step back. He stared. The fox stayed where it was and stared back at him. Rownie watched it awhile longer. He started to doubt that he had actually seen it move in the first place.

He looked around for the rest of the troupe and saw Semele and Thomas carry a mask between them. Rownie didn’t recognize this one. It was carved out of stone, and had braided riverweed for hair. Swirling, painted lines of blue and brown covered the face. Rownie followed the two goblins to the center of the upstream wall, where they set the stone mask.

“This is the River,” said Semele. “This is what we lost and left Zombay to find.”

Rownie watched to see if it would move. It did not, but it looked as though it might move at any time. “A mask of the River?” he asked.

“No,” said Semele. “It is the River, and also a mask. We needed to speak to the River, to give it a face and a name, so that we could ask it not to drown us with floodwaters. That was how it started, yes. This is the very first mask that I made.”

Essa came to join them. They all watched the oldest mask while it did not move.

“Our craft and calling still has certain obligations,” Thomas said. He spoke more quietly than he usually did. “It has from the very beginning, when those obligations were the whole of the craft. To ignore that part and purpose would be to lose the rest.”

“What obligations?” Rownie asked without looking away from the mask that was also the River.

“To speak for the city,” said Essa. “All of it. Northside, Southside, and the whole long length of the Fiddleway between them.” She held up a wooden box and opened it. Inside was the city, carved from a solid block of wood and into the shape of a face. Half of the mask followed the winding sense of Southside and the other half obeyed the straight lines of the north. The bridge of the nose was the Clock Tower, where they all stood, and the small clock tocked and ticked in unison with the tower around them.

“Nonny made it,” Essa said, “so Nonny really should be the one to open the box and say ‘Ta-da!’ or at least have a ta-da sort of look on her face, but she isn’t here. Ta-da.”