“I like parsnip soup.”
“That’s because you don’t know any better.”
Mallory rubbed her temple. Between the winds and the birds and the ghost, her head felt like it was about to implode. “He cannot keep a full staff,” she said slowly, “because of thekiller ghostwho won’t leave his house. And he can’t get rid of the killer ghost because he unwittingly hired afraud, a problem that I am trying to fix, so that someday I might actually get paid.”
Triphine yelped suddenly and jumped up onto the rail. “I just saw a rat!”
Mallory raised an eyebrow. “How are you possibly still afraid of rats?”
“They’re horrifying,” said Triphine. “And they carry diseases. You know I have a delicate constitution.”
Mallory spied a long, thin tail as the creature dove behind a pillar. She peered around the side.
“Oh,” she said, surprised. It wasn’t a rat at all, but another salamander, skin shining wetly.
Its eyelids blinked—one first, then the other. It was unlikely that this was the same salamander she’d seen by the kitchen over a week ago, and yet, if she wasn’t mistaken, it seemed to recognize her.
“You’re saved,” she said dryly. “It’s only a salamander.”
“A salamander!” cried Triphine. “That’s even worse.”
Mallory read the instructions on the card again, though she had long ago committed them to memory. “Entrust it to the four winds,” she murmured, then sighed. “If you say so.”
She waited for another breeze to blow through the tower. Bracing herself for disappointment, she held the card out over the ledge, exhaled, and let go. As soon as it was out of reach, she stepped back from the ledge.
The card started to fall, fluttering down toward the distant ground. But then it stopped and hovered, buoyed upward, dancing on the wind.
Mallory held her breath, waiting.
The card began to transform. The corners folded in on themselves. Again and again. It happened so fast, a blur of transformation. Mallory barely blinked and then—it was no longer a card, but a tiny shimmering moth, crafted from folded pearlescent paper.
Mallory’s lips parted. It was magnificent. The prismatic calligraphy winding around its elegant body. Sunlight catching on fluttering wings. It was alive but not alive.
It was magic. Or sorcery. Or witchcraft, beyond anything she’d ever seen her mother do. Beyond anything—
A stream of yellow flame appeared from the stone rail, shooting straight at the paper moth.
The paper ignited in a brief fiery orb, then burned clear away. A trail of black ash drifted skyward on the wind.
“Well,” said Triphine, “that was tragic.”
Mallory gaped at the empty place where the moth had been.
Slowly, she turned her appalled glare toward the salamander.
It alternately blinked its immense yellow eyes, then flicked its tongue, as if asking what she planned to do now.
Red splotches invading her vision, Mallory launched herself at the creature.
It darted along the length of the rail and threw itself down tothe floor, running right through Mallory’s ankles, and through the trapdoor that led down into the house.
Mallory shrieked and leaped after it, shoving her arm through the gap in an effort to catch the little beastie. “Get back here, you slimy, web-footed, baby dragon impost—ah!” A face loomed at the bottom of the ladder, startling her.
Mallory lost her balance. Grappled for the rungs of the ladder and missed. She heaved forward, down through the trapdoor.
Armand yelped, barely catching her as she collided into him and sent them both sprawling across the wooden landing.
“We really ought to stop meeting like this,” he muttered, groaning as Mallory rolled off him. “What were you yelling about?”
