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"Magic healings here, Miss Lady, for the melancholy bowels," so as she shook her head in deht Was there a cure for that? Probably There was realthe quacks and touts She knew of a scribe dressed all in white who penned letters to the dead (and delivered them), and an old storyteller who sold ideas to writers at the price of a year of their lives Karou had seen tourists laugh as they signed his contract, not believing it for a second, but she believed it Hadn’t she seen stranger things?

As she an to distract her frolu alleyere called, the world seemed draped in carpets In others, freshly dyed silks dripped scarlet and cobalt on the heads of passersby Languages crowded the air like exotic birds: Arabic, French, the tribal tongues Women chivvied children hoether in doorways, shter, the scent of cinnamon and donkeys, and color, everywhere color

Karou made her way toward the Jemaa el-Fna, the square that was the city’s nerve center, acarnival of humanity: snake charmers and dancers, dusty barefoot boys, pickpockets, hapless tourists, and food stalls selling everything froe juice to roasted sheep’s heads On soh, but in Marrakesh she liked to linger and wander, sip h the souks for pointy slippers and silver bracelets

She would not be lingering tonight, however Briain of the empty jars, and furious curiosity strummed at herShe was going to find the graverobber, after all, and Izîl was nothing if not a cautionary tale

"Don’t be curious" was one of Brimstone’s prime rules, and Izîl had not obeyed it Karou pitied him, because she understood him In her, too, curiosity was a perverse fire, stoked by any effort to extinguish it The nored her questions, the more she yearned to know And she had a lot of questions

The teeth, of course: What the hell were they all for?

What of the other door? Where did it lead?

What exactly were the chimaera, and where had they come from? Were there more of them?

And what about her? Who were her parents, and how had she fallen into Brimstone’s care? Was she a fairy-tale cliché, like the firstborn child in "Rumpelstiltskin," the settlement of soled by her serpent collar, leaving a baby squalling on the floor of the shop Karou had thought of a hundred scenarios, but the truth remained a ? At times she felt a keen certainty that there was--a phanto her from just out of reach A sense would co, and once when she was dancing slow and close with Kaz, that she was supposed to be doing sos, with her body So else

But what?

She reached the square and wandered through the chaos, hertheed usted thick as houses on fire, teenage boys whispered "hashish," and costumed water-sellers clamored "Photo! Photo!" At a distance, she spotted the hunchback shape of Izîl a hi a time-lapse of decline When Karou was a child, he was a doctor and a scholar--a straight and genteel man with e He had come to the shop himself and done business at Brimstone’s desk, and, unlike the other traders, he always ht her little gifts--snakes carved froht dolls for Karou, and a tiny silver tea service for the chocolates or jars of honey on the desk when he left

But that was before he’d been warped by the weight of a terrible choice he’d made, bent and twisted and driven mad He wasn’t welcome in the shop any him now, tender pity overcanarled olivealking stick all that kept hi on his face His eyes were sunk in bruises, and his teeth, which were not his oere overlarge in his shrunken face The led Any passerby would be taken with pity, but to Karou, who kne he had looked only a few years earlier, he was a tragedy to behold

His face lit up when he saw her "Look who it is! The Wishhter, sweet ambassadress of teeth Have you come to buy a sad old man a cup of tea?"

"Hello, Izîl A cup of tea sounds perfect," she said, and led him to the cafe where they usually met

"My dear, has the otten our appointment"

"Oh, you haven’t I’ve come early"

"Ah, well, it’s always a pleasure to see you, but I haven’t got much for the old devil, I’m afraid"

"But you have some?"

"Some"

Unlike most of the other traders, Izîl neither hunted norin conflict zones, he’d had access to war dead whose teeth wouldn’t be missed Now that raves

Quite abruptly, he snapped, "Hush, thing! Behave, and then we’ll see"

Karou kneas not speaking to her, and politely pretended not to have heard

They reached the cafe When Izîl dropped into his chair, it strained and groaned, its legs bowing as if beneath a weight far greater than this one wastedin, "how are my old friends? Issa?"

"She’s well"

"I do so s of her?"

Karou did, and she showed theertip "So beautiful The subject and the work You are very talented,the episode with the Somali poacher, he snorted, "Fools What Bri with humans"

Karou’s eyebroent up "Come on, their problem isn’t that they’re huh Every race has its bad seeds, one supposes Isn’t that right, beast of mine?" This last bit he said over his shoulder, and this time a soft response seemed to elanced at the ground, where Izîl’s shadoas cast crisp across the tiles It seeht to be ignored, like a lazy eye or birth at him directly did not

Shadows told the truth, and Izîl’s told that a creature clung to his back, invisible to the eye It was a hulking, barrel-chested thing, its arht around his neck This hat curiosity had gotten hi him like a mule Karou didn’t understand how it had come about; she only knew that Izîl had e, and this had been the form of its fulfillo powerfully awry, and here was the evidence

She supposed that the invisible thing, as called Razgut, had held the secrets Izîl had hungered to know Whatever they were, surely this price was far too high

Razgut was talking Karou could make out only the faintest whisper, and a sound like a soft smack of fleshy lips