He found Claes at the Fairs’ Point station, as he’d expected, presiding over the ordinary chaos of the main room with a tankard in one hand and his truncheon in the other. Rathe sidestepped a drunken carter, bloody‑nosed and furious, and lifted his hand to get Claes’s attention.

“Can it wait?” the chief point called back. “We’ve a pack of fools here who started their drinking with the first sunrise.”

“It’s important,” Rathe said, and waited.

Claes swore. “It had better be. You, Gasquet, take over here, sort them down into the cells–and I’ll take it very ill if you let them kill each other before they’ve had a chance to sober up.” He gestured for Rathe to precede him into the station’s counting room, and shut the heavy door behind them. Rathe blinked in the sudden quiet, and Claes said, “So. What in Tyrseis’s name is so important?”

“Monteia said you were worried about these hedge‑astrologers,” Rathe said. “The freelances. I’ve talked to the kin of our missing children. One of them, the butcher’s girl, she got a charm from them a few days before she disappeared, and at least three of the others probably consulted them. The others may or may not have talked to them, but I can’t prove they didn’t.”

Claes was silent for a long moment. “That’s thin, Rathe. Very thin.”

“It’s more than we’ve had before,” Rathe answered, and the chief point sighed.

“True. But that was nothing at all.”

Rathe swallowed hard, banking down his irritation. “Look, I know it’s not much. But four of our lads who probably talked to them–one definitely, and she got a charm from him, which I’m taking to the university to see what the magists make of it–gods, Claes, we can’t afford to ignore it.”

“And I don’t intend to ignore it,” Claes answered. “I don’t trust them, I don’t know what they’re doing here, and they don’t charge nearly enough not to want something besides their fees. But I can’t act on just this, and you know it.”

Rathe nodded. “I know. But I did think, the sooner you knew about it, the sooner you–and all of us–could start checking on the other kids, see how many of them talked to these astrologers before they disappeared.”

Claes grinned. “And you’re right, certainly–and, yes, this was important, I’ll give you that. But I’d like more to go on, Rathe, that’s all.” He waved a hand in dismissal, and Rathe opened the workroom door.

“I’m working on it,” he said, and made his way back out into the streets of the fair.

Claes was right, of course. It wasn’t much to go on, and Rathe felt his mood plummet as rapidly as it had improved. And that, he knew, was as unreasonable as his earlier optimism. The connection with the astrologers was still the most solid–the only–link they had between the child‑thefts; he couldn’t afford to ignore it, or to build too much on it, at least not yet.

He made his way back through the fair by a different route, avoiding the printers and the crowds that always filled the leathersellers’ district, and found himself among the smaller booths, where the smaller merchants venturer sold their mix of goods directly. It was crowded here, too–most of the stalls carried less expensive items, trinkets, small packets of spices, silk thread, Chadroni ribbons, beads, the coarse southern glassware, that even an apprentice could afford–but this year there were few enough of them in evidence. There were few children in general–occasionally a northriver child, escorted not just by the usual nurse, but also by an armed man or woman of the household; more often a plain‑dressed girl or boy hurrying on some errand, unable to give more than a wistful glance at the gaudy displays–and Rathe was suddenly angry again. This was no way for a child to see the fair, and, especially for the older ones, the ones who worked for their keep, their mistresses’ fears were depriving them of one of the few long holidays in the working year. Not that anyone could afford to let their apprentices and the like have the full three weeks of the fair completely free, of course, but most employers tolerated a certain relaxation of standards over the course of the fair. He himself, when he had been a runner, could remember getting two or three days off–days to explore and spend one’s carefully hoarded demmings on strange foods and goods from the kingdoms beyond Chenedolle–and vying for errands that would send him near the fairgrounds. But this year, it looked as though the average apprentice was getting none of that.

Without consciously meaning to, his roundabout course had brought him into the center of the fairground, where the cookstalls were set up. The air was heavy with the smell of Silklands spices, almost drowning the heavy scent of mutton stew and the constant tang of hot, much‑used oil. He threaded his way past a gang of Leaguers, carters by their clothes, who were monopolizing the stall of a cheerful‑looking brewer, and dodged another stall where a woman in a Silklands headscarf twirled skewers of vegetables over a long brazier. Half a dozen children, the first large group he’d seen, were clustered around a woman selling fried noodles, and another pair was standing gravely in front of a candyseller, choosing from among figures shaped like zodiacal beasts. He checked for a moment, torn between admiration and fear, and then made himself walk on. Heat radiated from the open fires and he was glad to reach the edge of the cooking areas. So, by the look of things, were most people: the spaces between the stalls were wider here, and people stood in groups of twos and threes, talking and eating. Rathe glanced around instinctively, looking for any sign of the astrologers, and to his surprise recognized a slim, dark‑haired woman who stood in the shade of one of the awnings, nibbling on a fried pastry. Cassia LaSier usually preferred to work later in the day, when the pickings were richer–and at the moment she seemed to be concentrating on her meal, one hand cupped to catch anything that fell from the fragile shell–but she might also enjoy the challenge of the noon‑time crowd. Rathe turned toward her, and she looked up sharply, her mouth curving into a wry smile.

“Working the fairground, Rathe? I wouldn’t’ve thought it was your patch.”

Rathe shook his head. “It’s not. I had some errands here.”

“Well, that’s a relief for honest working people,” LaSier answered, and swallowed the last of her pastry.

“Oh, are you working?”

“Not if you are,” she retorted, and Rathe allowed himself a grin.

“Not the fair, anyway.”

“The children?” LaSier’s eyes were suddenly alert. “No luck, then, still?”

“Maybe,” Rathe answered, and shook his head at the sudden eagerness in the woman’s face. “But we’re still having horoscopes done for the missing kids, which should tell you how ‘maybe’ it is.”

“Damn.” LaSier licked grease from her fingers, wiped them discreetly on the hem of her skirt. “Are all the stations doing it?”

“From what Monteia says, yes. Why?”

“We didn’t make a formal complaint to Sighs, of course, so I suppose I can’t complain. Still, it’d be nice if Gavaret had the same chance of being found as the others.”

It would, and it would be more than nice, Rathe thought, it would be the only fair thing to do. The Corthere child might grow into a serious nuisance to the points, but he certainly had the right to live that long. He said, “He’s as entitled as anyone, but he’d have to know his stars pretty closely for it to be much help.”

“But he did,” LaSier said, and corrected herself. “He does. And they were good for our line of work, let me tell you–who’d want an apprentice who was born to be hanged, right?” She shook her head in regret. “No, Gavaret knows his nativity, and he revels in it.”

“Do you know it?” Rathe asked.

LaSier gave him a sidelong glance. “Thought you said you weren’t working.”

“Thought I said yes, on the children.” Rathe sighed. “I can take it for you, off the books, though why I’d want your apprentice found is beyond me.”