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"You were right again, love," Criminy said

Tish rolled over in bed to face hied with yesterday’s kohl After a long night’s glancing, she usually slept deeply until afternoon, and she still didn’t understand how a ed to be there when she woke up

"You’re the one who says glancers are always right," she answered, stretching and sighing under the quilt of patchwork silks "In ic 8 Ball"

"You slay s"

The gypsy king sat at his desk in nothing but breeches and argyle stockings, his hair loose and ski over the pale skin of his chest like ink spilled on parchht’s show, probably dropped by one of the Clockwork Caravan’s uptight and paranoid Pinky custons and certificates they posted assuring the visitors that it was perfectly safe, the silly humans still carried their parasols like weapons and jumped whenever they were addressed by so And they dropped allpiles of newspapers

Since Criue and didn’t trust the Coppers to leave his carnivalleros unet news as often as Tish would have liked Accustomed as she was to the Internet and talk radio when at hos happened all over Sang that she wouldn’t learn about for several months For example, it had taken an entire year for Criminy to learn that the Blud princesses of Freesia had disappeared, and he was still furious whenever the topic came up As far as Tish could tell, they were the Bludmen’s version of the British royal faest princess

"Has there been news of Ahnastasia--" He looked up, cloudy eyes sharp, and she stopped herself just in tiht about so I can act s our Maestro that loss would be his salvation or some such rot, yes?"

Tish smiled and allowed herself a moment to feel wistful over the Maestro, who had left the carnival when Tish chose a vagabond life with Crie with the talentedin her oorld, where he was an unresponsive patient on her nightly rounds as a hospice nurse And ly handsome and most very responsive, had definitely been a shock When she had touched Casper and glanced on his future, she had seen dizzying greatness followed by a fall frolory followed by hard-won redelance Cri like that," she murmured

With his usual flair for the dramatic, Crie, which featured an ink drawing that perfectly captured Casper, right down to his ni hair, and di into the strings of a harpsichord while wearing a worinned "And to think that I passed that up for you"

"Turns out our lad has just been tossed out of the London Opera," Criistrate canceled his appoint a professional" He peered close, sharp eyebrow raised "He’d have done better to stay here"

"What, so you could gloat?"

Cririnned It was one of her favorite sounds, that wild, unselfconscious barking Even now, after two years with him in the caravan, it still felt as if she had won a prize

"No, love," he answered "So he would remember his place Give a weak man the world, and he’ll just make a mess of it"

"Well, I feel sorry for hiht man for me, but there’s someone out there for everyone And he’s so very--"

"Good-looking?"

"Talented Much better than that ridiculous goof we’ve got on the calliope now"

"Carnivalleros coo, my love, but to hell with the Maestro He’s a lot better off here than he was in your world, anyway" He folded the paper fastidiously, rolled it up, and stuffed it into one of the pigeonholes in his desk before standing to stalk to the bed with his usual predatory grace, and Tish smiled and scooted over to led in theher wrists on either side of her head

"Besides, he could never have tickled your ivories as I do, my delicious little pianoforte," he whispered in her ear "I know just where to put an kissing his way up her neck Before he could reach her mouth and claim her in one of those desperate, fiery kisses she loved so well, soer off!" he yelled "We’re busy studying musical theory"

He licked his lips and s pointy teeth

"Nohere e, ?"

The knock caon’s floor with a howl