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It looked like nothing so ed with big lightbulbs dotted the walls, bright rags and feathers and coats and dresses and half-patchworked hats lay on tables and chairs everywhere Nothing matched, furniture came from wherever it was found, a red carousel bench here, a polka-dotted fainting couch with one leg lass sewing table in another All over the walls were concert prograry, snippy notes in fine handwriting Anna, if you let the fire go out before dawn one more time I shall turn you into alike sparrow hearts at market? Report to the parlor at teatime for punishment! Delia, Master Bluebell de Do try not to be awful at it

And sprawled on every bench and couch and stool and chair and scrap of floor were twenty or so human children, sorown, so Soreen and shis from square bottles

Everyone fell silent when they saw the newcoh to dress hi couch

“Oh, Herbert, silly, don’t be afraid!” Penny hushed the boy “They’re like us! Changelings! I know they look like Fairy folk, but the King hi They’re one of ours They won’t bite or tell on us”

“I bite,” the scrap-yarn wombat said helpfully “But only when I really want to”

At the sound of Blunderbuss’s fuzzy voice, Herbert peeked out froerine ear, her blue-and-green striped belly, her ain He barreled out into the open again and fell onto the wo her Tom watched with some satisfaction, as she’d done much the same to him when theyhis teeth on ht to have done He would, when he got a moment to breathe, he promised himself

“Easy on the squishables, little monkey!” the wombat huffed “In the Land of Woe a wombat to a duel before you throttle them like that!” But she seemed pleased anyway

“Welco said, with not a little bit of pride “We s in Pandemonium, but this one is our favorite because it only loves us Fairylanders aren’t allowed Bayleaf—the tall chap there? Remembered soreat beefy passwords that Fairies could never guess This is where we come e’re not…occupied”

“But they are Fairylanders,” said Bayleaf “That one’s a troll And the other’s a…s Did you hit your head?”

Penny squared her feet “They are! Couess?” But he could not Penny Farthing, by great feat of will, kept herself fro out loud “They’re the other ones Goods exchanged! Born here, dropped off in our cradles like the Tuesday post We always thought they existed! Noe know! And they kno to get back where they ca that’s ever happened, you know”

But the rest of the Changelings did not cheer They stared at Tom and Tam—and it was not a very nice stare It was the stare an urchin gives to a child with a fur hat in a sweet shop who has gotten to pick out a whole cake for herself every week of her life

“Hullo,” Toer than Herbert reached up and poked Tom’s arm as if to see whether he was real He cleared his throat “Where are we, actually?” Too anywhere? It’s their city, after all”

“That’s the clever bit,” Bayleaf piped up He had a shock of dark hair that stuck up every which way and wore at least three waistcoats “This is like…a hidden pocket in a suit jacket, or a hollow cane It’s in Pandemonium, but it isn’t Pandemonium”

Scratch wound his crank and the room jumped at the sound of his scratchy, sweet voice:

I gave my love a cherry