“Cept Marquis,” Mayliss said. Her tone was cutting. “Cept Marquis and Crawney and Stumblecat, and any other blackskull who wants you. They get you free, starlady, and they do anything they want with you, and Hal don’t do a thing. Right, Hairy Hal? Spin that at her.”

Hairy Hal made a palming motion, the ghost blade blinked out and the black rod vanished beneath his cape. “Dress, starlady,” he told Janey. “Take something from Mayliss, anything you like, an’ cut it to size.”

“Hey now,” Mayliss started, but Hal raised his voice and bulled right over her.

“You pick, you get, starlady,” he said. “Keep your hair, so they know you work for Hal. But tie something red round your head, so they know you work.”

Afterwards, they left Mayliss and Golden Boy alone, and went out into the corridor down to the Concourse, out towards the Plaza. Janey Small wore a red headband and a gossamer yellow dinger and a cool, pale face. She did not talk. Hal did all the talking, Hal in black and green, who smiled and kept his arm around her.

The Concourse, already, was jammed. Hal pulled Janey to a food stall, nodded to the man behind the counter, and they both ate crusty brown breadsticks and cubes of cheese. Janey put her elbows up on the counter. Hal put his arm around her, rubbed her shoulder, and pointed at people with his eyes.

That one’s a thief, he told her, and that one pushes dreams, and the other with the wide eyes and the drools, well, he’s that buys them. And there’s another pimp, but his girls are old and baggy, and there’s Bad Tanks who owns a stall out near the plaza. Don’t ever eat there, though, cause he laces his sticks with dust to bring in more new dreamers. French is a joy-smoke merchant, he’s quick but you can trust him, but Gallis don’t sell nothing but a spin.

They started down the Concourse together, past the grimy plastic walls and the countless shops, past fat, half-naked women with shaved red skulls who glared at them resentfully, past swaggering youths with stingsticks who gave Hal a wide berth. All the time Janey Small walked in silence while Hal kept on his lessons.