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“So, you’re back” She sighed, propping herself up in her strange feathered bed The birds rearranged the hiood Prince, as Princes go But you’re early The dark moon rises only an hour before dawn, and it is not yet ti more to tell”

She shifted, and the geesenecks to lay their heads on her, to touch her in any way they could Silver wings like crossed arms covered her chest

“I told the first part for myself, so that you would knoas This I tell for you, so that you will knohat is to come”

THE KNIFE CUT TRUE, BUT NOT DEEPLY THE Wizard did not even spare a hand to staunch the blood from his oound It was a thin scarlet line under his chin, above the collar’s iron ri many on that leather-thick expanse of flesh In one fluid ht rip, and thrust her own knife into her belly

Grand at the knife’s bone handle jutting like a new liht blood erupted from her white lips She collapsed into my arms as the Wizard ducked into a s after his shalloound

And through all this, the King had said nothing, nor moved, but watched it with a falcon’s curiosity He did not take his cool eyes off me for a moment Grandmother lay like a child inout of her, deep, dark blood from the depths of her, thick and black until it was not, until it was silver and pale, flowing over my hands, over my lap like a little brook of fresh water I was soaked in it, and Grand with the stuff, and put her fingers into ht trickled down my throat

It tasted of nothing at all

“You see? I can fill you up after all You are all of us now, all that is left, drenched with blood and light like our long-dead grandh to buy our vengeance for us With my death, I instruct you”

She smiled, just the faintest shadow of a smile, and died, with a noise in her throat like dried beans rattling in a gourd There was nothing left in her; the blood-light had seeped into me and she was a shell, a hole, empty space

I did not weep; I would not let them see it I took the knife with its thick bone hilt from her flesh and clutched it

tightly in my bloody fist

And as I looked up at the King in all his jewels, for a moment I could see a shape just behind hi amid bristled red fur

It was the Fox, and he was laughing

I could never discover what they did with randh it were kitchen rubbish, a pile of apple cores and pig fat The stains were scrubbed froed

The King had never taken his unblinking eyes fros which had once drealut of her blood, h I had painted e The Wizard pushed back his braided gray hair fro