Feeling as though some poison had already taken away his powers of thought and speech, Tinwright nodded and staggered toward the door, then out into the cold gray day, or what was left of it.

When he reached Silverhook Row he turned to look back down the alley. Aislin the tanglewife stood in her doorway beneath the great length of pale horn, staring at him. She lifted a hand as if to wave him farewell, but her strange, pop-eyed face had gone cold and remote. She turned and went back inside.

Matt Tinwright hurried out of the lagoon district as fast as he could, acutely conscious of both the fast fading afternoon light and the tiny jar full of treason and murder concealed in his shirt.

Opal came back from market with her sack mostly empty and her face full of worry.

“You look terrible, my old darling,” Chert told her. “I’ll only be gone up to the castle for the day. I’m sure there’s nothing to fear.”

“I’m not worrying about you,” she growled, then shook her head angrily. “No, of course I’m worried about you, all caught up in this big-folk madness again. But that’s not what’s bothering me. There’s nothing to eat in this house and scarcely anything to be had even at the market.”

“Why is that?”

She snorted. “You are a dunderhead, Chert! Why do you think? The castle is surrounded by fairy folk, half the merchants won’t send their ships here to Southmarch, and there’s no work for the Funderlings. Surely in your time loitering around the guildhall you must have heard something of that?”

“Of course.” He scratched his head. She was right: it wasn’t as though there were no ordinary problems. “But Berkan Hood, the new lord constable, promised that he’d put two hundred of ours to work repairing the castle walls, so Cinnabar and the rest are saying not to worry.”

“And what are they going to pay them with?” She had her shawl off now and was washing her hands vigorously in a bowl of water. “The Tollys are already spending money hand over fist trying to lure merchants to bring in food and drink for Southmarch, not to mention the ships they’ve had to buy and mercenary seamen they’ve had to hire, all to protect the harbor.”

“You heard all this at the market?”

“Do you think we spend all day talking about vegetables and sewing?” She dried her hands off on her shapeless, oft-mended old dress and Chert felt a pang that his wife had nothing nicer to wear. “Honestly, you menfolk. You think you do it all yourselves, don’t you?”

“Not for years, my good old woman.” He laughed ruefully. “Not since I’ve had you around to keep me straightened out.”

“Well, just go and talk to the boy before you disappear for the day. He’s had a bad night and I have a hundred things to do if I’m going to make a meal out of these sad leavings.”