Feed me the ghosts, he said, as if he thought I hadn’t understood him the first time. “No,” I told him. “They don’t belong to me.” As if to disagree, the ghost who clung to my side put her face against my shoulder and wept silently. Her tears ran down my shoulder. Feed them to me. I will clean this place of the vermin who prey upon my people. If you tell them, the ghosts, to let me eat them, they will give themselves to me. He paused. I cannot get them to do that, though I have tried since you and I met, and I conceived of this possibility.
