“Good-bye, Vass,” Rownie said. “Good luck with the cursing and charming.” He almost said Break your face instead of Good luck, but he thought she might take it wrong.

Once alone, his fingers found the pebble in his coat pocket. He set it on the wall and spun it a few times, like a top. Then he threw the pebble, just to say hello. Rownie watched his brother reach up to catch it.

He climbed down from the low wall and returned to the Clock Tower, through the stable doors that Semele had invited him to see. He returned to learn mask craft and swordplay and all the rest of his new profession. He returned to eat supper.

The tower smelled like cooking. It smelled buttery and good. It reminded him that he was hungry, that hunger followed him always and buzzed behind everything he did. It reminded him that he didn’t have to fend for himself here. He took off his brother’s old coat as he climbed the stairs and found a costume rack to hang it on. It felt strange to be without it.

Someone—probably Nonny—had put a wood stove outside the pantry and propped up a long metal pipe for a chimney. Cooking smoke climbed the pipe and rose through the tower’s workings.

Thomas stood by the stove in an apron. He spooned several dollops of dough onto a flat metal skillet. Semele sat nearby with a book in her hands and her feet on a stool, toes pointed at the stove to soak up its warmth. Nonny, Patch, and Essa all sprawled on the floor, playing cards. Thomas looked up at the boy, grunted, and scooped a finished flatbread onto a plate.

“Don’t burn your fingers,” the old goblin said.

Rownie took the plate and sat down with the rest of his troupe. His fingers twitched and his mouth watered, but he waited for his supper to cool.

Acknowledgments

AN ENSEMBLE CAST AND CREW created this book, and I am profoundly grateful for the professional, aesthetic, and emotional support I’ve received along the way.

Thanks to Karen Wojtyla and Emily Fabre for extraordinary and exacting editorial guidance. Thanks to Beth Fleischer, Joe Monti, and Barry Goldblatt for their wise and skillful agenting. Thanks to Holly Black, Kelly Link, and Catherynne M. Valente for nurturing the earliest scribblings set in Zombay. Thanks to Barth Anderson, Haddayr Copley-Woods, David Schwartz, and Stacy Thieszen for encouragement and uncompromising critique. Thanks to professors Phyllis Gorfain, Paul Moser, Roger Copeland, Michael Faletra, Andrew Barnaby, and Richard Parent for their knowledge and willingness to share it. Thanks to the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and Rain Taxi for all that they do to support local arts and letters.