Candle made a soft sound in her throat, a kind of purr. A demur? Sister Cook wasn’t sure. She knew Candle to be capable of following instructions, so whatever the girl’s limitations were, they didn’t include deafness or lack of language understanding. She just didn’t speak up; with her it was mostly glottal molasses.

Sister Cook wrinkled her nose, as if considering the merits of a joint selected for the holiday roast. A gauze sheet, nearly transparent, casting lavender shadows on the lad’s near naked form. The coverlet was woven tightly, affording warmth, and was light enough to be whisked away when medical attention was required. As the evening came in, the blood blisters under the skin on this face looked like medallions of honor—or maybe the sites of subcutaneous leech colonies.

“I came to make sure you were all right,” said Sister Cook at last, having taken her fill.

She turned back to Candle. “Here. We all must do our part.” She pulled from her apron pocket a long red frond, fringed with airy, asparagus-fern stamens. Candle started, and the sound in her throat was clearly revulsion.

“Not to worry, it was a willing sacrifice,” said Sister Cook. “I was alone in the yard mincing the cord onions when that Red Pfenix appeared again. He was distraught. He’d been attacked and wounded by something; he was bleeding from the throat and couldn’t speak.”

Candle shrugged and hit her chest with her hand, turning it outward.

“Sister Doctor and Sister Apothecaire hate to administer to Animals, you know that,” said Sister Cook. “But it doesn’t matter. They couldn’t even if directed to. The Superior Maunt sent them away after lunch. Off on some investigative mission about those Emerald City novices who had their faces scraped. So what was I to do?” Candle reached out and touched the Pfenix feather.

Sister Cook said, “Nearly shorn of life, he came back here. He pulled out his axial feather himself and walked up to me with it in his beak. Swans sing when they die; Pfenix do, too, but he couldn’t. So you make music for him, please. Out of respect; we’re having Pfenix breast tonight.”

Sister Cook shoved both her hands in her apron pockets. “Pfenix breast, though I’ve diced them small and disguised them as chicken fingerlings so our dear old Mother Rush-to-Judgment doesn’t have a conniption stroke. Don’t forget to come down when you hear the dinner bell; we don’t get Pfenix around here very often, Animal or otherwise.” She lingered a moment longer and watched Candle hold the red feather. It was almost two feet long and still retained some of its vital elasticity. “Well?” said Sister Cook. “I can’t stand here forever. Play a dirge for the Pfenix, who never made it to his Convention or his class reunion or wherever he was going. He was interested in your playing, I saw.

Honor him by accepting his gift.”

Candle tried to remember what she had seen of the domingon when it was played by its maker. She had swooned, for music or love or both, and in her exhilaration, maybe she’d overlooked an aspect of the instrument’s construction. Maybe it had had a pfenix feather, and the master had removed it—pfenix feathers weren’t easy to come by. And a Pfenix feather, freely given besides! What she might learn to play now.