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she held Simon, bathed in fire.
    Jack screamed, leaped at her. With one hand she tried to push him away while the other held on to Simon. She was no match for him. He beat back her flailing hand and shook her away, then grabbed the baby from her. Clutching Simon against his chest he screamed, “You fucking lunatic!”
    He thought she might try to fight him, or maybe run. Instead, she just stared at him. “Jack, Jack,” she said, “I wasn’t hurting him.”
    “Not hurting him? You were holding him in a goddamn fire .”
    “Feel him. Feel his skin, his clothes. Is he even hot?”
    Jack started to shout again, but stopped. It was true, he realized. Simon slept peacefully against him, his beautiful soft skin pleasantly cool. Stubbornly he said, “You were trying to kill him. I got to him in time.”
    She shook her head. “I was trying to save him. But you’re right. You got to him in time, and now it’s too late.” She jumped up and ran from the room. Jack didn’t try to stop her.
    He heard her weeping as he went first to their bedroom and then the baby’s room to pack a suitcase, the whole time holding on tight to Simon, as if Rebecca might swoop in and snatch their baby the moment Jack set him down. But Rebecca never appeared, and when he’d taken what he thought were the essentials, he grabbed his keys and the suitcase with his free hand, then ran from the house.
    That was the last time Jack ever saw Rebecca alive.

Chapter Seven
MATYAS
    Matyas sat by the iron gates half the morning before the big doors swung open and four men stepped into the sun. They were young—younger than Matyas’ father, at least. They all wore striped robes over white pants and plain sandals. One of them carried a staff with a jewel on top, like the one the Master had at the Hungry Squirrel. This staff was fancier, carved into a spiral, the yellow stone on top as big as a fist.
    Matyas couldn’t hear what they were saying and didn’t much care. It angered him that they didn’t appear to notice him standing just a few feet away. “Please, sirs,” he said.
    They all turned toward him. The tallest, a man with a high forehead and sandy hair and thin lips, said, “Who are you?”
    “My name is Matyas. Sir.”
    “What do you want, Matyas-sir?”
    To knock you down and walk on you . He said, “I want to go to your school.”
    A couple of them laughed but the tallest one said, “Go inside our school? For what? Whatever you are selling we don’t need.”
    “I want to become a wizard.”
    The man’s mouth gaped, then he and his friends burst out laughing. One of the others said, “Go home, boy. We have enough wizards, I’mafraid.” Another said, “Did Johannan send you? Fat man with a skinny beard? Told you to come here and say that to us?” The tall one added, “We do not appreciate beggars making fun of us.”
    “I’m not making fun,” Matyas said.
    “Then leave.”
    “I want to learn how to fly.” They burst out laughing once again. Matyas wanted to tear off their elegant robes and knock them down in the dirt. Instead he called out, “Come around me! Right now.”
    Lights appeared in the air, a scattering of fireflies that hovered around Matyas then vanished within seconds. The man with the spiral staff first looked startled when the lights appeared, but then he rested his stick in the crook of his elbow and clapped his hands in a large sweeping gesture. “Bravo. A true display of power.” And then, “I have no idea who sent you with whatever glamour to summon a flicker of the Splendor, but I suggest you run back and tell him his joke was not very funny.”
    Matyas didn’t know what to do. Beg? See if he could get inside the gate and hide? Tell them about the Kallistocha, the prophecy that he would fly? They probably would just laugh again. He was pretty sure he could get at least one of the men on the ground and kick him senseless before the others figured out how to pull him off. But suppose they conjured up a