Your breath is sulfurous with notes of bison and cranberry bog. I drink the water warmed by your flames, breathe the pale insect ghosts that fly up from the forests you set aglow, gather the gold that oozes from your scales and spread it on my cavern walls. I can’t help loving you, Solwenhoom. I want to tell you about my troubled love, and at last I’ve found a way to sing.

I made a portal out of quarter-sawn cherrywood, the surface rippling gold across the fine lines of the grain. As I planed the wood, bursts of magic tingled in my fingers, and as I glued the boards together, a sunlit pool flashed in my mind. I couldn’t wait to show Alviva.

I slept with a toad strapped to my nose. It scrabbled at my face all night, three claws on each foot, but I’d do anything to win. On the morning of the Turpitude Pageant, I had a wart on the end of my nose and lesions on my jowls.

A claw chisel grated close, then a small flat chisel removed striations. He tipped me on my back and freed my eyes. In a single moment, I saw the blue sky and the sculptor. He was a huge man, with tight-curled hair and massive chest and arms, and I loved him.

Torrent works in Double Bladed Axe, the adventure shop of the Labyrinth Market. He dresses like all the hired heroes, billowy white sleeves, tight leather tunic, leggings cut on the bias to show off muscles. Everyone can see he's a hero, everyone but his daughter.

I slept with a toad strapped to my nose. It scrabbled at my face all night, three claws on each foot, but I’d do anything to win. On the morning of the Turpitude Pageant, I had a wart on the end of my nose and lesions on my jowls.

If Crispin wanted to buy a labyrinth (and he didn’t), Flat Rainbows was the shop he’d choose. Rainbows should be flat, easy to measure with calipers, each straight strand the same length as all the others. It would be a pleasure to assess the taxes here. He expected a polished floor, a goateed shopkeeper, well-maintained labyrinths.

I skimmed my bow across the highest fiddle string and a layer of red-gold mist drifted over the boudoir window. Elfrida slept on.

I tried to wash the bull’s blood off the Pillar of Vengeance. This was sacrilege, but Zeus doesn’t bother with a woman past her prime.

The shadows in the snow turned gray, and the light faded. “We should head back,” said Bryn. “It’s getting dark.”

The second steward climbed a white ladder and blew powder from his palm onto the clock. He was a monochrome person in a lavender livery and a frothy wig. I knew only that he suffered from bunions.

Antibiotic ointment glistens on his bald head, but the gash won’t heal. “Mary? Did you feed the chickens?”

“I’m not Mary.”

“No gargoyles,” said the opera conductor. “We take singers, strings, brass. No granite. Join a rock band.”

I pulled the corners of my mouth to my ears and stuck out my tongue. Well, admittedly I’m carved that way.