The boulevard was pleasant. She had seen it from the tower the previous night, noted the direction and the food, and in truth she would probably have come this way anyway: it was easy going. They were travelling roughly parallel to the way she had come, and she guessed that it would end in a junction that would enable her to rejoin that route.

The weather was mild, and they made good time. An hour or so later, they reached a great round piazza, where avenues came off in all directions. There was a fountain chattering in the centre, huge and ornate, made of pale frills of marble that gushed water out in a dozen directions into a wide pool. She had seen this on her way up from the other end of one of these roads.

The piazza was ringed by a long, wide strip of bushes, all covered in berries, interrupted by the house fronts. The men were suspicious, muttering about poison, but Abigail knew which fruit to pick and which to avoid, and helped herself. They soon copied her. Then she walked over to the fountain, and washed her face and hands, and filled her water skin. If she hadn't had prying eyes on her, she would have bathed in the cold clear pool.

'How do you know the water is fresh?', asked Wren, surprising her. He had a habit of walking silently, even in his hard boots on the cobbles of the piazza.

'Because it's moving,' she said. 'It's how the city tells you it's safe. If it's a pond or a pool, it will be good for fish, but not for drinking.'

'That's odd,' he said. 'You speak about this place as if it's alive. As if it knows.'

'It's just a way of speaking,' she said, shrugging.

'So you've never thought about it? This place? The builder spiders?'

'What are the builder spiders?', she asked back.

'The things with the legs, that fix things. There's one, and there.'

'Oh, we call those tappers.'

'OK, so the tappers. You've never wondered why they make everything just so? Where this all came from?'

She laughed at that. 'You might as well ask where the sun came from!'

'You might indeed,' he said, not returning the laughter. 'You might indeed. Where next?'

'We go that way,' she said, pointing to the north-easterly road. 'We double back a bit, but then we join a smaller road that goes south.'

'Makes sense. Anything we need to worry about?'

She paused. 'Maybe. There is a courtyard that I'd like to scout first. It's probably nothing.'

He nodded.

If had he noticed her ruse, he made no sign.

The courtyard had a small round stone table in it. On the way up Abigail had thought that it looked wraithy, and she had hurried through; but the city was full of furniture, scattered seemingly at random, and that's all this probably was.

The furniture was as much a part of the city as the walls. If someone were to move a piece a little, the tappers might ignore it: but remove something, and the bulbous, leggy creatures would painstakingly recreate the missing object as it had been.

If this table looked enough like a plinth to fool her at first glance, it would do the job with these strangers. So they stayed huddled outside; and she crept into the courtyard, singing the wraith charm, a pinch of crickle powder held up.

Her memory of the courtyard had been true. Just there was a funny little alley running west, the narrow entrance partially obscured by a sour fruit tree. She could step here, like this, take out her climbing hooks, jump, swing, pull, haul, and the jutting edge of the building concealed her from the ground...

She was up on the roof almost quicker than she could think, her soft shoes gripping the tiles.

'Abigail!', called Wren. 'What's happening?'

She padded along, moving quickly and quietly. She didn't want to break a window because of the noise it would make; so she hurried along, low as she could, and hoped that they wouldn't think to look up.

'There she is!', shouted someone.

She ducked behind a gable, but it was too late. The men came running into the courtyard. She got up, and lightly clambered away, round a low, wide tower.

'We're not here to hurt you,' called Wren. Even when he was shouting, he sounded calm.

'We're not from here, because we tamed the city,' he continued. 'We demolished the buildings. We captured the tappers. We have fields, and woods. We are free. We don't live in this huge prison; it has walls, and we're from outside them, because we built those walls. You can be too. I don't want to hurt you, Abigail. I want to set you free.'

She could hear them spreading out below; hear the man with no nose sniffing for her. She kept edging away.

'We can find you, Abigail. Your scent is clear. We can follow you. Better to come down.'

'What if I don't want to be set free?' She hadn't wanted to reply, knew it was a ruse to reveal her, but she couldn't help it. 'This is my home. I'm happy. Would you take that away?'

'Yes,' he replied. 'Yes. Because you don't know what freedom is.'

'And what would you do, to give me that freedom? Who would you kill?'

'A few deaths are the price of the happiness of the people. But there doesn't need to be any, come down...'

But that was all she needed to hear, and she was away, leaping and swinging like only a child of the city could.