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I giggled a little and pulled away He sed hole in his throat

"Just a flesh wound," he said It was already starting to close up He puffed out his cheeks, and a little fizzle of air hissed under h

"Please don’t try that trick at the caravan," I sniffed "I don’t like it a bit"

"Saand the mouthful of blood I rather enjoyed that"

We limped to the tree, but he pulled ot to ask you for a favor, love," he said

"Na to ask

"I need soet you over that wall and to safety before the Coppers realize what’s happened I’m half-drained But I knohere his secret cellar is now, so the whole torture thing wasn’t a total loss"

I reached up to the high neck of own and pulled at the laces as seductively as possible, but the daht, and I felt like an idiot He chuckled and leaned over ht in the shadow of a wolf

He unlaced the neck gently and brushedmy throat

"I love you, you know," he whispered in ash of his sharp teeth in my skin Not puncture wounds--more like a little rip, like when you rub past a nail I whiainst me, and I pressed into the tree, and I had a little flashback of our tio? Once I started thinking about that, it started feeling better He gulped twice more, then pulled aith a dreamy look on his face, eyes rolled back in his head

"That’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted in my life," he said "Lift your skirt"

"No tily dress back up "Let’s get over that wall and out of Eden"

42

It was getting awfully handy, knowing a otten across the street without a glamour, not covered with all that blood Cried toward Darkside, but the wound in his neck was nearly closed

"One day, you’ll forget it was ever there," he said

"I don’t think I’ll ever forget that, actually," was h the croe heard the church bell tolling, a dark and disain The people all stopped where they were and looked up to the top of the city, where the church’s spire rose into the white-blue sky It was helpful--they were a lot easier to dodge when they all held still

"What’s happened?" an oldaround frantically

"So man answered

"Lucky hih--we used the weird cal, we could hear shouts, and then all of the Coppers abandoned their posts and rushed uphill toward the church on their blud people aside in their haste

By the time we reached Antonin’s shop, everyone knew

Jonah Goodwill, Magistrate of Manchester, was dead

"An apoplexy," whispered a fashionable young arden, sht hiht the tailor another juicy tidbit, most of them patently false But the true ones were even better

"They’ll name the city Goodwill in his honor," said an old biddy

"He left a will, but his successor was found dead with an arrow in his chest next to a Bluddy doxy in Mr Goodwill’s own guest room," whispered a barrister’s overfed housewife "Ooh, the scandal!"

"You didn’t hear it fro to kill off all the Bludlasses "They even had a secret cabal"

"He was really an alien fro his first breeches, and his

As Antonin knelt atthrough a ood laugh in the leht as my hideous, blood-spattered sailor dress crackled ether, and I inhaled a stea, curry-flavored wrappy fresh from a street vendor As far as I was concerned, it was a lovely celebration

Later, curled together in the spare bed in Antonin’s attic garret, Crilow of our candle His s the hard lines of his face

"Of all the ways it could have gone," he said, "I’d say it went pretty well"

"We were lucky," I said

"There was so and placing the right bets," he said, and he kissed the tip of my nose "You did well, love"