Every city keeps a few men whose whole profession is putting things out. Ours used to be the lamplighters. Since C.Y. 427, Orienne has kept a second sort, who come round at night with a brass pole and a cart waiting in the street.

It looks like a pocket watch, and strangers ask it the time. Archie Plume on the instrument behind the pressings in his files, the seconds it costs, and the things that show up in them uninvited.

The taverns of Orienne are perfectly legal. The moondens beneath them are not. Archie Plume on moonbright, the only liquor in the Sable Charter that is a crime to pour, and the staircase six strangers have seen after the third glass.