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"Does anyone else know you’ve been working on this?" I say "It would be a big help to the professor, I’e "You think?"

"It’s quite good," Basil agrees

She wrinkles her nose "I just wish I had some proper colors," she says "Do you think they have decent coloring ht?"

"Of course," I say "The people who run the scopes have reported that the buildings down there are all sorts of colors They must like to decorate the way that we do"

Pen seems satisfied with this She blows on the tip of her pen stone and draws the princess falling from the clock tower

Tentatively, I peer into one to the hel alone on thethe raised letters on a roll of paper fro when he hears ry withfoolish decisions that could get you killed?" he says

"We’re in a round soon" There’s a laugh in my voice "What could be more foolish than that?"

He e to mark his place, and then he rolls the paper and sets it down

"I’m sorry if I scared you when I snuck off, Lex, truly"

He grunts, but the raised corner of his ood days

"I’ve brought you so the scrap of white cloth around his wrist "I’ one, too," I say as I finish the knot

He runs his fingers over the frayed edges of the fabric "For Mom and Dad, then," he says

Traditionally, family members and exceptionally close friends would cut a strip of fabric fro and wear it in remembrance "I knoe’re supposed to make these after the ashes have been thrown to the tributary," I say, "but we aren’t going to have that"

"What did you use?" Lex asks

"The shirtsleeve fro

Lex is still for a while, and I begin to wonder if I’ve done the wrong thing in tying the fabric around his wrist Maybe I’ve forced rief on him, and he doesn’t want to share it withon

But then he puts his arm around my shoulders and squeezes me close

Neither of us have words for this loss We expected to say good-bye to our parents the way our world dictates, years from noe were prepared But our world turned out not to be as promised to us There will be no ashes thrown to the tributary There will be no festival of stars with our paper desires burning in the sky

Our parents are gone now Our horew, is out of reach It is only Lex andthe city that wants us dead

I stare at the fabric that’s aroundme after I was poisoned"

"No thanks necessary," he says "Just repayalive, if it isn’t too much to ask"

I’et the chance The bird jolts sharply in one direction, then the other, and I careen into the ith Lex still holding on to erously overhead The next jolt extinguishes it

I do ?" I say

"Could be anything," Lex says He doesn’t sound at all worried, and I’ht, or he’s just content to die here if the alternative would be capture by the king

"Morgan!" Basil is shouting for me

"Stay wherever you are," I call back "It isn’t safe"

Beyond the doorway of the bunk roo and hissing All of the lanterns have blown out S soundsundone and we’re being crushed

I prop rateful these bunk roo that went into this bird, did no one fashion so for us to hold on to?

Mercifully, the bird eventually goes still

Lex stirs in the darkness "Are you hurt?" he asks

"No," I say "But the lanterns blew out"

"Don’t light the"

He’s right I can feel a pull "We’re still spinning a bit, aren’t we?" I say "And sinking"