Chapter seventeen
A Rose between two thornsWithout hesitation I roared up onto the stage, leaping a screaming woman and kicking her companion in the face — quite accidentally — as I whipped up onto the boards. The girl in the cage held the scrap of blue satin ribbon before her face, her eyes wide, staring, not quite ready to start crying at all the hubbub.
Just about then the first firepots sailed in.
This place would burn like dry shavings.
The cage of the sacrifice, which, as I knew, sometimes held leems, was bolted. The bolt clicked back with a snick audible in the hullabaloo. I reached in.
“I have some more sweets for you,” I said in what I tried to make a modulated and reasonable voice. “We’re going to a special Banje shop—”
“You won’t take me back?”
She drew away, the ribbon h
