A door closed somewhere in the darkness ahead, making her jump. She’d grown so used to the quiet and her own company that the idea of someone else moving around down here was almost frightening. Then she remembered where she was. Busy with her thoughts, she’d walked all the way to the heart of the district, where Caul, Anchorage’s engineer, lived alone in an old shed between two tier supports. He was the only inhabitant of Anchorage’s lower levels, since nobody else would choose to live down here amid the rust and shadows when there were pretty mansions standing empty in the sunlight up above. But Caul was an eccentric. He didn’t like sunlight, having been brought up in the undersea thieves’ hole of Grimsby, and he didn’t like company either. He’d been friendly once with old Mr. Scabious, the city’s former engineer, but since the old man had died, he had kept himself to himself down here in the depths.

So why would he be wandering about in the engine district at this hour? Intrigued, Wren crept up a ladder onto one of the overhead walkways, from where she had a good view across the old engine pits to Caul’s shack. Caul was standing outside the door. He had an electric lantern, and he had raised it up so that he could study a scrap of paper that he held in his other hand. After a moment, he pocketed the paper and set off toward the city’s edge.

Wren scrambled back down the ladder and started following the light. She felt quite excited. When she was younger, working her way steadily through the small stock of children’s books in the margravine’s library, her favorite stories had been the ones about plucky schoolgirl detectives who were forever foiling smugglers and unmasking Anti Tractionist spy rings. She had always regretted that there were no criminals to detect in Vineland. But hadn’t Caul been a burglar once? Maybe he was reverting to his old ways!