It's not a real name," she says. "Not one that he's carried with him always. It's one he wears like his hat. So he can take it off if he wants.

It is a matter of perspective, the difference between opponent and partner," Tsukiko says. "You step to the side and the same person can be either or both or something else entirely. It is difficult to know which face is true.

I wished for her,” he says.

Only the ship is made of books, its sails thousands of overlapping pages, and the sea it floats upon is dark black ink.

Taking his time, as though he has all of it in the world, in the universe, from the days when tales meant more than they do now, but perhaps less than they will someday, he draws a breath that releases the tangled knot of words in his heart, and they fall from his lips effortlessly. "The circus arrives without warning.

All empires fall eventually. It is the way of things.

...He is sure that the Bailey he is now is closer to the Bailey he is supposed to be than the Bailey he had been before