Sorrel Chases the Fifth Star — Wind snapped the awnings of the aerial bazaar, and Sorrel ran laughing between lantern carts with a brass thimble tight in her palm. Read the full story →
Wind snapped the awnings of the aerial bazaar, and Sorrel ran laughing between lantern carts with a brass thimble tight in her palm. It looked like sewing-room clutter, dented and dull, but it had belonged to the first hatmaker who ever stitched a brim wide enough to catch moonlight. Each time Sorrel tapped it, the thimble rang a bright tin note, and another star charm on her hat swung toward a different stall, pointing her past cinnamon smoke, silver thread, and jars of bottled comet fizz.
The market rose higher, faster, circling the weather vane towers, until Sorrel’s hat began to answer. Its embroidered vines seemed to lean into the rush; its crescents chimed against the dangling stars; its great flower at the front warmed like a small sun. Then the thimble tipped open in her hand—not empty, but full of night, a perfect little sky turning inside the brass. The stars had not been guiding Sorrel through the bazaar at all. They were mapping the bazaar’s flight across her hat, and she sped on beneath them, curious as wind, with the brass thimble tight in her palm.
