The Dire King (Jackaby #4)(81)

Marlowe stood at the front and said something, but I was having trouble focusing on his voice. Everybody began to sit down. I felt a hand on my arm, and Jackaby led me to an open chair. Someone else was talking now—something about many faiths and noble sacrifices. I think the sermon had begun.

Suddenly, a tiny figure materialized in the aisle ahead of me. The twain. I wiped my eyes, trying to catch a clear breath through the fog of glamour. I looked at the faces in the crowd, but nobody else appeared to see him. The twain gave me a solemn nod, then he turned away and began walking toward the front of the crowd.

I stood up. Faces all around me turned to look, and a medley of concern and irritation bubbled up from the crowd. The twain reached the front, and then, in the next moment, he was standing on a casket—on Charlie’s casket. I pushed my way past several sets of knees until I was in the aisle. Somewhere in the back of my mind I realized that the speaker had halted his sermon. I was disrupting the ceremony, but I could not have been less concerned about how it looked to any of them. They could not see what I was seeing.

The twain turned to face me one last time. “Make the world better for being in it,” he said. “And make each other better for being in it together.” And then he sank down into the wood.

There was a blinding light within the coffin. The twain’s greatest gift. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. The sun was rising inside my chest. In my pounding heart, a door that had been locked was opening.





Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Katrina, without whom this entire series would have never been more than a collection of playful notes; Lucy, who took a chance on a ridiculous idea and rode with it to the end; and Elise and her entire team, who have helped turn a lump of clay into something beautiful. I am unspeakably grateful.

I would also like to thank my mother, for providing moral support and technical advice, and Rita Moore, for being my Slavic languages consultant.

Finally, I would like to thank so many amazing readers who have given my strange little stories space on their bookshelves and a place in their hearts. You are always welcome in New Fiddleham.