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It was soot back around to their new alon Akiva’s chest so that the curve of her left horn followed the line of his face, and he could tilt his brow against it "There was a world that was perfectly s like honey lilies and star tenzing and weasels--"

"Weasels?"

"Hush And this world already had light and shadow, so it didn’t need any rogue stars to co moons, either, and most important, it had never knohich is a terrible, wasteful thing that no world ever needs It had earth and water, air and fire, all four ele the last element Love"

Akiva’s eyes were closed He sal’s fur-short hair, and traced the ridges of her horns

"And so this paradise was like a jewel box without a jewel There it lay, day after day of rose-colored dawns and creature sounds and strange perfumes, and waited for lovers to find it and fill it with their happiness" Pause "The end"

"The end?" Akiva opened his eyes "What do you olden skin of his chest, "The story is unfinished The world is still waiting"

He said wistfully, "Do you kno to find it? Let’s leave before the sun rises"

The sun The real’s lips from their new course up the curve of Akiva’s shoulder, the one scarred with the reht how she , or worse, finished hiht be here, now And the idea of disentangling, dressing, leaving, gave rise to a reluctance so powerful it hurt

There was dread, too, of what her disappearance o, angry, intruded into her happiness, and she pushed it away, but there was no pushing away the sunrise In a o"

Akiva said, "I know," and she lifted her face from his shoulder and saw that his wretchedness matched her own He didn’t ask, "What e do?" and she didn’t, either Later they would talk of such things; on that first night, they were shy of the future and, for all that they had loved and discovered in the night, still shy of each other

Instead, Madrigal reached up for the charm she wore around her neck "Do you knohat this is?" she asked hi the cord

"A bone?"

"Well, yes It’s a wishbone You hook your finger around the spur, like this, and we each ets their wish"

"Magic?" Akiva asked, sitting up "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"

"And what do you hope for most?"

"You’re not supposed to tell Come, ith me"

She held up the wishbone

It was part whi on a cord She had been fourteen, four years in Bri full of her oer She’d co newly minted lucknows from their molds, and she had wheedled for one

Briic and the pain tithe, and she still regarded wishing as fun When he refused her--as he always did, not counting scuppies, which cost a mere pinch of pain to create--she’d had a small, dramatic meltdown in the corner She couldn’t even remember noish had been of such dire importance to her fourteen-year-old self, but she well re a bone frorouse in sauce--and co her with the human lore of the wishbone

Issa had a wealth of hual came by her fascination with that race and their world In defiance of Brimstone, she took the bone andon it

"That’s it?" Brimstone asked, when he heard what petty desire had inspired her tantrum "You would have wasted a wish on that?"

She and Issa were on the verge of breaking the bone between theal," Bri you want, pursue it Hope has power Don’t waste it on foolish things"

"Fine," she said, cupping the wishbone in her hand "I’ll save it until h expectations" She put it on a cord For a feeeks sheto ponder them

"I wish I could taste with my feet like a butterfly"

"I wish scorpion-ossip"

"I wish my hair was blue"

But she never broke the bone What started as childish defiance turned into soer she ithout breaking the wishbone, the more important it seemed that when she did, the wish--the hope, rather--should be worthy of her