“So do I,” Rathe answered, and slipped his book back into his pocket. He collected his jerkin and truncheon from their place on the wall behind the duty desk, and stepped out into the afternoon sunlight. The winter‑sun hung over the eastern housetops, a pale gold dot that dazzled the eye; the true sun, declining into the west, cast darker shadows, so that the street was crosshatched with lines of dark and lighter shade. He threaded his way through the busy crowds, turned onto the Knives Road without really deciding which job to do first. Mailet’s hall was closest; better to get it over with, he told himself, and crossed the street to Mailet’s door.

There were no chopping blocks on the street today, or apprentices showing off for the servant girls, though the shutters were down and he could see customers within. He paused outside the doorway to let a matron pass, a covered basket tucked under her arm, then stepped into the shop. The journeyman Grosejl was working behind the counter, along with a boy apprentice. She looked up sharply at his approach, hope warring with fear in her pale face, and Rathe shook his head.

“No word,” he said, and she gave a visible sigh.

“Enas, finish what you’re doing and run tell Master Mailet that the pointsman’s here.” She forced a smile, painfully too bright, to Rathe’s eyes, and passed a neatly wrapped package across the countertop. “There you are, Marritgen, that’ll be a spider and a half.”

The woman–she had the look of a householder, gravely dressed–fumbled beneath her apron and finally produced a handful of demmings. She counted out five of them, Grosejl watching narrowly, and slid them across the countertop. Grosejl took them, gave a little half bow.

“Thanks, Marritgen. Metenere go with you.”

The woman muttered something in answer, and slipped out through the door. The other customers had vanished, too, and Grosejl made a face.

“They’ll be back,” Rathe said. He was used to the effect he had on even honest folk, but the journeyman shook her head.

“It’s a sad thing, pointsman, when they’re half blaming us for Herisse vanishing. There’s regular customers who won’t come near us, like it was a disease, or something.”

There was nothing Rathe could say to that, and Grosejl seemed to realize it, looked away. “I’m sorry. There’s still nothing?”

“Nothing of use,” Rathe answered, as gently as he could. “We’re still looking.”

“No body, though,” she said, with an attempt at a smile, and Mailet spoke from the doorway.

“That just means they haven’t found it. Well, pointsman, what do you want this time?”

“I need some more information from you,” Rathe said, and took a tight hold of his temper. “And for what it’s worth, which is quite a lot, in actual fact, we don’t have ghosts, either. Which means they’re probably not dead.”

“They?” Grosejl said.

Mailet grunted. “Hadn’t you heard, girl? We’re not the only ones suffering. There’re children missing all over this city.” He looked at Rathe without particular fondness. “Come on back, if you want to talk. My records are within.”

“Thanks,” Rathe said, and followed him through the narrow door into the main part of the hall. This time, Mailet led him into the counting room, tucked in between the main workroom and the stairs that led to the living quarters on the upper floors. It was a comfortable, well‑lit space, with diamond‑paned windows that gave onto the narrow garden–not much of a garden, Rathe thought, just a few kitchen herbs and a ragged‑looking stand of save‑all, but then, a dozen apprentices would tend to beat down all but the most determinedly defended plants. There were candles as thick as a woman’s ankle on sturdy tripod dishes, unlit now but ready for the failing light, and an abacus and a counting board lay on the main table. A ledger was propped on the slanting lectern, and there were more books, heavy plain‑bound account books and ledgers, locked in the cabinet beside the door.

“You said you wanted information,” Mailet said, and lowered himself with a grunt into the chair behind the table. An embroidered pillow, incongruously bright, lay against the chair’s back, and the butcher adjusted it with an absent grimace, tucking it into the hollow of his spine. A bad back, Rathe guessed, an occupational hazard, leaning over the chopping blocks all day.

“That’s right,” he said aloud. “My chief wants to know if you have Herisse’s nativity in your records.”

Mailet’s head lifted, more than ever like a baited bull. Rathe met his gaze squarely, and saw the master swallow his temper with a visible effort. “I have it,” he said at last. “I take it this means you don’t have the faintest idea what’s happened.”

“I’ve found two people who might have seen her,” Rathe said, and took tight hold of his own temper in his turn. “But their stories don’t match, and I don’t have a way to test who’s mistaken.”

“Or lying.”

“Or lying,” Rathe agreed. “But I don’t have reason to think that yet, either. We’re not giving up, though.”

“Well, I have some news for you,” Mailet said. “Some oddness that’s come to my ears. My neighbor Follet brought me the word yesterday, I’ve been trying to decide what to do with it. But since you’re here…” He shook himself, went on more briskly. “Follet knows Herisse is missing–everyone does, we passed the word through the guild–and he told me one of his journeymen was out drinking the other night, at the Old Brown Dog. Do you know the place?”

Rathe nodded. “I know it.”

Mailet grunted. “Then you know the woman who runs it, too.”

“Devynck’s not a bad sort,” Rathe said, mildly. “Honest of her kind.”

“Which isn’t saying much,” Mailet retorted. He leaned forward, planting both elbows firmly on the tabletop. “But that’s neither here nor there, pointsman. What is important is what Paas–that’s Follet’s journeyman–heard there. There were two soldiers drinking, Leaguers, and they were talking about the missing children. And one of them was saying, if he couldn’t find a company, how could some half‑trained butcher’s brat?”

“He’d heard of the disappearance, then?” Rathe asked, after a moment. It was an interesting remark, and certainly suggestive considering how most of Devynck’s neighbors felt about the League, but hardly solid enough to be called evidence, or even a lead.

“If he had, would I be bothering you with it?” Mailet said. “He couldn’t’ve done, you see, he swore he’d just arrived in the city today.”

“So this Paas confronted him,” Rathe said.

Mailet looked away. “He was drunk, Follet said, the soldier put him out–and neatly, too, I’ll give him that, no violence offered.” He looked up again. “And that, pointsman, is why I didn’t come to you at once. But since you’re here, I thought I might as well tell you. Devynck’s a bad lot, and there are worse who drink in her house.”

“I’ll make inquiries,” Rathe said. And I will, too: convenient, being bound there anyway. It’s not much to go on, but it’s something. I wonder if he’s the new knife Monteia was talking about?

“And you still want Herisse’s nativity,” Mailet said. He sighed and pushed himself to his feet, crossed to the cabinet that held the hall’s books. He fished in his pocket for his keys on their long chain–gold, Rathe noted, from long habit, a good chain worth half a year’s wages for a poor woman–and unlocked the cabinet, then ran his finger along the books’ spines until he found the volume he wanted. He brought it back to the table and reseated himself, folding his hands on top of the cover. “And what do you want it for?”

“We intend to ask an astrologer to cast her horoscope for us,” Rathe answered. “For her on the day she disappeared, and for her current prospects.” Knowledge of the girl’s stars would also be helpful if they had to locate a body, or to identify one long dead, but there was no need to mention those possibilities just yet. Mailet would have thought of them on his own, in any case.