I’m going to the Imperial Personifate Guild. I need to do this. Sorry. Please don’t be angry or worry. I’ll write.

She scribbled instructions for fitting the restrainer on the hoppity wrench, put the note on the breakfast table beside the butter dish, crammed some oat cakes, a chunk of bread and some apples into her bag and quietly stepped outside.

Moonlight caught the edges of the stone walls and mist clung to the fields. Trees cast dramatic silhouettes against the ashen sky, and the lane to Staplefield trailed between the valleys like a silver ribbon. Prue took a breath, pushed all the doubt down into the pit of her stomach, and started walking. The night air held the last breath of summer warmth – the seasons were shifting. Mum always said time flowed like a river and there’s not a thing you can change about it, but Prue couldn’t help but think: what if you swam against it? She walked swiftly down Lane End. Perhaps she should’ve taken a mechanimal horse, but she’d have had to leave it at North Owlcot and trust that from there it would make its way back to the farm, and it would’ve been far too noisy. Besides, she’d walked this lane many times and would easily be in Staplefield just after sunrise. She crossed the split in the road that led to North Owlcot, and hurried onwards.

Dawn was arriving in milky hues on the horizon by the time she reached the sign: Staplefield fifty furrows to go. Prue paused there; she was exhausted to the bone, but she brushed herself down, snatched up her pack and ran along the path. When she rounded the next corner, Staplefield was nestled into the hollow of the valley. One lane coming in and one going out, like connecting wires to a moto-heart. She jogged towards it.

Staplefield was a market town and was already bustling with street stalls. As she hurried between the stands, she tried not to think about Mum and Dad waking up and finding her note. Her stomach groaned at the smell of rye rolls and fruit buns as she passed the baker’s stall, but there was no time for breakfast. She ran into Driffold Lane and knocked on the door of the Hawk’s Head.

A red-faced man holding a broom opened the door.

“Excuse me. I’m looking for a Craftsman Charles Primrose.”

“Ah, from Medlock, yes.”

“Yes, I’m here to see him,” Prue said eagerly. She took a breath; this was it.

“He left at daybreak.”

“Daybreak?”

“Said he was catching a morning mechanicart to Batterthwaite in time for the Gigantrak.”

“Batterthwaite?”

“I’ve got no time for you repeating what I say. Now on your way unless you’re wanting lodgings.” The man narrowed his eyes. “Wait, aren’t you Rosamund and Fayard’s girl from Haywood Farm?