Jacks and Queens at the Green Mill Read Free

set. Zephyr heard the trumpeter mute his horn, and it all flowed out into the alley, a music made of the unexpected. A loose-limbered sound, one that made a philosophy of choices, highlighting the fact of them by pretending they didn’t exist, by tripping lightly from one rhythm to the next, from key to key, as if nothing was certain, improvisation was everything, and practice was for fools.
    Zephyr knew better. She knew that the musicians practiced for their master. But this was their art: to make their work seem like a game.
    A game in which everything could change.
    Zephyr looked at her hand, reaching for the gun.
    She didn’t want her hand anymore.
    She didn’t want her arm. Or her chopped hair. She didn’t want her eyes and the way they widened to see fresh fear on Joe’s face as he unslung the gun. The stories his grandfather had told him must have been accurate indeed.
    Zephyr watched the gun swing on its strap as if to the music. If left in Joe’s hands, this weapon could kill humans, who knew how many.
    Zephyr told herself that this was why she said what she did.
    â€œKeep it,” she told Joe.
    Then she did what she was good at. She vanished.

    Copyright (C) 2012 by Marie Rutkoski
    Art copyright (C) 2012 by Victo Ngai