The boy could see down into the courtyard through the bars of her cell. He sat at the window while his cat played with shadows underfoot. And when he saw the fire burning in the lower branches of the tree, he smiled. “It’s wonderful,” he said. “Can you make oranges grow among the leaves?”

“It’s a chestnut tree,” answered the bishop. She stepped from the dark behind him and looked down.

Nevertheless, in an instant the boughs were heavy with strange fruits. The boy clapped his hands.

“And can you put a songbird on the topmost branch?” he asked. Instantly a bird darted down from the sky into the foliage. It had long red feathers and a silver voice. “A firebird,” the boy exclaimed. “Can you make her wings burst into flame?”

“That would be cruel.

“Why? It’s not a real bird.”

“No? How sweet it sings.”

The cell was in a high tower. Above, the sky shone with magnesium and grenades. “My secretary is a fool,” said the bishop. “The city burns down every year. Tonight he risks a fire here for the first time. I wish he had more sense. There are more treasures here than I can carry.” She had prepared knapsacks for their journey, full of warm clothing and dry food. In the bottom of one, wrapped in a bundle of old manuscripts, reposed the jewel-encrusted skull of Angkhdt.

“It doesn’t matter. Let it burn.”

“Not to you. This was my home.” She stood looking for a moment over the rooftops towards the light in the bishop’s tower, and then she stooped over the knapsacks. “I have brought us fruit from my garden, and the first hibiscuses. We’re going a long way.”

Behind them, the cell door swung open, slowly, quietly. “Lord Chrism thinks I’m dead,” said the bishop.

“He has released the lock. Come with me.”

They passed through the doorway and up the stairs to the roof. At the second landing of the second stair, the way leveled out for fifty feet along a row of cells. The bishop paused. “These have been locked all winter,” she said. “It is time for them to open.” She moved down the line of heavy padlocks, and under her fingers the steel pulled away like taffy. The doors groaned open, and from a farther landing, they turned to watch the prisoners escape, dark spirits, some of them, half smoke and half shadow, smelling of gunpowder and sulphur. Some had hooves and curling horns, and dark heavy faces. They thundered up the stairs in clouds of roaring wind, crushing the travelers against the wall. Others seemed milder; they staggered from their cells out into the corridor, blinking feebly in the light, and their flesh was soft and pink, their faces blobby and unformed. Some were old, their withered arms covered in tattoos, and they carried quadrants, and astrolabes, and telescopes, and perfect spheres, and machines in perpetual motion, and precious equations on chalk slates. And some were beautiful, radiant, aureoles glowing around their heads. They smiled shyly at each other, unsure after so long. They made stylized gestures of recognition with hands that were mostly air, while their wings stirred up fragrances of musk and attar of lavender.