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Sera had led him astray in one sense, she
had at least set him straight in another.
    “Anyways,” he said, replacing his cap and adjusting
it with a pull and a tug, “your Cousin Clothilde don’t suppose
nothing of the sort, nor Jarl what-you-may-call-‘im, I’ll wager.
But you don’t tell me what this is all about, I might begin to
suspect sommat of the sort myself.”
    Sera’s smile faded. She was an attractive girl with a
pink and white complexion and a head of thick dark curls like a
Gyptian, and Jed thought she might have been prettier still were it
not for the lowering brows and a habitual look of discontent, as
though she could never quite forget all she had lost through her
grandfather’s folly and her father’s wickedness.
    “I called at the bookshop last week, and I heard—I
heard that Caleb Braun has abandoned his old occupation, to spend
his days minding shop and running errands for my grandfather. As
for Grandfather, he is so secretive about his activities, I can’t
help but wonder if the two of them have embarked on something
ill-considered . . . even dangerous. What does it all mean, do you
know?”
    Jed shifted from one foot to the other, cleared his
throat, tugged at his cap, and tried to think of a way to save
himself. Not for the first time, he cursed himself for his promise
to Uncle Caleb.
“All for the young lady’s sake,
not to go aworrying her for naught,”
the old man had said,
swearing him to silence and extracting a particular promise not to
mention the coffin or the books to Sera. Without thinking the
matter over carefully (for that was before his granduncle announced
his decision to abandon the river) Jed had agreed.
    “Ask Walther Burgen or Matthias Vogel—I’ve reason to
suppose they might know sommat about it,” Jed temporized.
    Sera regarded him with patent disbelief. “I? Ask
Walther Burgen or Matthias Vogel? What an idea!”
    Jed heaved a profound sigh and rolled his eyes
heavenward; he had not really expected any other reply. “You know
your own business best—or always say you do, anyways. I tell you
what I can do,” he said, wiping his sweating hands on his coat and
trying another tack. “I’Il keep a close eye on Uncle Caleb—and your
grandfather, too. I see or hear anything different from what I
already . . . that is . . . I see or hear anything I reckon you
ought to
know
about, I’ll send word.”
    From the way Sera bit her lip and tapped her
slippered foot on the cobblestone street, it was ominously evident
that she suspected him of withholding information. She looked like
a young woman who was going to speak her mind in no uncertain
terms. Jed braced himself to weather the storm.
    But an unexpected diversion rescued him: a little
gilded carriage, so small it might have been meant to carry a
child, which came down the street at a sedate, not to say dignified
pace, pulled by six fat beribboned sheep. The passenger was a
dainty blonde woman, as exquisitely formed as a fairy, in a gown of
pearl-grey satin and fluttering cobweb lace, and her coachman was a
rotund gnome, no more than three feet high, with exceptionally
large taloned feet and a fine pair of curving horns. Chained to the
seat beside him was a sad-faced miniature indigo ape with a jeweled
collar. As she passed by, the lady in the carriage nodded at Sera
and raised a tiny hand in greeting.
    “Better than a circus,” said Jed, goggling
appreciatively.
    “Don’t be impertinent,” replied Sera. “That is the
Duchess of Zar-Wildungen, if you please, and a most particular
friend of Cousin Clothilde’s. Her tastes are somewhat eccentric, I
grant you, but she is known for her wit and intelligence as much as
her fashionable affectations, and is equally well known, I should
tell you, as the patron of many prominent doctors and
philosophers.
    “Which reminds me,” Sera added, with a sigh, “that I
really ought to go back to poor Elsie. She is to see Dr. Mirabolo
this afternoon—the Duchess’s