It was all that an outraged Utta could do not to argue: among women she was considered tall, and she was nearly the same height as this fellow, although vastly more slender. “I have business ahead,” she said in her gruffest voice. “Please let me by.”

“Oh, business in Skimmertown, have you?” He raised his voice as though she had said something shameful and he meant everyone to know. “Looking for a little fish-face girl, eh, fellow?”

For a moment Utta could only stare. “Nothing of the sort. Business,” she said, and then realized she might sound too haughty. “My master’s business.”

“Ah,” said the one who had been questioning her. “Your master, is it? And what business does he have down in Scummer Town? Hiring fishy-men for cheap, I’ll warrant, taking work away from proper fellows. Ah, see the look on his chops now, boys!” The small man brayed a laugh. “Been caught out, he has.” He took a step nearer, looked Utta up and down. “Look at you, soft as marrow jelly. Are you a phebe, then? One of those?”

“Let me go.” She tried to keep her voice from shaking but didn’t entirely succeed.

“Oh, do you think we should?” The man leaned closer. He stank of wine. “Do you?”

“Yes,” said a new voice. “Let him go.”

Both Utta and her persecutor looked up in surprise. A hairless man had come into the alley from a side-passage—a Skimmer, Utta realized, with a scar down his face that pulled one eyelid out of shape. The crowd of men blocking the alley stirred with an animal shiver of hatred Utta could feel.

“Hoy, Fish-face,” said her antagonist. “What are you doing out of your pond? This part of town belongs to pureblood folk.”

The Skimmer stared back with a face stiff as a wax effigy. He was not small, and for a Skimmer he was solidly built, but he was hugely outnumbered. Several of the men moved so that he was more nearly surrounded. He smiled—his injured eye squinted shut as he did so—then he raised his head and made a froggy, chirruping noise. Within moments half a dozen more young Skimmer men began to drift into the alley, one holding a baling hook in his fist, another tapping a long wooden club against his leg, grinning toothlessly.

“Merciful Zoria,” Utta breathed. They’re going to kill each other.

“You lot shouldn’t be past Barge Street,” said the man who had accosted her. He was grinning, too, and he and the first Skimmer had begun to circle each other, one lazy step at a time. “You shouldn’t be here. This is ours, this is.” He spoke slowly, like an invocation—he was summoning the powerful mystery of violence, Utta realized, with as much careful method as a priest used to call the attention of a god. She could not help staring at the circling pair, her skin fever-chilled.

“Get out,” someone said from just behind her—one of the other Skimmers. She felt strong hands take her and pull her away, then another hand shoved her in the small of the back. She took a few stumbling steps away from the center of the now-crowded alley, slipping and tumbling into the mud. She looked back, half-expecting one of the men who had accosted her to try to stop her, or one of the Skimmers to shout at her to run away, but she was out of the center of the violence-spell now and she might as well have ceased to exist. The two main antagonists were feinting gently and almost lovingly at each other with knives she had not seen before. Their comrades were silently facing off, ready to throw themselves at their opposites when the first blow was struck.