Page 21 of Mislaid in Parts Half-Known

“She put him in a cage, and I opened up a Door, and then he was gone away, poof, no more feathers, no more lies.”

“And once a Door is closed, it’s gone,” said Vineta, with a certain degree of cruel satisfaction. “Bye-bye, birdie. Aw, are you going to cry because you can’t force me out?”

“He was yourfriend!”

“He was my employee, and he was spying for the birds who think they own this place.” Vineta crossed her arms. “I know how much time I have. I know how many Doors I can—or can’t—open, and I know I’m not going to let myself be forced out of my home by some feathered scold or his shrill sycophant. You’ll never find him. And you’ll neverconvince Yulia that you know what she needs better than I do.”

Antsy whirled and stalked away, back into the shelves, leaving her friends behind her.

10 FRIENDS OF A FEATHER

“YOU ARE NOT Avery nice person,” said Cora, voice firm and angry, before she turned and hurried after Antsy. Christopher was only a step or so behind.

“Acage?” asked Emily, before she ran after the others.

Kade didn’t say anything, just looked at Vineta witheringly and followed the group.

Sumi, left alone with the old woman and the little girl, produced a piece of ribbon from inside her pocket and began winding it through her fingers, creating an intricate loop. Vineta sniffed.

“What? Aren’t you going to judge me too? Don’t you have some cutting comment to make you feel better about coming here, to my home, and judging me by your own standards?”

“Nope,” said Sumi.

“Then why are you still here?”

“Because I figure you were like Antsy once, and like Yulia here. You were a kid who fell through a door trying to get away from something that wanted to hurt her, and you thought you’d stumbled into paradise.” She kept twining and twisting the ribbon between her fingers, looping it joint by joint. “And somewhere along the way, you figured out paradise was pay-to-play, but you’d already paid so much that you couldn’t dream of stopping. There was nothing else for you. Nowhere to go, no one to turn to, no way out. Time to makethe best of a bad situation, since there’s no way of making anything else.”

Sumi looked at Vineta with cool, unnerving eyes.

“You’re not wrong,” said the woman. “But that doesn’t give you the right to—”

“People who’ve been hurt often think they have some sort of right to go around hurting other people,” said Sumi. “They think trauma’s a toy to keep handing down forever. But the fact that someone hurt you and tied you up in knots doesn’t give you the right to do it to anybody else. I’m a formerly dead girl made of gingerbread and hope, and even I can see that.” She tugged one end of the looped and knotted ribbon, and it came free of her fingers, untangled, untied. She stepped over and offered it to Yulia, eyes still on Vineta.

“I hope you can figure that out one of these days,” she said. “Or no one’s going to remember you kindly, or care when you’re gone, not really.”

Yulia reached out and tugged the ribbon from Sumi’s hand, looking bewildered.

Sumi flashed her a quick, tight smile. Then she turned and skipped after the others, pigtails bouncing in time with the rest of her.

Vineta scowled and snatched the ribbon out of Yulia’s hand. “They won’t be back,” she said, with calm certainty. “Spoiled children have to learn they can’t have everything they want. You understand that, don’t you, Yulia?”

Yulia nodded, making no attempt to hide her confusion. Vineta sighed.

“Let’s go pick another door,” she said. “It’s time to figure out what we’re doing for lunch.”

Among the shelves, Antsy and her friends moved deeper into the store, Antsy stomping, the others just trying to keepup. Kade kept glancing back, until he saw the top of Sumi’s head appear briefly over a short shelf and relaxed. When she caught up with the rest of them, he reached over and swatted her companionably on the shoulder.

“Stop letting yourself get left behind,” he said. “You’re bad for my nerves.”

“Stop leaving me behind,” she said, tone prim. “I’m great for my own amusement.”

“Maybe don’t squabble right now?” asked Christopher. “Antsy’s worried about her friend.”

“Isthe bird her friend, though?” asked Sumi. “Only because it sounds like he’s one of the people she’s mad at.”

“You can be mad at your friends,” said Cora. “I’ve been mad at most of my friends at one point or another. I was mad at Nadya, when she left me behind in the hopes of getting back to Belyyreka. I knew it was the right thing to do, because we’d never have gotten Sumi back if she hadn’t gone, but I was furious with her.”

“Nadya—that was the little Russian girl with an arm made of water that no one could see, right?” asked Sumi.

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