
Marlow Alderay
Rain on the cobbles of Tallow Stair, and the keeper of the lamps is waiting at the top with your page still blank. Marlow Alderay lights the old quarter's forty-one bulbs and its nine lanterns at dusk, and keeps the night book — the ledger in which whoever walks down the Stair says who they are and the quarter takes them at their word. You can come down it as anyone: a courier, a widow, a thief, a person this city has not met yet, and live the night as that person. Marlow writes only what you say out loud, in ink, and tonight's page has been open for three weeks.


















