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“My old friends, you irl does in the way that a spider weaves, so that Solace will not grow up to be the wrong sort of girl”

We like the wrong sorts of girls, they wrote They are usually the ones worth writing about

“Please” Sleeve sighed “You needn’t be a bunch of silly, flea-bitten birds for my benefit”

“I’rumbled under my breath

We think, went their flowing feet, their dancing pen, and dance while they’re singing But we are not girls, and so can be al about the matter But we let you try, so why not her?

The sisters seized s—theirs were cool and dry, not like Papa’s, but a wing is the right sort of thing, that I knew Everything good in the world has feathers and wings and claws They led an to whirl s and beaks, but it slowly became a dance They lifted my feet with deftly turned ankles, ether, the Sirens and I, but they never sang, never once, and I spun with them in silence, faster and faster

When it was over, the four of us looked down at the paper floor, the expanse of swirling ink, trying to read the tale we had written there—soreat ed behind us in our swift, complicated dance

There was a scribble, a scrawl, a jagged ed a feords here and there, but in their instruction they could notof note They leapt up again and fluttered to a fresh corner

You are hopeless at letters, they wrote, that is very sad

“But the dancing!” I cried “The dancing! I want to dance like that!”

Try the Dancing-Master, they suggested with a flourish We only kno to dance with each other, how to dance the letters We suspect perhaps one ought only to dance with one’s sisters

Sleeve sighed Her poor needle legs were so tired of walking But she was determined, more determined, certainly, than I, who after all had little interest in the fates of girls We wound down fro, circular streets of ht, thin alleys and down streets wider than Lantern’s wings, but ent up no hills, turning and twisting to re in a high wall, the side, I thought, of the opera house, which even the opera singers barely used anymore, since they now had the whole city happy to stand in for any courts of intrigue or enchanted pastorals they could dream of It was nearly dark by the time we found it

The grate was small, and it led into a darkness without depth, but I was little then: I could wriggle through the bars, and darkness was darkness, and could not hurt ainst the fears of any crawling shadow

“Come with me!” I said to my spider, who hovered around the copper bars, and looked suspiciously into the murk

“No,” said Sleeve slowly, shaking her head “This is where the Dancing-Master lives There is another entrance by Siht this one best, and I brought you, but I know very well how to dance”