nearly took everything away. Sometimes perfect recall is a blessing that can be used to counterbalance all the curses in the world.)
Not here; not now. She starts to cry, big, wracking sobs that shake her entire body and make her eyes burn. She’s getting snot down her front—she’s probably getting snot in her hair—and that doesn’t matter, because the world is still spinning, the worst carousel the world has ever known, bobbing and weaving around her. She doesn’t know how to make it stop. She doesn’t know how to make it stop. There is no exit from this funhouse.
Eventually, the tears run out. She curls herself into a tight ball on the hallway floor and waits in silence for the world to stop spinning.
Roger knows none of this, because she doesn’t call for him, because he doesn’t like to walk with his eyes closed. He’s halfway home when he hears the footsteps. This time, he knows who they belong to. He stops walking and turns, waiting for Erin to catch up. She looks . . . satisfied, somehow, like things are going according to some complicated plan that she hasn’t felt the need to share with anyone else. He hates her for having that smug look on her face. He hates himself for putting it there.
“What did you do to me?” he demands.
Erin’s smile doesn’t falter. “I have no idea,” she says. “I’m not you, Jackdaw. When I see the Impossible City, I forget it afterward, unless you order otherwise. I guess this time you didn’t care to retain the information.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“No, I’m not,” she says. “That’s the fun part. Because see, come morning, all this is going to seem like a funky dream—even this conversation, which wouldn’t have happened if not for the things that came before it. Your mind is going to edit out the pieces that don’t make sense. It’s going to lie to you, and you’re going to let it. The world’s more comfortable that way. The world hangs together better that way. And you need a lot more foundation stones before you can start building this tower.”
“Do you speak entirely in metaphor with everyone, or am I lucky somehow?”
Erin’s eyes seem to darken. “Oh, you’re luckier than you know. You’re lucky I’m the one they chose to watch over you. You’re lucky they hurt me. And you’re lucky your sister is one of the tenacious ones. The guns are fragile. They need their triggers to keep them in check. The other pairs they separated didn’t make it. You did. They want to know why. They want to understand you.”
“They who?” asks Roger.
“The guards at the Impossible City. The Page of Frozen Waters. But the King of Cups most of all. You could be what he’s been looking for his entire life—and he’s not the sort of man you want paying attention to you. He’s not a humbug, like some other wizard figures I could name. This isn’t that kind of story. He’s the real deal.”
Roger scowls at her. “Do you know what happened to me tonight or what?”
“You remember I had something to do with it,” says Erin. “That’s fascinating. That means we’ve been here before more than once. Time is like skin: it can scar if you cut it enough times. Your sister, she knows how to cut it, but she isn’t allowed to pick up the knife unless she’s given permission. You gave her permission, and she cut time.” She tilts her head, looking at him calmly. “You did this to yourself.”
“You told me to.” He’s not sure why he’s so certain of that—it’s a feeling more than a fact, something snarled in the rapidly fraying cobweb of memory carried over from a timeline that never happened. “You said I had to.”
“Is that so? Well, if I said something like that, I probably had a damn good reason.” Erin sobers, the dark levity draining from her face, and looks at him. “I speak in metaphor because you’re a Jackdaw, you’re Jack Daw, and they didn’t stuff you with feathers, they stuffed you with words. Things that make too much sense will drop right through you. Metaphors snag and stay. You need things that will stay with you. You need to figure this out. I can’t help you.”
“You’re helping me now.”
“No, I’m planting seeds in your subconscious, because I know that come tomorrow morning, you’ll think this was all a dream.” Erin takes a step closer. “I wouldn’t even be doing