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"Oh, Brined to give you any advice about Thiago?"

"No," said Madrigal "He has not"

She supposed Bri her, if you could call it that, but he hadn’t brought it up, and she was glad There was a sanctity in Brimstone’s presence, a purity of purpose possessed by no one else His every breath was devoted to his work, his brilliant, beautiful, and terrible work The underground cathedral, the shop with its dust-laden air pervaded by the whispering vibrations of thousands of teeth; not least its tantalizing doorway, and the world to which it led It was, all of it, a fascination to Madrigal

She spent as et aith It had taken her years of badgering, but she had actually succeeded in getting him to teach her--a first for him--and she felt far o’s lust

Chiro said, "Well, maybe you should ask hi to ask hial, irritated "I’ll deal with this myself"

"Deal with it? Poor you with your probleo’s wife? To trade in leathers for silks, and barracks for a palace, to be safe, to be loved, to have status, to bear children and grow old…" Chiro’s voice was shaking, and Madrigal knehat she was going to say next She wished she wouldn’t; she was already ashamed Her problem was no problem at all, not to Chiro, ore the hamsas

Chiro, who knehat if felt like to die

Chiro’s hand ith a flutter to her heart, where a seraph arrow had pierced her in the siege of Kalamet last year, and killed her She said, "Mad, you have a chance to grow old in the skin you were born in Some of us have only more death to look forward to Death, death, and death"

Madrigal looked at her own bare palms and said, "I know"

49

TEETH

It was the secret at the core of the chiels, kept theht, strummed at their minds and clawed at their souls It was the answer to theand co, no htered

When Chiro took the arrow at Kalaal was at her side She held her while she died, blood frothing at her sharp dog teeth as she kicked and jerked and finally fell still Madrigal did what she had trained to do, and what she had done h never for so close a friend

With steady hands, she lit the incense in the thurible that hung, lantern-like, fro, curved crook that chimaera soldiers carried strapped to their backs--and she waited as the smoke wreathed around Chiro Arrows rained down, profuse and dangerously near, but she didn’t leave until it was done Two minutes to be certain; that was the standard Two minutes felt like two hours in the thickness of arrows, but Madrigal didn’t retreat There ht not be another chance A furious seraph sally was driving the Chiro’s body with her, or she could co and leave it behind

What was not an option was to leave it with Chiro’s soul trapped in it

When Madrigal did finally fall back, she took her foster sister’s soul with her, safe within her thurible, just one of lean that day The bodies were left to rot Bodies were just bodies, just things

Back in Lora new ones

Brimstone was a resurrectionist

He didn’t breathe life back into the torn bodies of the battle-slain; he ht in the cathedral under the earth Out of the merest relics--teeth--Brimstone conjured new bodies in which to sleeve the souls of slain warriors In this way, the chiht of the angels

Without him, and without teeth, the chimaera would fold It wasn’t even a question They would fall

"This is for Chiro," Madrigal had said, handing Brimstone a necklace of teeth Human, bat, caracal, and jackal She had labored over it for hours, neither sleeping nor eating since her return frohts She had handled every jackal tooth in the jar and listened to each until she was certain she had the est The sa with theth and beauty Diamonds were a luxury not usually accorded a coal had used them defiantly, and Brimstone let her

He needed only hold the necklace for a ht her, she had strung teeth and ge of a body If they were strung in a different order, the body would ly: bat head, perhaps, instead of jackal, hus instead of caracal It was part recipe and part intuition, and Madrigal was certain this necklace was perfect

Resurrected, Chiro would look alinal flesh

"Well done," Bri rare: He touched her One big hand came to rest briefly on the back of her neck before he turned away

She blushed, proud; Issa saw and sh; the touch was so between the two of theal’s part

Brimstone was a hermit, rarely seen outside his domain in Loramendi’s west tower When he did make an appearance, it was at the left hand of the Warlord, and he inspired equal reverence, though of a different sort The two of theods It was they, after all, who had orchestrated the uprising in Astrae that left their angelfor years to coed huge swaths of land back fros

The Warlord’s role was clear--he had been the general, the face and voice of the rebellion, and he was beloved as the father of the allied races But Bris was shadowier, and his fearsoure of mystery and speculation, rather than adulation He was the subject of inative rumors--some of which hit on the truth, others nowhere near