Daughter of Smoke and Bone

11 PLEASE

Please? Brimstone never said please. Hurrying across town, Karou found herself more troubled than if the note had said something menacing, like: Now, or else.

Letting her in, Issa was uncharacteristically silent.

“What is it, Issa? Am I in trouble?”

“Hush. Just come in and try not to berate him today.”

“Berate him?” Karou blinked. She’d have thought if anyone was in danger of being berated, it was herself.

“You’re very hard on him sometimes, as if it’s not hard enough already.”

“As if what’s not hard enough?”

“His life. His work. His life is work. It’s joyless, it’s relentless, and sometimes you make it harder than it already is.”

“Me?” Karou was stunned. “Did I just come in on the middle of a conversation, Issa? I have no idea what you’re talking about—”

“Hush, I said. I’m just asking that you try to be kind, like when you were little. You were such a joy to us all, Karou. I know it’s not easy for you, living this life, but try to remember, always try to remember, you’re not the only one with troubles.”

And with that the inner door unsealed and Karou stepped across the threshold. She was confused, ready to defend herself, but when she saw Brimstone, she forgot all that.

He was leaning heavily on his desk, his great head resting in one hand, while the other cupped the wishbone he wore around his neck. Kishmish hopped in agitation from one of his master’s horns to the other, uttering crickety chirrups of concern, and Karou faltered to a halt. “Are… are you okay?” It felt odd asking, and she realized that of all the questions she had barraged him with in her life, she had never asked him that. She’d never had reason to — he’d scarcely ever shown a hint of emotion, let alone weakness or weariness.

He raised his head, released the wishbone, and said simply, “You came.” He sounded surprised and, Karou thought guiltily, relieved.

Striving for lightness, she said, “Well, please is the magic word, you know.”

“I thought perhaps we had lost you.”

“Lost me? You mean you thought I’d died?”

“No, Karou. I thought that you had taken your freedom.”

“My…” She trailed off. Taken her freedom? “What does that even mean?”

“I’ve always imagined that one day the path of your life would unroll at your feet and carry you away from us. As it should, as it must. But I am glad that day is not today.”

Karou stood staring at him. “Seriously? I blow off one errand and you think that’s it, I’m gone forever? Jesus. What do you think of me, that you think I’d just vanish like that?”

“Letting you go, Karou, will be like opening the window for a butterfly. One does not hope for the butterfly’s return.”

“I’m not a freaking butterfly.”

“No. You’re human. Your place is in the human world. Your childhood is nearly over—”

“So… what? You don’t need me anymore?”

“On the contrary. I need you now more than ever. As I said, I’m glad that today is not the day you leave us.”

This was all news to Karou, that there would come a day when she would leave her chimaera family, that she even possessed the freedom to do so if she wished. She didn’t wish. Well, maybe she wished not to go on some of the creepier errands, but that didn’t mean she was a butterfly fluttering against glass, trying to get out and away. She didn’t even know what to say.

Brimstone pushed a wallet across the desk to her.

The errand. She’d almost forgotten why she was here. Angry, she grabbed the wallet and flipped it open. Dirhams. Morocco, then. Her brow furrowed. “Izîl?” she asked, and Brimstone nodded.

“But it’s not time.” Karou had a standing appointment with a graverobber in Marrakesh the last Sunday of every month, and this was Friday, and a week early.

“It is time,” said Brimstone. He gestured to a tall apothecary jar on the shelf behind him. Karou knew it well; usually it was full of human teeth. Now it stood nearly empty.

“Oh.” Her gaze roved along the shelf, and she saw, to her surprise, that many of the jars were likewise dwindling. She couldn’t remember a time when the tooth supply had been so low. “Wow. You’re really burning through teeth. Something going on?”

It was an inane question. As if she could understand what it meant that he was using more teeth, when she didn’t know what they were for to begin with.

“See what Izîl has,” Brimstone said. “I’d rather not send you anywhere else for human teeth, if it can be helped.”

“Yeah, me, too.” Karou ran her fingers lightly over the bullet scars on her belly, remembering St. Petersburg, the errand gone horribly wrong. Human teeth, despite being in such abundant supply in the world, could be… interesting… to procure.

She would never forget the sight of those girls, still alive in the cargo hold, mouths bloody, other fates awaiting them next.

They may have gotten away. When Karou thought of them now, she always added a made-up ending, the way Issa had taught her to do with nightmares so she could fall back to sleep. She could only bear the memory if she believed she’d given those girls time to escape their traffickers, and maybe she even had. She’d tried.

How strange it had been, being shot. How unalarmed she’d found herself, how quick to unsheathe her hidden knife and use it.

And use it. And use it.

She had trained in fighting for years, but she had never before had to defend her life. In the flash of a moment, she had discovered that she knew just what to do.

“Try the Jemaa el-Fna,” Brimstone said. “Kishmish spotted Izîl there, but that was hours ago, when I first summoned you. If you’re lucky, he might still be there.” And with that, he bent back over his tray of monkey teeth, and Karou was apparently dismissed. Now there was the old Brimstone, and she was glad. This new creature who said “please” and talked about her like she was a butterfly — he was unsettling.

“I’ll find him,” Karou said. “And I’ll be back soon, with my pockets full of human teeth. Ha. I bet that sentence hasn’t been said anywhere else in the world today.”

The Wishmonger didn’t respond, and Karou hesitated in the vestibule. “Brimstone,” she said, looking back, “I want you to know I would never just… leave you.”

When he raised his reptilian eyes, they were bleary with exhaustion. “You can’t know what you will do,” he said, and his hand went again to his wishbone. “I won’t hold you to that.”

Issa closed the door, and even after Karou stepped out into Morocco, she couldn’t shake the image of him like that, and the uneasy feeling that something was terribly wrong.