Feeling her way, with one hand on the dog, she gets down onto the floor, tucking her feet beneath her, and places both hands on the dog’s back.

“The miracle of a dog,” she says softly.

The dog licks her face. She laughs. Pleased, I grin at Bit and he flicks his orangey eyebrows. It’s a success.

Back out on the street, I give Bit a coin I’d found the night before. Should be giving it to Nanna for food, but what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her, I reason, crossing my fingers anyway. Besides, I caught a fish in the river this morning, which in my mind makes up for it.

“We’re going up to the ruins,” says Bit, “if you want to come.”

I glance back at the doorway, thinking of the chores Nanna will give me if I hang around, and nod. The pair of us set off down the street, two no-account boys.

Washing hangs overhead on wires stretched between the buildings. We turn into Thessel Alley, which opens into a tiny square with a dead fountain. Apartment buildings rise up blankly on all four sides. Not a good place to feel nervous or to have somebody tailing you, and I try to ignore the watchful windows.

The dog between us, we walk around the fountain, its empty stone bowl filled with debris, and go into Fishmongers’ Way. There was once a big fish market down here, according to Nanna – as a girl, she was sent to buy fish for the household. Cartloads of fish from the lakes still come into the city – once or twice I’ve seen the big cart filled with baskets of ice and fish, trundling through the cobbled streets – yet the Cerels never see any of it, except for when Marta Gayer gives us a fish head or two for soup.

We turn left and nearly bump into a patrol coming out of a barracks house. We hurry into a doorway, Bit pulling the dog against his legs, and try to make ourselves invisible.

“That was close,” I whisper, peering out. We haven’t done anything wrong – yet – but they’d still clout a couple of boys like us around the head.

The tight pack of black uniformed men, their boots loud on the cobbles, are going the other way. I’m about to start off again when two of the Marks peel away from the main group and approach a building. They don’t bother knocking, just burst through the door.

Bit, beside me, is quivering. “What the–?”

“Shut up!”

It’s not long before the Marks come out again, hauling a young man between them, his boots scraping the ground. “Please don’t take me,” he cries. They ignore his pleas, dragging him along the street back to the nearby barracks.