Summer in Orcus

by T. Kingfisher

“You’re dangerously ignorant, girl,” she said. “It is not your fault at the moment, though if you grow much older, it will be.”

Summer’s mother believed that books were safe things that kept you inside, which only shows how little she knew about it, because books are one of the least safe things in the world.)

“There’s a beach at Nag-of-Head that has slips of paper instead of sand, with a prophecy written on each one,” said Bearskin, “and the tide brings new ones in each day.”

My kind of desert

Not my kind of desert

lintel

It would no more have occurred to Summer to hit someone than to turn cartwheels off the edge of a cliff.

gut-foundered.”

dibs not in tune,

cuts up my peace

That’s pretty small for a wolf

For one horrible moment, Summer felt as if she had gone down to the secret chamber of her heart and found her mother writing on its walls.

“You’re a were-wolf, aren’t you?” said Summer. “No,” said the wolf. “I am a wolf and was born a wolf and will be a wolf until I die. I am a were-house.” “A warehouse?” The wolf sighed. “No. A were-house. I am a wolf by day, and by night I turn into a rather pleasant cottage with white curtains.”

promise by tooth and marrow and bone. Show mercy to me and I will show it to you in return. There’s too little courage in the world to go eating it up.”

“Is Glorious—um—a usual sort of name for wolves?” asked Summer timidly. “Yes,” said the wolf. “My sister is Strong and my brother is Splendid. We call ourselves what we are, or wish to be, or could be again.”

“There is no running on torn paws,

A slow rabbit is a dead rabbit, Summer-cub.”

“Oh, well, albatrosses.” Reginald flipped his wing. “Prophets and poets, the lot of them. Not bad-hearted, but you ask one the time of day and he tells you time is an illusion, and how is that getting anything done?”

“You’re human,” said Glorious. “Humans hoard up their fears as if the world might run out.”

but I happened on this chit of a human dragging a destiny along behind her,

“Saving a single wondrous thing is better than saving the world. For one thing, it’s more achievable. The world is never content to stay saved.”

“Magic is like rain,” said Glorious. “Dragons are like mountains. Or wolves. Magic may happen to a dragon, but mountains are not made of rain.”

provender.

There were hundreds of books, probably thousands. At least as many as there were in the school library. They smelled like leather and expensive words.

She sat in a chair made of bones, and she smelled like the wasting death of dreams.”

scapegrace

“You hate to think of evil being sensible,” she admitted,

Typo!

“Since the very beginning,” said Ounk. “When the moon-fox killed the first earth and our ancestors were hatched to guard the second one.”

“Let them look,” said Glorious. “My hide is not so raw that another’s eyes can scar it.”

Someone large sent you, didn’t they? Not just the hoopoe lord. Someone with destiny held in their teeth.”

am very small, but the Pipes are very large. Something would come from them, if only to stand witness as they died.”

then a light flared up, and Summer saw what it looked like when a wondrous thing began to die.

Cactus rot from the inside, like people…”

Huge irrevocable things should not be allowed to happen so fast!

mythology is a truth that isn’t true,

“He wants the world to burn and I want to dance on the ashes, so he thinks that we are alike.

“But he’s old, really old,” Summer said. “Like he should have died a long time ago, but for some reason he hasn’t.” “There’s magic for that,” said Reginald. “Not good magic, mind you.” “You can’t make more life,” said Ankh. “Only take it from others,” said Ounk. “Or so I’ve heard.” “And I.”

Lying in bed that night, Summer put her face in the pillow and cried for the horror that was over and the fact that she was safe again, but also for the antelope woman and chances lost, a chance that might have been different, or better, or wonderful.

“Pretty things are usually poisonous,” said the weasel. “It’s why they can afford to be pretty.”

“You don’t have a voice, you’ll find yourself written out of life quick enough!

Together, their numbers less, they stumbled away from the site of the battle.

The writing on the chamber under her heart said, I knew it would come to this.

“Go well, Summer-cub,” he said. “And if we do not meet again in this life, let us meet in another with no regrets.”

It would take a hero to slay one. I would not wish that on you, the Forester had said, and Summer understood why at last. How monstrous a thing it must be, to be that hero. Like being the wasp that stung the Frog Tree to death. To be so small and to singlehandedly unmake a great and wondrous thing.

She had learned, many years ago, that all you really needed was to sound comforting, when the other person wanted so very much to be comforted.

have done the best I can. I fixed it for now. I can’t fix it forever. That’s someone else’s job, maybe. Don’t worry about things you cannot fix.

“So apparently you are my doom after all. I should probably have killed you when I had the chance, but one hates to do anything irrevocable without considering the options.”

“They will come for anyone—rich or poor, small or great. They do not require payment. It is the bargain. But we can give more, so we will.”

Baba Yaga sees all the way through time and chews off the bits she doesn’t like.”