Laura, meanwhile, walks off the little walkway once she's reached it, tromping unconcernedly over ages-old bloodstains over to the tiny golden city. This, she's learned from library books, is what people believe in when they say that the Maker is real. Not this particular city, tiny and eye-height if she walks just a little way beyond the bells Holden has disappeared into, but the much larger place it represents.

She examines it up close, touching one of the little buildings carefully to see if it, too, is designed to make people bleed.