down on the spot in the hope of catching a glimpse of him.

The third time she tried jumping she saw him. He was no longer on the street, however. He’d had a bad experience in Babilonium when he and Candy had been separated from each other. It had scarred him, causing him to feel uncomfortable in large crowds, and he’d apparently decided to get out of the press of people for a little while. Now he was standing in a narrow alleyway, barely more than a vague form beckoning to her from the shadows.

“There you are!” she yelled to him as she made her way across the street. Once on the other side she slid cautiously between two stalls piled high with produce. Then she stepped out of the bright, noisy street into the hushed, shadowy alley.

“I thought for sure you’d be watching the puppet show,” Candy said to him.

“I took a quick look,” Malingo said. “But it was the same old story. You know . . .”

“Not really,” Candy said, a little mystified.

“Yes, you do. Love and Death. It’s always Love and Death. Though at least with puppets you see things the way they really are. Everything has strings attached.”

It was unusual for Malingo to make a joke. And this one actually made Candy laugh, though there seemed to be some significance in the remark that she couldn’t connect with Malingo and his life.

“Is there something you’re not telling me?” she asked him.

It was Malingo who laughed now: though there was something about the echo in the alleyway that made the sound darker and deeper than it should have been. Candy slowed her approach. Now she stopped.

“What secret would I have from you?” Malingo said. “You of all people.”

“I don’t know,” Candy said.

“Then why are you asking?”

“Just that you were talking about love.”

“Ah,” he said softly. “Yes, and I was talking as though I’d actually experienced it. Yes. As though I knew how it felt to fall for somebody. And then to hear them making all the right promises. That they’d love you forever if you’d just give them . . .” He shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. Something inconsequential.”

Candy felt an icy nail run down her spine. This wasn’t Malingo.

“I’m sorry,” she said, doing her best to keep her voice from betraying her fear. “You’re not who I thought you were.”

“It’s not you who needs to apologize, Candy,” the figure in the shadows said. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Well that’s good to hear,” she said, still attempting to sound as though there was nothing of great importance here, simply a misunderstanding. “I have to go. I have friends . . . waiting . . .” She made an attempt to look back, but her gaze returned to the stranger.

Except, of course, he wasn’t a stranger.

“I thought you were dead,” she said very quietly.

“So did I,” Christopher Carrion replied.

Chapter 34

Unfinished

“I WOULD HAVE DIED,” HE said, “except that I knew you were still here, Princess. I think that’s what kept me from giving up completely. The thought of finding my way back to you. Oh, and my nightmares, of course.”

As he spoke, two of the filament creatures slid out of hiding among the tattered robes Carrion was wearing, and encircled his neck. Though they were not as bright as they’d once been, the phosphorescence they gave off was still enough to offer her a glimpse of Carrion’s face. He looked like something that had been thumbed out of mud and excrement, his eyes little more than pits in which there were slivers of light, his lips ragged strips of dirt and sinew that could not conceal his dead bone smile.

“Don’t look at me, Princess,” he said. He tried to turn away from her, to conceal his diminished state but he did so too quickly for his mismade legs. They failed him, and he stumbled. He would have fallen in the filth underfoot had he not reached out and forced his fingers—which for all their crude form, did not lack strength—into the rotted plaster and fractured stone.

“I’m ashamed that you should see me like this. But I needed to be in your presence, just for a little time. When you next see me—”

“She isn’t here,” Candy said.

“What?”

“We parted ways.”

“You drove her out?”

“Not all by myself. I needed help to be sure I had the details right. But she is gone. See for yourself. Look in my mind.” She approached his hunched-over figure as she spoke to him, raising her arm as she did so, offering contact. “Go on. Do whatever you need to do. I’m not afraid of you anymore.”

It was true. The Lord of Midnight who’d stalked her in the Dead Man’s House was nowhere visible in this frail shadow figure that stood before her now. He glanced at her face, his raw features riddled with suspicion. Then he reached out and touched her, fingertips to fingertips. She felt his inquiring presence in her, like ice water swallowed on a baking-hot day.

“She’d used you up,” she said to him. “So she left.”

She seemed to hear him calling for his Princess in her head. Just her name. No endearments. No filigrees. Just that plaintive crying out.

“You loved her, didn’t you?” Candy said. “You still do.”

Carrion raised his head a few inches and turned to look at Candy. There was such despair in that broken face, and such rage there too, mingled with it.

“Yes, I love her,” he said. “Of course I love her.”

“And she promised she’d love you, if you gave her what she wanted.”

Carrion made a tiny nod of his head.

“Which was . . . ?”

“Magic, of course. Nothing significant at the beginning, she just wanted to find out whether she had an aptitude for it.”

“Which she did.”

“Yes. Then of course she wanted more.”

“When was all this? Before I was born?”

“Of course, years and years. These things don’t happen quickly.”

“What do you mean: these things?”

“I mean I fell in love with her. She was a very powerful creature. But this was long before you were born, Candy. I was a very young man. I couldn’t resist her. I gave her access to the Abarataraba. And I think she probably started to steal secrets from it immediately. So many secrets. I let her steal whatever she wanted as proof of my love. I even built her a place where she could practice what she’d learned.”

“Where was that?”

“On the Isle of the Black Egg. Building her that place was my first big mistake. She told me she wanted her privacy, and I could only step foot there if she invited me. Which I didn’t do much. Sometimes I’d wait maybe two or three months before she’d deign to let me see her.”

“But you put up with it.”

“I loved her beyond all reason.”

“And she knew . . .”

“She knew.”

Before Carrion could reply, Candy heard John Mischief calling her name. Then Drowze. Then Serpent. She glanced back toward the market. There was no sign of them. But it was only a matter of time before one of them came looking.

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