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Of course she would know that My luck would have it no other way

“Unfortunately for me, it is”

“What would you say then, oh h to offer a trade instead of co you to do what I want?”

“Why would you do that, if you know I can’t refuse you?” I asked, still woozy froe

She sreen, the color of pear skin “Call it allantry Chivalry Call it the fact that I, unlike soet theives nothing back but iven to it, and returns cider and pies and tarts and jams”

I wanted to say that it is hardly the weed’s fault if its seed is blown into an apple orchard, and anyway, soood whether or not they are useful in pie-ht better of it “Well,” I answered instead, picking flecks of dirt fros, “what sort of trade?”

“The pick of any fruit I own, in exchange for a fruit I do not”

At this I was finally piqued, and allfeathers flushed fiery with interest

“Would I have to steal it?”

She laughed, and her leaf-dress rustled “I’ht But at least no one particularly owns them, so the theft would be technical at best—in the sense that the harvesting of any fruit is a theft from a tree I need the seeds of the Ixora tree, which are not unlike cherries thee you if you took a few for your cousin The Ixora grow in the Tinderbox Desert, and their branches burn all day and night But I think this will not be a problem for you”

“No, my lady” I chuckled “The fire has not been kindled which can harm me” I did not want to tell her yet hoell I knew the Ixora, how I had been born in their scalded shade, and hoas in the ruin of one that my cousin even noaited for me

“Then it is a trade?”

“It is Will you give ood friends?”

She looked at the long red quill, and again at the tree “No,” she said slowly, “I prefer fair barter, but one ought never to fully trust a thief You may have it back when I have my fruit”

I scratched with one claw at the soil around the golden roots I was caught, well and truly “I had better be off, then The desert is far away But I think I ought to say, before I go, that I have never heard of a pumpkin tree in any corner of the world, and since everyone knows pu vicious to it to ht not to trust you, either”