Gargle turned to the girl at the door. “Remora, our guest looks chilly. Fetch her some hot chocolate, won’t you?”

“I didn’t know there were any Lost Girls,” said Wren when the girl had gone.

“A lot’s changed in Grimsby since Caul was last there,” Gargle replied. “Just between the two of us, Wren, I pretty much run the old place now. I managed to get rid of a lot of the rough, bullying boys who surrounded Uncle, and I sort of persuaded him to start bringing girls down as well as boys. It was doing us no good living without girls. They’re a civilizing influence.”

Wren looked toward the door. She could see the girl called Remora clattering pans about in some sort of kitchen. She didn’t look to Wren like a civilizing influence. “So is she your wife?” she asked, and then, not wanting to seem too prim, “Or your girlfriend or something?”

In the kitchen, Remora looked up sharply. Gargle said,

“Mora? No! The fact is, some of the girls have turned out to be better thieves than the boys. Remora’s one of the best burglars we’ve got. Just as young Fishcake is the best mechanic, for all his tender years. I wanted only the best with me on this mission, see, Wren. There’s something in Anchorage that I need very badly. I saw it all those years ago, when I was here with Caul aboard the Screw Worm, but I didn’t steal it then because I didn’t think it was of any use.”

“What is it?” asked Wren.

Gargle did not answer her at once but waited, studying her face, as if he wanted to be quite sure that she could be trusted with what he was about to tell her. Wren liked that. He was not treating her like a child, the way most people still did. “A young woman,” he’d called her, and that was how he was speaking to her.