behind the figure and climbed the stacked pottery shards. “I have to set him down carefully, where there’s a ladder or something I can use.” She pulled up the back of the loose costume. “Has to be high enough to let me stand, you see.” The figure shivered as Clererca slithered through the back of the costume, her head finally poking out beneath the dark cowl. She pushed the cowl back and drew the scowling mask down over her face. The other she hung on the back of her head. Then with both hands she pushed off hard from the wall and came upright. “There we are.” She waved her hands, which were separate from and much shorter than the dangling arms of the figure. She shoved her hands down into the sleeves, and a moment later the stilt figure’s arms waved about in front of it. Each hand held a coin. The figure seemed to bow and extend its arm to Leodora. The fingers parted and a copper coin dropped into her palm.
“What’s he called?” Leodora asked.
“Cardeo, because he lives on the threshold of things.”
“He certainly does that.”
The figure of Cardeo spun about on one leg and now presented the laughing face.
“How do you walk backward that way?” asked Diverus.
“Practice,” she answered. “A lot of practice. I’m sure the great Jax knows what I mean.” Cardeo strode off in the direction of Towerside. “You be sure to find me when you come out into the thoroughfare. Let me introduce you,” she called back. “They’ll all want to meet the girl who healed Colemaigne.”
Diverus walked up beside Leodora. “I don’t understand. She wasn’t in the puppet. She . . . how did it talk to us? How did it move?”
“Edgeworld,” Leodora said.
The word set alight his memory—the memory pulled free by the wraith.
“I remember now. Something happened, I didn’t tell you, I didn’t get to—but I remember.”
“Remember what, Diverus?”
“Fountains jetting out of all kinds of colorful pools. And rainbows rippling on the surfaces of them as if oil had been poured upon the waters.” His eyes closed. “The pavement was smooth beneath my feet, too, and the light, the sky, it was molten gold.” He looked at her.
“Where was this?” she asked.
“In Edgeworld. I can remember Edgeworld now.”
The incredulity on her face caused him to grab her hand and drag her out from beneath the arch. In the street there he turned her and pointed at the sea creature statue carved on the wall above. “One of those came out of the water. Bois and Glaise led me down to it, trying to show me the upside-down place. And they didn’t, it wasn’t there, but I stayed behind. And that came out of the water . . . It did something to me, and all of a sudden I could remember being in Edgeworld. Everything was so queer there. Golden. And this woman spoke to me, guided me about, told me to choose my prize. I can see her hands, long, purple nails curving from her fingers. Her face was hidden, hidden under a mask, or it was a mask with nothing under it. I’m not sure.”
She searched through her own memory for something that matched his descriptions, but nothing did, not even a hint. She gently shook her head, recalling nothing.
Insistently he went on, “There was a cat. A huge cat. It perched on the edge of one of the pools. It had fur so long that it looked like quills, and all different colors flowed across it, the same as the pool. I remember that I went to it. The mask woman said Choose, and I chose it.”
“And when you stroked it, the air filled with music,” said Leodora in awe.
“That’s right, that’s why I went to it. People were stroking it and the music drew me. You saw it, too.”
She squinted, staring hard into memory. “I can—I can almost see it, where I was. Not bright like yours. It was dark. Different. I can’t—it won’t let me see it. But I remember that cat, and someone stroked it and music came out of its mouth, and then they all tried to sing, to harmonize with it. I can almost see them, but they’re gray like shadows. And there’s someone talking to me.”
“Telling you to choose.”
“Yes.” Her eyelids fluttered. “Oh, it’s just right there,” she said, frustration in her voice. “I can almost reach out and clutch it.”