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"It’s a wishbone," she’d told hier around the spur, like this, and we each ets their wish"

"Magic?" Akiva had asked "What bird does this coic The wishes don’t really coed "Hope? Hope can be a powerful force Maybe there’s no actual ic in it, but when you knohat you hope for s happen, alic"

He was lost in her The radiance of her eyes kindled so in him that , at best half-feeling "And what do you hope for ive it to her

She was coy "You’re not supposed to tell Coer around the bone’s slender spur The thing he wished forhe had never wished for at all, not until he had discovered her And it ca span of happiness, it was the pivot point around which his whole life spun Everything he had done since, it had been because he had loved Madrigal, and lost her, and lost hi toward Karou with the truth in his hand, this thing so fragile, "alic"

Alic Brinature was as powerful on it as on the portals that set Akiva’s teeth on edge In the bone was the truth, and with it, the power to make Karou hate hi to drop in an ocean--what then? Karou never needed to know anything He could have her then; he could love her More to the point, if there were no wishbone, she could love hiht, and it filled Akiva with self-loathing He tried to quell it, but the bone taunted hi there on his open hand And the Mediterranean far below, dappled and sun-dazzled and fathoms deep, affirmed it

She never has to know

41

ALEPH

Karou was exactly where Akiva had ie of the Jeined, she was unquiet in the absence of the wishbone Once, her fingers would have needed no occupation but the holding of her pencil Now her sketchbook lay open before her, white pages blinding in the North African sun, and she fidgeted, unfocused, unable to keep her eyes fro the plaza for Akiva

He would co back the wishbone He would

If he was alive

Would they have harmed him, those other seraphim? It had been two days already What if…? No He was alive To iine him otherwise… Karou’sKishbird-moth--the stark suddenness of it: alive, not alive Just like that

No

Her thoughts veered away, finding focus on the wishbone What did it mean, that it had had that effect on Akiva? And… what could he have to tell her that had made him fall to his knees? The mystery of her self took on a dark tint and she felt a shiver of apprehension She couldn’t help re Zuzana and Mik, the looks on their faces--stunned and afraid Of her She had called Zuzana froued

"What are you doing?" Zuzana had deress to the time ofcagey now, so she’d told her Zuzana, unsurprisingly, had taken Akiva’s line that it was too dangerous, and Brimstone wouldn’t want it

"I want you to take my flat," said Karou "I already called the landlord He has a key for you, and it’s paid for the rest of--"

"I don’t want your stupid flat," Zuzana said Zuzana, who boarded with a cabbage-cooking elder aunt and joked not infrequently about killing Karou just for her flat "Because you live in it You are not just going to vanish like this, Karou This isn’t so with her The conversation ended badly, and Karou was left sitting with her phone warm in her hands and no one else to call It struck her with terrible clarity ho people were in her life She thought of Esther, her fake grandmother, and that just made her sad, that her mind would default to a stand-in She alht there--she didn’t have the charger, anyway--but was very glad the nextthat she hadn’t It vibrated in her pocket at the cafe, on the dregs of its juice, and disclosed thehed, and held her face, and even cried a little, and when an old man asked her if she was okay, she wasn’t quite sure

Two days she had been sitting here noo nights she had tried to sleep in her rented roout, just to knohere he hen she was ready to go, and had left hiive hio

To go With or without Akiva, with or without her wishbone

How long would she wait?

Two days and two unending nights, and her eyes were darting, hungry Her heart was gasping, eave it up Her hands knehat they wanted: They wanted Akiva, the spark and heat of hi she was cold, as if the only thing with a chance of warh the souks to the Jemaa el-Fna, she made a curious purchase