Free The Passage to Mythrin 2-Book Bundle by Patricia Bow

we can use.”
    â€œYou can’t! That stuff is for Boomer Heaven!”
    â€œSimon, it’ll be okay. Go and ask Grandmother if we can dress up, just for tonight. Say we’ll be really careful.”
    â€œRight,” he said. “Careful.” He felt he was the only person around here who knew the meaning of the word. As he thumped down the stairs behind them, he realized: they knew Mara’s name now, but that was all they knew. Nothing about where she came from or what she was up to. Once again, she’d avoided giving a straight answer.
    He didn’t trust her an inch.

C HAPTER E LEVEN
N IGHT OF M AGIC
    They’d been out on the street about an hour before Amelia realized someone was following them.
    She might have noticed earlier, only there was so much to see and do. Dunstone’s Night of Magic had turned out to be more fun than she’d expected. After the sun went down, the three closed-off blocks of King Street filled up with what looked like the town’s entire population.
    A band played on a stage in front of the town hall steps. Lights strung in the bare trees and between the buildings roofed the street with a golden haze. There were booths selling fries and hot dogs and apple fritters. And everywhere you looked there were buskers — a woman who played a violin, a man who juggled knives and flaming torches, three clowns who joined up to make a giant wheel and rolled around the pavement.
    Mara stared wide-eyed. “I really wonder about where she comes from,” Simon said in Amelia’s ear. She wondered too. Everything seemed new to Mara. It wasn’t just like she’d never seen clowns before, or people chipping blocks of ice into the shapes of mermaids and horses and the CN Tower, or an illusionist pulling a rabbit out of a hat. It was like she’d never even heard of clowns or ice or people who did magic tricks — never knew there were such things. She was surprised when the magician didn’t eat the rabbit.
    She’d get upset at the strangest things. When the juggler started to blow plumes of fire from his mouth, Mara growled in her throat and began stalking through the crowd towards him. Amelia caught up with her and held her arm while Simon explained that the man wasn’t really breathing fire — it was just a gas that he set alight, and he’d smeared his face and mouth with some gunk to keep from being burned.
    â€œSo it is not real.” Mara’s arm relaxed.
    â€œThat’s right. It’s pretend.”
    Mara attracted a lot of attention herself. Wherever you looked, somebody was staring or pointing. It wasn’t that her outfit was so astonishing. There were plenty of goofy costumes, and a few clever ones, and lots of masks, including the usual vampires and ghouls and politicians.
    One mask was actually scary, Amelia thought, though she couldn’t figure out what it was supposed tobe. The face was sickly white, almost silver, and the area around the eyeholes deeply shadowed. Eyes glittered in the shadows. The second time she glimpsed it, the person slipped away before she could point it out to Mara and Simon.
    Mara was magnificent. She wore a long, sequin-covered coat that looked like a lizard’s skin, if that lizard happened to be bright red. Her hair streamed from under a scarf of gauzy gold wrapped around her head like a crown. Over her shoulders hung a silk shawl, all flame-like patterns of scarlet and orange and crimson, that spread like wings when she raised her arms. She looked as if she might take flight any moment — and burst into fire in mid-air.
    They found Ike Vogelsang snapping pictures of a small kid having her face painted. Simon tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned around. His mouth dropped open.
    â€œWow! Who’s that?”
    â€œUm ... Mara. Friend of Ammy’s.”
    â€œReally? Hi! What’s the costume?”
    â€œAmelia says I am firebird.”
    â€œNo