“Thank you,” I said. “That is very helpful.”

“Be careful, othala,” she said as she closed the door, leaving me unsettled as well as thwarted. But there was nothing for it except to go back the way I had come and try again with the postal service.

The same young goblin woman was still at the desk when I returned. “Did you not find her, othala?”

“No,” I said. “We are told she might be in Cemchelarna. Could someone consult the postal registers and look for Pavalo Temin?”

“We will find out,” she said and disappeared again through the discreet door in the wall behind her.

I waited.

She was gone for a long time, long enough that I began to worry I had gotten her in some kind of trouble. But she came back as serenely as she had gone and handed me a slip of paper, on which was written in an exquisitely legible hand Cemchelarna Post Office Number Five, Goshawk Street.

“That’s where she’s registered, othala. Mer Aivonezh says that’s the most help we can give you.”

“This is very helpful indeed.”

She smiled and said, “Good luck, othala.”

“Thank you,” I said. I left, almost clutching the slip of paper, to get the cartography clerks to tell me where Goshawk Street was.

One of the cartographers, a young elven man whose name I had forgotten, was in the front office when I came in, bent over a map with a pair of calipers. He said, “Hello, othala,” without straightening. Min Talenin, a good bourgeois elven spinster, turned from her filing cabinets and said, using the plural “we,” “Good afternoon, othala. Can we help you?”

“Good afternoon, Min Talenin. Yes, I need to find the post office on Goshawk Street in Cemchelarna.”

“A post office!” she said. “Then that is an easy question, for we mark the post offices on our maps. Here.” She unrolled a map across her desk, weighting it with an inkwell, a lamp, and two iron pyramids that I recognized as apothecary’s weights. “This is the eastern half of Cemchelarna. So Goshawk Street … no, not there … not there … it’s in this cluster of bird names. There!” She indicated a line on the map with her forefinger; I saw the tiny blue star representing the post office. “And to get there, you’ll want to cross the Abandoned Bridge and keep going on what turns into Lacemaker Street. Follow Lacemaker Street to a cross street called Pigeon Street, turn south, go two blocks, and then an alley on your left will lead to Goshawk Street. The post office should be three blocks south on your left.”

“Thank you, Min Talenin,” I said, scribbling directions in my notebook. “As always, you are a tremendous help.”

She smiled and said, using the plural, “We are always happy to help you, othala.”