Mistletoe had seen birds like these once before, years ago, on a trip to the New Egyptian Market. They’d been clustering madly in an ornate, gold-flecked cage hung from the back of a cart that sold exotic pets, high-grade absynthium, and reformatted cell phones. Mistletoe and Dita had been walking forever, just looking, ignoring the urging of the peddlers and the insistent haggling of shoppers. Dita wore a long yellow scarf wrapped several times around her neck and shoulders, and Mistletoe held on to the low-hanging end of the thin fabric, rubbing it absently between her fingers as they strolled.

Anna, Dita said, pointing to the cage.

What are they?

Chmura Dité, my mother used to call them. Cloud Children. See how they make a little group? Only by flying together as one do they move forward.

Anna looked up at Dita, who was watching the short, round man in charge of the cart argue with an unsteady couple about the price of absynthium. Instinct told her to drop her end of the scarf as Dita slid behind the cage and positioned herself between the birds and the little red-faced man. Something flashed from Dita’s pocket, carving a blinding white arc through the air. She glanced back at Anna and gave a slight nod toward the other end of the market, then ducked into the crowd. But Anna stood, transfixed, as one side of the cage melted and pooled on the ground before hardening into a lumpy golden pretzel. The birds fluttered away through the hole, clustering and scattering above the crowd, fleeing, like Aunt Dita, toward the far end of the market. The little man squealed. Anna ran. When she finally snatched hold of the yellow scarf again, Dita turned to her, unsmiling.

Some things should never be for sale.

In the tunnel, Mistletoe wondered if these Chmura Dité were the offspring of that cluster Dita had freed or the creation of Magnus and Ivor. Either way, she thought, they’re headed out. What kind of bird wants to be trapped underground? She spun Nelson and followed the birds up a gradually ascending tunnel.

After a while, she noticed she was rubbing the warm metal handlebar between her thumb and forefinger as if it were Dita’s scarf. She blinked back tears. Support beams flew past like empty doorjambs. A thought, jumbled and dark, formed in the wake of the market memory: Aunt Dita knew what Magnus and Ivor knew, and she had kept it a secret for Mistletoe’s entire life. So did Jiri, which meant there was one perfect starting place for her investigation: Jiri’s junk shop, cluttered with relics of the past—and maybe some clues to her own.

Anyway, she would need better weapons.

When the Chmura Dité began to flap less erratically, their clusters slowed and joined into one dense cloud. Mistletoe sensed a new coolness in the air. On either side of her, the support beams were replaced by solid walls. The tunnel steepened. The Chmura Dité raced headlong toward two horizontal lights in the wall where the tunnel dead-ended. She slowed her approach and watched, puzzled, as the lights began to swallow them up. Not lights, she realized—exits. When the stragglers vanished, she crept forward to peer through the holes. There wasn’t much of a view: the tunnel emptied into the bottom of an airshaft. It was impossible to tell if she was in Little Saigon or some other neighborhood, but at least it was outside. And the slits themselves were certainly big enough for her to crawl through. Problem was, with Nelson she’d be cutting it close.