I walked with my head held high, directing a challenging glare at anyone who so much as glanced my way, or who in their expression gave the slightest indication that I seemed not to belong. I am Fura Ness, I imagined myself saying. I read bones under Rackamore. I saw the Nightjammer, and I lived. And your story is . . .?

‘I have some information,’ Paladin said, wobbling close behind me. ‘I should not admit to this capability, but I am more than able to detect and intercept the squawk bands used by the constables. They have been tasked to locate a young female personage as a matter of urgency, and there is word of a tracking device.’

‘I’ve got to get rid of this damned thing. If you can do that with the constables’ squawk, can you read the bracelet’s tracking signal?’

‘No, but it may be intermittent, or on a band I cannot intercept. What are you hoping to find here?’

‘A locksmith. We saw something like that, the night Adrana and I came here. Wait, what am I saying. You came after us. You must have a perfect record of all the shops here.’

‘I would,’ Paladin said. ‘But my memory of that evening was never properly consolidated to my long-term registers.’

‘Never mind. We started at the Dragon Arch and we didn’t get very far down the alley before we spotted you and hid in Madame Granity’s.’

I slowed involuntarily as I caught sight of the blue-and-white striping of her tent. I’d gone inside thinking it was chance; that Adrana just happened to have found a useful hiding place for us. But by then I had already been caught up in the clever clockwork of her scheme. She’d meant full well for us to find the bone merchant.

‘There is a locksmith,’ Paladin announced. ‘It must be the one you meant.’

It was three premises down from Granity’s, on the left-hand side of the street – a proper shopfront, too, rather than just a tent squeezed into an available gap. I recognised it. There were shelves of locks and tumblers and keys in the window. The signage above the door read: Locks of all worlds opened or repaired. New and duplicate keys. All Eras, all Occupations. Monkey and alien. Robot-proofing. No mechanism or combination too complicated.

‘If they can’t do it,’ I said, ‘no one can.’

I went in first. An aproned man stood at a counter, peering down with a magnifying visor at something on the bench. Otherwise the shop was empty.

He looked up slowly, setting aside the delicate tools of his profession.

‘May I help you?’

I walked up to the counter, Paladin behind me, and thumped my wrist down onto the surface.

‘I want this thing taken off.’