Liesl & Po by Lauren Oliver Read Free Book Online Page A

magic in the world. Instead you deliver me this—this—this—” She held up the wooden jewelry box and whipped open its lid. A little bit of gray ash floated off in the wind. “This dirt . This worthlessness .” She snapped the lid closed again, so close to the alchemist’s nose that he flinched.
    “Until you find me my magic,” she said, leaning closer to the alchemist, “you will not be leaving my sight. Not for one second. And if I find out that this is all part of some big plan—if I find out that there is no magic . . .” She laughed humorlessly, her eyes glittering. “Then there is certainly no magic strong enough to help you. Do we understand each other?”
    “There is magic,” the alchemist squeaked. “I swear. The greatest I have yet produced.”
    “Good.” The Lady Premiere pulled away. “Then we go to find it.”
    “But what about the boy?” the alchemist said. “Do we just let him go?”
    The Lady Premiere had already turned and started for the street again, her long fur coat swirling around her ankles. “Do not trouble yourself about the boy,” she said. “I have spies and guards and friends all over this city. He will be found. And when he is found, he will be . . . handled.”
    The way she said the word made the hair on the back of Mo’s neck stand up, as though he had been tickled there by a dozen insect legs.
    “Now come!” the Lady Premiere commanded, without looking back, and the alchemist scurried after her. Mo could hear their footsteps long after they vanished into the fog and he had closed the gates behind them, breathing a sigh of relief.
    “All clear,” he whispered, stepping back into the stone hut and ducking down to peer under his desk. But the little dark space was just that—dark, and totally empty. Mo straightened up, scratching his head again.
    “Where on earth . . . ?” he started to say, out loud, before noticing that the cat door was rocking slightly on its hinges with a tap-tap-tap -ing sound.
    Mo got down clumsily on his hands and knees, lifted open the cat door, and squinted out.
    He looked just in time to see the boy with no hat round the corner at the end of the alley, and then disappear from view.

Chapter Seven

    IT WAS WITH A SENSE OF RELIEF THAT PO SLIPPED back into the Other Side after its conversation with Liesl. Bundle seemed relieved too: The ghostly animal skipped happily in front of Po, flickering in and out of other objects they encountered, exploring, turning flips in the air, expanding suddenly into a shapeless black cloud and then re-forming itself, trying to make Po laugh.
    But Po was still thinking about Liesl. The ghost had not meant to lie to her, but the lie had come, and with it, the stirrings of feelings and attachments long forgotten. Even after Po was back on the Other Side, feeling the dark pulse of the endless starry night all around it, slipping away on the gentle sighings of the wind and floating between black valleys and cold dark stars, the ghost could not shake the memory of Liesl’s face, or the way she had trembled ever so slightly when she said, Tell him I miss him , or the look she had given Po after it had lied to her: a naked, happy look, like the face of the dew-coated moonflower that grew in abundance on the Other Side, white and crescent-shaped. Something about the girl moved something in Po, twisted the airy tendrils of its being in a way that had long become unfamiliar.
    We mustn’t go back to the Living Side anymore, Bundle , Po thought to Bundle, and felt Bundle’s animal mind think back a simple agreement. Bundle agreed with everything Po thought. It was a very loyal pet.
    It’s just not right , Po said. It’s not natural. We are dead, after all. We don’t belong there.
    Mwark , came the noise from Bundle’s mind, which Po knew meant, Okay , yes, you’re right.
    And the live girl will be fine , Po thought. She was fine without us before; and she will be fine now.
    Mwark. Whatever you say; of