"Well, it's brown, I think," she said, squinting. The radiance from the nodding flower in the ceiling was fainter than gaslight. "Just rip it off and pile it here."

The surging vitality of More Very Bush cost Renie and her small companion something like an hour as they struggled to locate enough dead leaves to make a knee-high pile, and even so most of what they found were still more green than brown. Ricardo Klement looked over from time to time, incurious as a bundle of laundry. He did not offer to help.

"If this works," Renie pointed out with some resentment, "you're not going to be able to just sit there—not unless you want to be roasted like a potato."

Klement was looking away again. The Blue Baby turned its blind face toward her for a moment, as though trying to make up for the disinterest of its caretaker.

"Give me that big leaf," she told the Stone Girl. "It's okay that it's green—yes, that one. Actually, give me two. I'll build the fire on one, then use the other as a fan." Renie squatted in front of the pile of torn and crumpled leaves. "Now wish me luck."

"Luck," said the Stone Girl seriously.

Renie ignited the lighter and held it against the driest leaf she could find. She was relieved to see the edge of the leaf blacken, then a little smoke curl up. She cupped it with her hand to keep the breeze from the window away until a small flame was actively burning, then she began taking other dry pieces off the pile and pushing them against the tiny fire. After a while she realized that she was getting uncomfortably hot. The original leaf on which she'd built the blaze, a vast ivylike pad almost as large and tough-skinned as an elephant's ear, was beginning to curl and blacken.

"In just a few minutes we're going to have to make a run to the next bridge," she told the Stone Girl.

"The Ticks will get us!"

"Not if this confuses them enough—we should at least get a good head start. But we'll have to run straight for the bridge. You said it wasn't too far."

"We can't go over that bridge."

"What? What are you talking about? I already asked you and you said it would work—that we could cross the river!" The fire, although still somewhat contained, was beginning to lick upward toward the low ceiling. The hanging, orchidlike light was beginning to brown and curl a bit at the edges. "I don't even know if we can put this out now. What do you mean we can't go over that bridge?"

"It goes to Jinnear Bad House."

"I don't care. I'm sure it's dreadful, but if we stay here, eventually those things are going to catch us and kill us."

"I don't want to go to the Bad House."

"No arguing. I can't leave you behind." She rose and found the long fibrous stalk she had put aside. "Now move over beside the window where we came in." Renie turned to Klement. "You too. It's time to get out of here."

Klement looked at her for a long moment, then stood up. Renie returned her attention to the fire. With the stalk, she shoved the blackening leaf against the tower wall opposite the window. Bits of flaming vegetation fell off along the way and died where they landed, insufficient to ignite the dark, moist greenery, but the leaves along the wall began to blacken and shrivel.

"We've got only a few minutes before it's too hot to stay in here," Renie said as she turned, then stopped, staring in amazement. Only the Stone Girl remained in the small green belfry. "Where's Klement?"

"He went down there." She pointed down the opening to the lower level.

"Christ. Christ! He'll get eaten by those things!" Renie took a step toward the bramble-stairs, but a burning leaf fluttered free from the wall and stuck smoldering against her blanket. It took her several seconds to put it out. The wall was beginning to burn in earnest, the heat such that even the living plants were being consumed as though they were straw. Renie hesitated. The Stone Girl was looking at her, eyes huge with fear. Who was Klement after all but a murderer, a monster? Maybe this new version had seemed more acceptable, but did she have the right to risk the child's life in order to save him from his own damaged folly?

A line of flame crackled across the floor, making the decision moot. "Out onto the vines," she told the Stone Girl. "Now."

Renie hoisted herself through the window. When she had found something like stable footing in the tangle of greenery on the wall, she helped the little girl out and onto her shoulders. "I have to climb down a little way," she told the child. "Hold on tight."

By the time Renie had lowered her head beneath the line of the windowsill, the room behind her was burning brightly; flames crackled in the ceiling and the blaze had already eaten several holes in the wall. When Renie felt the first vine beneath her feet, she probed until she found another one of the springy cables a little lower down so she could use the first as a handhold. When her feet were firmly situated she lowered the Stone Girl down beside her, both of them swaying above the darkness and the swarming Ticks.

"In a minute the whole tower will be burning," Renie whispered, "so we'd better get going. If we're lucky, the whole flaming mess will come down on top of the those things and confuse them—kill a few, too, if we're really lucky!"

They were inching along some twenty meters out from the tower, the top of the structure burning like a torch now and spitting great sparking fragments onto the breeze, when the Stone Girl yanked at Renie's blanket. "What's . . . what's going to happen when it falls down?" she asked.

"Ssshhh." Renie tried to steady the alarming sway the girl's tugging had begun. The whole center of the vegetal town was lit with wavering red light, including them, and despite the distraction of the fire, she feared they might be noticed any second. "I told you! It's going to fall down in a big burning, smoking mess, and it's going to distract those monsters and we're going to get away."

"But won't the vines fall down, too?"

Renie paused, still swaying from side to side. "Oh, shit."'

"You said a bad word!"

"I'm going to say more, I'm afraid. Oh, damn me, how stupid can I be?" She began sliding along the vine with increased speed. They had only been spared so far, she realized, because the fire was burning upward much faster than it was burning downward, toward the spot where the vines were rooted into the tower.

She looked at the ground between her feet, wondering where they would fall when the vines gave way, and wished she hadn't. More of the white shapes were beneath them, weaving back and forth atop the brambles like dolphins sporting in the wake of a ship.

"Just hurry," she hissed at the Stone Girl. "If it gets too hard, let me carry you."

Now it was a race against the fire she had set, and Renie wished she had spent more time scouting the vines before committing to this particular pair. They stayed a reasonable distance apart, but not always one above the other: by the time they had slid their feet another dozen meters along one vine, the one they were using as a handrail had sagged down until it was scarcely higher than the first. Renie had to let the Stone Girl climb onto her back again, since she was leaning out almost horizontally and the girl could no longer brace herself against Renie's leg when the distances between the vines became too great.

Something pinged and snapped on the tower end and the lower vine sagged alarmingly. It held, and Renie was able to stand almost upright once more, but the vine suddenly felt very loose. She looked back and saw that the uppermost part of the tower was belching flames dozens of meters into the sky, then a huge fiery piece of it tottered and broke free. Somebody or something may have heard her panicked prayer, because it fell away from the vines on which she and the Stone Girl were trapped, but the collapse set the whole springy structure quivering. The vines leaped like plucked strings and Renie had to wrap both arms around the upper vine and cling just to keep her balance as the Stone Girl teetered atop her and almost fell.