“You went to the Hereafter?” he said.

Shape shrugged. “Yeah,” he said.

“And? What was it like?”

“What do you mean, what was it like? Oh. You mean: is it heaven?”

He looked up at Ignacio, his beady eyes bright with contempt, even in the murk. “Is that what you think?”

“No,” Ignacio said defensively. “Not necessarily.”

“Angels guiding the souls of the dead to the immortal cities of light? The way the old preachers used to tell it?”

“I don’t believe in all that nonsense,” Ignacio said, concealing his true hopes on the matter, which had indeed been optimistic. He’d liked the idea that somewhere beyond the Sea of Izabella lay a world where a stitchling such as himself might be healed, his hurts melted away, his mismatchings erased. But much as he wanted to believe in what the preachers pronounced, he trusted Shape.

“So, this girl…”he went on, cracking the crab’s huge claws and trying to sound indifferent to the news he’d just heard.

“Candy Quackenbush?”

“That’s her name?”

“That’s her name.”

“She followed you here, and now you have to kill her?”

“I don’t know if he wants her killed.”

“But if he does?”

“Then I kill her.”

“How?”

“I don’t know yet, Ignacio. Why do you ask all these stupid questions?”

“Because one day I want to be doing what you’re doing.”

“If you think it’s some great honor, it’s not.”

“It’s better than digging up mummified bodies. You get to travel to the Hereafter.”

“It’s nothing special,” Shape said. “Now help me up.” He put out his arm so that Ignacio could haul him up onto his foot and stump.

“I’m getting old, Ignacio. Old and tired.”

“You need an assistant,” Ignacio said eagerly. “I could assist you. I could!”

Shape glanced at Ignacio, shaking his head. “I work alone,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because I only like the company of one person.”

“Who?”

“Me, you fool. Me!”

“Oh…”

Shape looked back to the boulders where Carrion was working. He had noticed something that Ignacio, in the midst of his envious chatter, had failed to catch.

“The birds,” he said.

The qwat birds, which had been silent in their crannies since Carrion’s arrival on the island, had risen into the air above the Rock without uttering a sound, and were now hovering in a vast black cloud, wingtip to wingtip, overhead.

“That’s something rare,” Ignacio said, the wreckage of his stitched and overstitched face registering something close to wonder.

He had no sooner set eyes on the flock than from the place among the boulders where Carrion was working there came a flicker of dark blue-purple light, followed by another, this time orange-red, followed by a third, the hue of bone. The colors rose into the air above the rocks, driving the cloud of qwats still higher, and there colors broke into fragments, darts and slivers of light interlacing, performing an elaborate dance.

At this moment, the creator appeared from between the rocks, his hands raised in front of him as though he were conducting a symphony. Perhaps, in a sense, he was. Certainly the colors seemed to be responding to the subtle gestures he was making. They were becoming steadily more solid as he knitted them together.

Then, very gently he brought them down out of the air. At his silent instruction they settled on the long flat boulder that was the highest point of Vesper’s Rock. There, finally, they began to cohere and form a recognizable shape.

“Is that what you’re going to fly on?” Ignacio said, his voice barely more than a whisper.

“Apparently.”

“Good luck,” he said.

A vast moth, its hairy abdomen twelve feet long, and four or five times thicker than Shape’s body, was now perched on the rock, its newly formed anatomy still shedding flecks of color.

Apart from its gargantuan size, it was close in appearance to a commonplace moth. It had long, feathery antennae and six long, fine legs.

But it wasn’t until Carrion ordered it to “Fly! Let me see you fly!” that its true eloquence was revealed.

When it rose up above the island and spread its wings, the markings on them seemed to resemble a vast, screaming face, unfolding against the sky then folding again, then again unfolding. It was as though heaven itself was giving vent to its anguish, as beat upon beat the great creature ascended.

“Shape!” Carrion yelled.

“Yes sir! I’m coming.”

Carrion was gesturing to the creature, summoning it back down onto the rock. Shape came to his side.

“Lord.”

“Prettier than a glyph, don’t you think?” Carrion said, as the moth settled on the long boulder.

“Yes, Lord.”

“Climb on its back and fetch me that girl,” the Lord of Midnight instructed.

“Does it know where to look?”

“It will take your direction. But I suggest you start at the Yebba Dim Day. And don’t try and get clever with it. It may not have much of a brain, but I can see what it sees, and I can feel what it feels. That’s why I’m sending you on this, and not a glyph. So if you try to trick me in any way—

“Trick you?” Shape protested. “Lord, why would I—”

“The girl is mine, Shape. Don’t think you can fly away with her. You understand me? You bring her right back to the Twelfth Tower.”

“I understand.”

“There’s something about her that makes me uneasy. I want to know why she was brought here—”

“I told you, Lord. It was an accident. I saw it all.”

“I don’t believe in accidents, Shape. Everything is working toward some greater plan.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Do I have a place in that plan?”

Carrion gave Shape a hollow stare.

“Yes, Shape. Unlikely as it seems, I suppose even you have a purpose. Now go. The longer you wait the more chance that she’s moved on.”

“I’ll find her for you,” Shape promised.

“And—”

“Yes. I know. I’ll bring her straight back here to Midnight. Straight back to you.”

Of one thing Candy was absolutely certain: there was no sight on earth to equal the view from the top of the colossal head of the Yebba Dim Day. Wherever she looked from that high, windswept platform, she saw wonders.

She had help, of course. Not only did she have Samuel Hastrim Klepp the Fifth by her side to point out things (and to occasionally catch hold of her arm when a particularly strong gust of wind threatened to carry her over the edge of The Great Head), he had also supplied two very accommodating squid, which clung to their heads, and then so positioned their boneless bodies that their eyes—which were immensely strong—could be used as telescopic lenses.

Klepp’s squid were his pets. One he had called Squbb and the other Squiller. At first Candy found it a little odd to be wearing a living creature, but she supposed it was like any animal that worked with a human companion: a horse, a dog, a trained rat. It was just one more reminder that she was not in Chickentown.

“If you want to get closer to something,” Klepp said to Candy, “just say ‘A little closer if you don’t mind, Squiller’. Or: ‘A little farther away if you don’t mind, Squiller’. It’s important you be precise and polite in the way you speak to them. They’re very particular about the little courtesies.”

Candy didn’t have any difficulty getting the trick of this, and after only a minute or two Squiller had made himself so much at home on her head that it was no more peculiar than wearing a hat that had been left in a box of fish for a few days.

Certainly Squiller appeared to be eager to give Candy the best possible view of the Abarat. Half the time, she didn’t even need to ask him to alter his focus. He seemed to know what she wanted instinctively; as though he was reading the brain waves coming off her skull. Candy didn’t entirely discount the possibility. She’d read back at home that squid showed extraordinary means of communicating with one another; how much more likely was it that the equivalent species here would be blessed with some miraculous power? The whole world was filled with magic. At least that was the impression Klepp gave her as he named the islands of the archipelago and spoke of the miracles they contained.