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Prologue

On the second Sabbat of Twelfthirl fell from the sky

Her skin was blue, her blood was red

She broke over an iron gate, criraceful as a te on a lover’s arm One slick finial anchored her in place Its point, protruding frolittered like a brooch She fluttered briefly as her ghost shook loose, and torch ginger buds rained out of her long hair

Later, they would say these had been hubird hearts and not blossoms at all

They would say she hadn’t shed blood but wept it That she was lewd, tonguing her teeth at the, that she voround They would say a flock of moths came, frantic, and tried to lift her away

That was true Only that

They hadn’t a prayer, though The er than the startled ether could only pluck at the strands of her darkening hair until their wings sagged, sodden with her blood They were purled aith the blosso down the street The earth heaved underfoot The sky spun on its axis A queer brilliance lanced through billowing s grit and hot light and the stink of saltpeter There had been an explosion They irl had, shaken from some pocket of the sky

Her feet were bare, her mouth stained da and lovely and surprised and dead

She was also blue

Blue as opals, pale blue Blue as cornflowers, or dragonfly wings, or a spring—not summer—sky

Someone screamed The screairl was dead, but because the girl was blue, and thisin the city of Weep Even after the sky stopped reeling, and the earth settled, and the last fume spluttered fro themselves from voice to voice, a virus of the air

The blue girl’s ghost gathered itself and perched, bereft, upon the spearpoint-tip of the projecting finial, just an inch above her own still chest Gasping in shock, she tilted back her invisible head and gazed, mournfully, up

The screams went on and on

And across the city, atop a e of seah awakened by the tureat horned head

Part I

shrestha (shres·thuh) noun

When a dream comes true—but not for the dreamer

Archaic; frood of fortune, as believed to punish supplicants for inadequate offerings by granting their hearts’ desire to another

1

Mysteries of Weep

Naotten No one knew that better than Lazlo Strange He’d had another na it Maybe it had been an old faenerations of use Maybe it had been given to him by someone who loved him He liked to think so, but he had no idea All he had were Lazlo and Strange—Strange because that was the surnadoueless uncle

“He had it cut out on a prison galley,” Brother Argos told hih to understand “He was an eerie silent man, and you were an eerie silent babe, so it came to me: Lazlo I had to name so many babies that year I hatever popped into ht, “Didn’t think you’d live anyway”

That was the year Zosouts ofThe war, of course, did not content itself with soldiers Fields were burned; villages, pillaged Bands of displaced peasants roas So alloere repurposed to carry orphans to the monasteries and convents They arrived like shipments of lae of their provenance than lah to know their names at least, but Lazlo was just a baby, and an ill one, no less

“Gray as rain, you were,” Brother Argos said “Thought sure you’d die, but you ate and you slept and your color came normal in time Never cried, never once, and that was unnatural, but we liked you for it fine None of us became monks to be nursemaids”

To which the child Lazlo replied, with fire in his soul, “And none of us became children to be orphans”