Free Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor Page A

away from us. As it should, as it must. But I am glad that day is not today.”
    Karou stood staring at him. “Seriously? I blow off one errand and you think that’s it, I’m gone forever? Jesus. What do you think of me, that you think I’d just vanish like that?”
    “Letting you go, Karou, will be like opening the window for a butterfly. One does not hope for the butterfly’s return.”
    “I’m not a freaking butterfly.”
    “No. You’re human. Your place is in the human world. Your childhood is nearly over—”
    “So… what? You don’t need me anymore?”
    “On the contrary. I need you now more than ever. As I said, I’m glad that today is not the day you leave us.”
    This was all news to Karou, that there would come a day when she would leave her chimaera family, that she even possessed the freedom to do so if she wished. She didn’t wish. Well, maybe she wished not to go on some of the creepier errands, but that didn’t mean she was a butterfly fluttering against glass, trying to get out and away. She didn’t even know what to say.
    Brimstone pushed a wallet across the desk to her.
    The errand. She’d almost forgotten why she was here. Angry, she grabbed the wallet and flipped it open. Dirhams. Morocco, then. Her brow furrowed. “Izîl?” she asked, and Brimstone nodded.
    “But it’s not time.” Karou had a standing appointment with a graverobber in Marrakesh the last Sunday of every month, and this was Friday, and a week early.
    “It is time,” said Brimstone. He gestured to a tall apothecary jar on the shelf behind him. Karou knew it well; usually it was full of human teeth. Now it stood nearly empty.
    “Oh.” Her gaze roved along the shelf, and she saw, to her surprise, that many of the jars were likewise dwindling. She couldn’t remember a time when the tooth supply had been so low. “Wow. You’re really burning through teeth. Something going on?”
    It was an inane question. As if she could understand what it meant that he was using more teeth, when she didn’t know what they were for to begin with.
    “See what Izîl has,” Brimstone said. “I’d rather not send you anywhere else for human teeth, if it can be helped.”
    “Yeah, me, too.” Karou ran her fingers lightly over the bullet scars on her belly, remembering St. Petersburg, the errand gone horribly wrong. Human teeth, despite being in such abundant supply in the world, could be… interesting… to procure.
    She would never forget the sight of those girls, still alive in the cargo hold, mouths bloody, other fates awaiting them next.
    They may have gotten away. When Karou thought of them now, she always added a made-up ending, the way Issa had taught her to do with nightmares so she could fall back to sleep. She could only bear the memory if she believed she’d given those girls time to escape their traffickers, and maybe she even had. She’d tried.
    How strange it had been, being shot. How unalarmed she’d found herself, how quick to unsheathe her hidden knife and use it.
    And use it. And use it.
    She had trained in fighting for years, but she had never before had to defend her life. In the flash of a moment, she had discovered that she knew just what to do.
    “Try the Jemaa el-Fna,” Brimstone said. “Kishmish spotted Izîl there, but that was hours ago, when I first summoned you. If you’re lucky, he might still be there.” And with that, he bent back over his tray of monkey teeth, and Karou was apparently dismissed. Now there was the old Brimstone, and she was glad. This new creature who said “please” and talked about her like she was a butterfly—he was unsettling.
    “I’ll find him,” Karou said. “And I’ll be back soon, with my pockets full of human teeth. Ha. I bet that sentence hasn’t been said anywhere else in the world today.”
    The Wishmonger didn’t respond, and Karou hesitated in the vestibule. “Brimstone,” she said, looking back, “I want you to know I would never just… leave