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Atouch Revulsion juddered through her It was a tongue Razgut had gotten his taste She heard a loathsoraverobber on his knees

That was enough for her She gathered up the teeth and her sketchbook

"Wait, please," Izîl cried "Karou Please"

His plea was so desperate that she hesitated Scrabbling, he dug so from his pocket and held it out A pair of pliers They looked rusted, but Karou kneasn’t rust These were the tools of his trade, and they were covered in the residue of dead mouths "Please, my dear," he said "There isn’t anyone else"

She understood at once what he meant and took a step back in shock "No, Izîl! God The answer is no"

"A bruxis would save me! I can’t save myself I’ve already used mine It would take another bruxis to undo my fool wish You could wish him off me Please Please!"

A bruxis That was the one wish ular: The only way to purchase one ith one’s own teeth All of the her own teeth out one by one made Karou feel woozy "Don’t be ridiculous," she whispered, appalled that he would even ask it But then, he was a ht now he certainly looked it

She retreated

"I wouldn’t ask, you knoouldn’t, but it’s the only way!"

Karou walked rapidly away, head down, and she would have kept walking and not looked back but for a cry that erupted behind her It burst from the chaos of the Jemaa el-Fna and instantly dwarfed all other noise It was soh, thin river of sound unlike anything she had ever heard

It was definitely not Izîl

Unearthly, the wail rose, wavering and violent, to break like a wave and becoe--susurrous, without hard consonants The e was alien even to Karou, who hadas she did that the people around her were turning, too, craning their necks, and that their expressions of alar to horror when they perceived the source of the sound

Then she saw it, too

The thing on Izîl’s back was invisible no e was alien to Karou, it was not so to Akiva

"Seraph, I see you!" rang the voice "I know you! Brother, brother, I have served ! I have repented, I have been punished enough--"

Akiva stared in blank inco that materialized on the old man’s back

It was all but nad, a bloated torso with reedy arled behind, and its head ollen taut and purple, as if it were engorged with blood and ready to pop in a great, wet burst It was hideous That it should speak the language of the seraphiness of it held Akiva iuage turned to shock at as being said in it

"They tore offat Akiva It unwound one ar "Twisted s so I would have to crawl, like the insects of the earth! It has been a thousand years since I was cast out, a thousand years of torment, but now you’ve come, you’ve come to take me ho away fro the direction of its supplication to fix their eyes on Akiva He beca gaze So prayers And then his eyes cairl, soure in theback

Into kohl-rime like sparks that seared a path through the air and kindled it It gave Karou a jolt--no h her body with a rush of adrenaline Her liht or flight, che to catch up to the fervor in her body

And: What?

Because clearly he was not hu amid the tumult in absolute stillness A pulse beat in the pal a wild hue pounded through her on the rhyther was the enemy His face--oh, beauty, he was perfect, he was e to flee and the fear of turning her back on him

It was Izîl who decided her

"Malak!" he screael?

"I know you, deadly bird of the soul! I knohat you are!" Izîl turned to Karou and said urgently, "Karou, wish-daughter, you et to Briotten back in You must warn him! Run, child Run!"

And run she did

Across the Je hampered by those drawn to the coh them, knocked someone aside, spun off a camel’s flank and leapt over a coiled cobra, which struck out at her, defanged and harlance over her shoulder, she could see no sign of pursuit--no sign of hi Her body, alert and alive She was hunted, she was prey, and she didn’t even have her knife tucked into her boot, little thinking she’d need it on a visit to the graverobber