Afterwards
Nell’s twenty-third birthday had been memorable because of the fire and Baletongue. Whenever she thought back to that day, she remembered her impatience to meet her Faerie godmother, her impatience to find Sophia. She remembered rooftops on fire, a sky dark with smoke, flames cascading from windows. She remembered being terrified that Mordecai might die—and she remembered dying herself for a few moments.
Her twenty-fourth birthday bore no resemblance to her twenty-third. There was no burning city, no streets choked with frantic people, no urgency, no fear.
In the morning, she went riding with Mordecai, coming home via Great Wynthrop, as they invariably did. The house was alive, as it hadn’t been a year ago, the main building full of purpose and energy and children’s voices. T
