It occurred to me that the bird wanted me as much as I wanted it. That it knew I was coming, that it was watching, tiny, its crested head cocked, its tail plumes of pink and green and scarlet. In my mind I could see its short, inky beak. Its tiny emerald eyes. It sang to me.

I was confused, because I had never seen an Elysium bird up close. How could I imagine it in such great detail?

It didn’t feel like my imagination.

It felt like memory.

I didn’t want to glance up. But the song calmed my shaking body. It floated the hair out of my eyes and ran a finger up my neck, under my jaw, tilting my head up.

The bird circled over my head, red wings wide and crenellated. A feather fell. It pivoted in the air until its shaft stuck into a joining where the horizontal length of the gutter met the roof’s edge.

Then the bird disappeared out of my line of sight, over the roof.

8

SOMETHING SEIZED MY FOOT. I jolted, and I would have come off the pipe entirely if not for my grip on the gutter’s frets.

“Out of my way.”

I glanced down. My heart got stuck in my throat. A militiaman was just below me, hand wrapped around my ankle. He shook my leg. “Please,” I said. “Stop! I’ll fall.”

“The bird is flying away!” His face shone with sweat. “Get off, damn the gods!” He yanked at me. I slid, my hands coming off the fret.

My fingers snagged the indi flower vine wrapped around the gutter. It held my weight.

“You are blocking my way,” he said, and when I glanced down into his face it was filled with grim determination and need. He would kill me, I realized.

Hands twisted in the indi vine, I begged, “Let me go.”

He didn’t release my ankle. “The bird is mine.”

His final word echoed among the buildings, but in an otherworldly voice, higher than his own. It was the bird. Mine, it sang.

The roots of the indi vine gave a little, some of them tearing free of the wall, popping out of crevices. The gutter creaked.

Mine, the bird sang again, and it seemed to be singing to me.

I kicked the man’s face.

He cried out. I felt him fall from me. The pipe, still in his grip, came off the wall.

I clung to the vine, which spun like rope from one anchored point. I heard the loud clank of the pipe and the thump of his body on the pavement.

He lay twisted below, legs splayed. I gripped the vine. Blood pooled beneath him. A veil of fear prickled over me.

The noise must have been heard. Other militiamen would come.

The alleyway rang with shocked silence. Then, in the distance, I heard cries.

Forget the bird, I told myself.

I had to hide.

9