Page 14 (2/2)

Karou didn’t help her out She looked back down at Kishmish and tried to make sense of this sudden intrusion of death He flew here on fire, she thought He ca was tied to his foot: a piece of Brimstone’s thick notepaper, charred, which cru else Her fingers shook as she untied it, and then she held the object in her palrained fear: She wasn’t supposed to touch it

It was Briht it to her On fire he had brought it

Out in the city a siren wailed, and it hurried a connection herBlack handprint The portal She struggled to her feet and rushed inside, pulled on a jacket and boots Zuzana was there, asking, "What is it, Karou? What is that? What--?" but Karou barely heard her

She went out the door and down the stairs, Kishmish still cradled in her arm, the wishbone tucked in her palm Zuzana followed her into the street and all the way to Josefov, to the service door that had been Briue portal

It was now a blue-white inferno impervious to the jets of the fire hoses

At the sah Karou didn’t know it, across the world, at every door eed They couldn’t be doused, and yet they didn’t spread Fla to the charred holes in dozens of buildings Metal doors melted, so hot was the fire, and witnesses who stared at the flames saw, in the nis

Karou saw them and understood The way to Elsewhere had been severed, and she was cast adrift

Once upon a tiels burned the doorways to their world, and she was all alone

21

HOPE MAKES ITS OWN MAGIC

Once, when Karou was a little girl, she used a handful of scuppies to flatten the wrinkles out of a drawing that Yasri had sat on Wrinkle by wrinkle, wish by wish--a painstaking procedure acco out at the corner of her lips

"There!" She held it up, proud

Brimstone made a sound that put her in ht years old, dark-haired, dark-eyed, and skinny as the shadow of a sapling "It’s a good drawing It deserved to be rescued"

It was a good drawing It was a rendering of herself as a chis and a fox’s tail

Issa clapped with delight "Oh, you’d look darling with a fox tail Brimstone, can’t she have a tail, just for today?"

Karou would rather have had the wings, but neither was to be The Wish put-upon, breathed a weary no

Issa didn’t beg She just shrugged, kissed Karou on the forehead, and tacked up the drawing in a place of honor But Karou was taken with the idea, so she asked, "Why not? It would only take a lucknow"

"Only?" he echoed "And what do you know of the value of wishes?"

She recited the scale in a single breath "Scuppy shing lucknow gavriel bruxis!"

But that was not, apparently, what he rowls routed through the nose, and he said, "Wishes are not for foolery, child"

"Well, what do you use the," he said "I do not wish"

"What?" It had astonished her "Never?" All thatyou wanted--"

"Not anything There are things bigger than any wish"

"Like what?"

"Most things that matter"

"But a bruxis--"

"A bruxis has its libird stuttered into the light and Kishmish launched off Brimstone’s horn, plucked it from the air, and sed it whole--and just like that, the creature un-was It was, and then it wasn’t Karou’s sto so suddenly not

Watching her, Brimstone added, "I hope, child, but I don’t wish There’s a difference"

She turned this over in herthat if she could co occurred to her, and she struggled to put it into words "Because hope coic"