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Orfea reached out her rag-bandaged hands to the statue’s face “Good girl,” she said with a sigh, “good girl, you found her, , my old friend” She nestled herself into the crook-arainst its rough, stiff face “Do you think they can hear her singing?” she said “The others, do you think they can hear her, in their stony ears?”

“Of course,” said Solace kindly, stroking the old woman’s hair just as I had done “I can hear her now She is so beautiful, when she sings up the sun”

The child drew me away then, and we left the tomen there, stone and flesh As we turned our backs, I could hear Orfea singing with her broken voice, and my throat closed on fiery tears that burned to fall

And as we passed the last statue, the farthest out, a sandstone child in herover the heh hand, as meant to be a snuffbox but which was not, just like the church which was not a church: a box of carnelian, no bigger than ered child, and it was not heavy, not nearly heavy enough

“What is this?” I said urgently I grabbed Solace’s arm and showed her the box

“How should I know? Just some junk the Duchess used for her little zoo She uses everything; you must have seen just as well as I” Solace rubbed her ar where I had touched her—I had not been careful I pled her forgiveness “Surely there are many boxes in all these dead hands How can you know this one is special?” she gru her arm

But I knew I looked at its polished surface, its design of curling, corkscrewing, arching grasses worked into the lid, its tiny claw feet, its old-speckled latch

“Well? Open it!” said Solace

“Should I? Kohinoor said it belonged to her Perhaps it is not right that I should open it”

“Then I will open it! Come, you cannot resist it—don’t you want to knohat’s inside? They never told you anything a Queen should know What do you owe them?”

I looked sharply at the young girl with her gleaht you were sleeping,” I said suspiciously

The girl grinned sidelong, her hair hanging down into her wolf-keen face “Open it,” she coaxed

And so help ernail into the lock and turned it, listening to the click of the carnelian tuerly Lantern peered over fro, and Solace stood on her toes to see inside

I let the casket fall open, and lying within, no bigger than a finger, was a worass, her hair a ether, one over the other Her meadow-eyes were serenely shut, her tiny blade-hands folded over a dress of straw and light No part of her did not shine with this light, silver and sere, and it pooled in the box as though I were holding a red candle in reen woman in the box

“Is she going to wake up?” Solace asked