b’Estorr had left word he was expected, and the old woman swung open her door before he could even ask. Rathe climbed the long flight of stairs, lit by hanging oil lamps against the winter‑sun’s twilight, and found b’Estorr’s door ajar. He caught his breath, and in the same instant dismissed his fear. No one would rob a magist, especially not on his own home ground. He tapped on the frame, and pushed open the door. The room was dim, only a single lamp lit on the worktable. b’Estorr himself was sitting in one of the window seats, a tablet tilted to the pale light, looked up with a smile at Rathe’s appearance.

“Good, you’re here.”

Rathe closed the door behind him, and flicked the latch into place. “Is it because your stuff is hard to fence that you leave the door wide open?” As he spoke, there was a familiar eddy of cold air, like the trailing of fingertips across the nape of his neck. They were the real reasons for b’Estorr’s confidence, of course; the palpable presence of the ghosts would discourage all but the most hardened thieves, and those would know better than to give a ghost the chance to reveal their identities.

b’Estorr grinned. “Oh, I daresay there are shops around here that would buy a used orrery or an astrolabe, and no questions asked.” He folded his tablets, and crossed to the table to light the candles that stood in a six‑armed candelabrum. The warm light spread, filling the center of the room, but Rathe could still feel the cool presence of the ghosts. It was stronger at night, when the shadows seemed to give visible shape to the odd breezes, and he had to make an effort not to peer into corners.

“Have you eaten?”

b’Estorr asked, and gestured to the remains of a pie that stood on the table. There was a dish of strawberries as well, and cone‑sugar and a grater, and Rathe felt his mouth water.

“No, I haven’t, but you don’t have to keep feeding me.”

“You might as well eat when you can,” b’Estorr answered, and poured a glass of wine without being asked. Rathe took it, glad of its delicate tang, and accepted a wedge of the pie as well. He had eaten at the fair, a fried pie snatched in haste, and there had been the bread at his own lodgings, but this, cold cheese and onions, was far better than anything he’d had in days.

“Anything more on the clocks?” Rathe asked, his mouth full, and b’Estorr’s eyebrows twitched.

“Not really. There are no records of anything similar happening at starchange, though of course, the records aren’t great for the last time the Starsmith was in a shared sign–for one thing, clocks were very rare then.”

“That was, what, six hundred years ago?” Rathe asked. Before Chenedolle had become one kingdom, before Astreiant itself was more than a minor fief of a petty not‑yet‑palatine.

“About that,” b’Estorr answered. “You should know, though, that there’s a minority view that holds that it was someone playing with powers they shouldn’t.”

“Gods above,” Rathe said, involuntarily, and b’Estorr gave him a sour smile.

“I doubt it’s that–the sheer scale of the power is just too great– but the masters and scholars are looking sidelong at each other, and at all the tricksters among the students. It’s a mess, Nico.”

“Better yours than mine,” Rathe answered.

“Thank you. Is there any news of the children?” the necromancer went on, and Rathe nodded, swallowing hastily.

“Maybe, but it’s more than we’ve had yet. There are two things, really, and I need your help with both of them.” He reached into his pocket, brought out his purse and carefully unknotted the strings. He poured its contents onto the tabletop, the wax disk he’d gotten from Ollre dark among the mix of coins and tokens and a pair of flawed dice. He handed the disk to b’Estorr and swept the rest of it back into the purse, saying, “Trijntje Ollre–she’s Herisse Robion’s leman, they’re both apprentice butchers–she tells me they had their stars read by one of these hedge‑astrologers, and he gave her this.”

b’Estorr picked it up curiously, held it in the sphere of brightest light from the candles. “A pretty poor piece of work it is, too. It’s supposed to be sort of a generic ‘from‑harm’–you know, the sort of things mothers give their babies before they go off to dame school– but it’s not very well made. All the signs are generic, and it wouldn’t be much more effective than throwing coins in a wishing bowl.” He shook his head, and handed it back. “You say it’s from one of those new astrologers? I can’t say I’m surprised. They can’t be that well trained.”

“So it’s not harmful,” Rathe said.

b’Estorr shook his head again. “Not likely. It’s not helpful, either, and if the girl paid money for it, well…”

Rathe waved that away. “What would you say if I told you I’d found another child–obviously not one of the missing–who’d gotten a charm from another one of these astrologers?”

“I’d be–intrigued,” b’Estorr said. “Can I see it?”

Rathe shook his head regretfully. “The boy didn’t have it, said he’d lost it, but from the sound of it, it was pretty much the same as this one. What makes it really interesting, though, is that half the kids who’ve gone missing from Point of Hopes had their stars read before they vanished, and probably by one of the hedge‑astrologers.”

“You’re right,” b’Estorr said. “That’s very interesting.” He lifted the charm again, holding it to the light. “Mind you,” he went on, reluctantly, “it could just be coincidence–these aren’t very effective, and maybe they just didn’t work.”

“It has to mean something,” Rathe said. “We don’t have anything else to go on.” He took a deep breath. “There’s one other thing.”

“Oh?” b’Estorr gave him an odd look, and set the charm down again. “I wonder if it’s the same thing we’ve been noticing, with these nativities.”

Rathe bared teeth in an angry smile. “It could be. And there’s one in particular that clinches it for me. When I was at the fair this afternoon, I ran into a woman I know, a pickpocket, part of a dynasty, really, working out of the old Caravansary. They’d lost one of their apprentices, told me about it a couple weeks back.”

“I thought the ’Serry was in Point of Sighs,” b’Estorr said.

“It is.” Rathe shrugged. “What were they going to do, go to Sighs and say, please help us, one of our apprentice pickpockets is missing?”

“But you’ve asked around,” b’Estorr said, and Rathe nodded.

“And when I ran into Cassia, I mentioned the horoscopes, and she said it was a shame Gavaret–that’s the boy–wasn’t getting the same chance as the rest of the kids. I didn’t think there’d be a chance of getting a nativity on him, and I said so, but she had it. And it’s very detailed, Istre, close to the minute.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out his tablet and read from the dark wax. “Born on Midsummer Eve fourteen years ago in Dhenin. The mother said he crowned as the town clock struck midnight and was born at the half hour. You don’t get much better than that, not even in nobles’ houses. And all of our missing kids, every last one of them, have nativities just as precisely noted. It’s not natural, and it’s got to mean something.”

b’Estorr was nodding even before he’d finished. “It’s not just your kids, Nico. We–those of us here who’ve been doing the horoscopes for the stations–we’ve all noticed it. All of the children, eighty‑four of them, for Dis’s sake, know their births to better than a quarter hour. Your pickpocket–he’s just one more.” He leaned back. “Of course, we haven’t found anything else in common, but we are looking.”

“There’s another oddity here, too,” Rathe said quietly. “The boy who’d lost his charm, he’s northriver born–son of a judiciary clerk, in fact. But he doesn’t know his birth stars, only to the hour. And he’s not missing, even though he did talk to one of these astrologers, though I haven’t got a shred of real evidence that they’re involved.”