Book of Iron (10 page)

“Just a clockwork nightingale now and again.”

Salamander held her hand out tentatively. The serpent scraped a tonguetip across it, hesitated, then slithered toward her as if its mind had been abruptly made up. As it climbed Salamander’s arm to drape around her neck, she said, “It’s so heavy!”

“It’s stone and metal,” Bijou said. “As heavy as the living snake. And a bit cleverer, perhaps. What will you name it?”

“I need to think about it,” Salamander said. “It doesn’t seem like a decision to be made lightly. Bijou—”

“Ask,” Bijou said. “I’m not good at answering, but for you I will try.”

“Why?”

That was an easy one. What she wanted to say stuck in her throat, though, as if it were some huge admission of vulnerability. The vulnerability that Bijou had never allowed herself—not since she left her childhood behind.

She swallowed. “You are never alone,” Bijou said finally, hoping Salamander would understand.

Maybe she did. Because she just stared for a moment, and then she reached out with the hand not burdened by artifice, and squeezed Bijou’s fingers lightly once.