Graba stood like Graba, and grunted. “You still smell like thieving and tin.”

“I haven’t Changed,” Rownie told her. “I’m not a goblin. I’m not a Changeling. I’ll come back.”

Graba reached up with one talon, took hold of the railcar, and ripped away the front of it. Metal shrieked against metal as she tore it apart. Rownie flinched. It was a painful thing to hear.

The three actors did not react to the sight or the sound of Graba’s coming. She nudged the two in fish masks aside with her foot, and then squinted at the third.

The Northside mask still dangled from Rowan’s neck. Graba plucked it from him, dropped it on the tunnel floor, and stepped on it. Rowan did not seem to notice. He stood very still, and looked away at nothing much.

“What’s wrong with him?” Rownie asked.

Graba tore open the front of Rowan’s shirt. A red scar, sharp and clean, ran down his chest. Rownie knew what that meant. He tried very hard not to know what that meant. The world changed shape around him, and this new shape was not what it was supposed to be. Graba scowled and spat.

“Puppet,” she said. “His mayorship thought he could talk to floods with puppets. He’s more a fool than he deserves to be, now.”

“Can you help?” Rownie asked. “Can you give him back what they took?”

“No,” said Graba. “And I won’t be taking you back, either. You might be mine again, but I no longer need you. No time now to teach you enough to be useful, and Graba knows better than playing with puppets. The River won’t dance on a puppeteer’s strings, so none of the floodings can now be avoided.”

She climbed up and over what was left of the railcar.

“Help him!” Rownie shouted after her. She had to be able to help him. She could reshape the world with her words. She was herself a force of nature. She was Graba.

“Run away, runt,” she called back. “Run back to Semele. Run away from the River. I’ll be carrying my home to higher ground, now, and herding most of Southside with me.” The squeak of her leg receded as she made her way back up the tunnel.

The curved brick walls still glowed from Graba’s chant. By their light Rownie picked his way through the wrecked railcar. He came to stand beside his brother, who did not notice him there.

“Rowan?”

Silence.

“It’s me.”