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"Don’t expect the Gratton tells irl on the beach bad luck They won’t be happy to see you"

I press ether "I don’t need theo aboutsays She turns her head, and it’s a strange, jerky motion with the bird head on top of hers If I wasn’t unsettled by anything that I saw tonight, that o"

On the rock, a wo a real horse head stands over the place where the man poured the blood Her tunic is soaked in blood; her hands run with it She faces the crowd, but with thatat us but at some point in the sky I feel swiht of the blood I’ from the people assembled I can’t pick out individual words, but Elizabeth says, "They’re saying no one got the shell She didn’t drop a shell this year"

"The shell?"

"For the wish," Elizabeth says in her iet a wish Probably she dropped it down in Skarmouth and they were too dull to find it"

"Who is it?" Finn asks Elizabeth, the first thing he’s said in a long while "In the horse head?"

"The mother of all horses Epona Soul of Thisby and those cliffs"

Finn, patient, clarifies, "I meant, who is the woman?"

"Someone with more up front to look at than you," Elizabeth replies Finn’s eyes instantly go to the horse-woh and wild I scowl in defense of Finn’s virtue, and she givesfor the riders"

They are The wooing, and Peg Gratton has cliathered around one end of the rock, waiting to go up, and still roup I aue "You can wait if you like They go up one at a time"

My hands aren’t very steady, so I fist them I watch closely to see what’s expected of me The first rider walks up the natural steps at the end of the rock It’s Ian Privett, who looks older than he is because of his hair, gone gray when he was a boy He stor Gratton

"I will ride," he tells her forh for us to hear clearly Then he thrusts out his hand toward her, and she slices his finger with a tiny blade, the motion too fast for me to see it properly Privett holds his hand out over the rock and blood h I’m too far away to see it

He doesn’t seem to be in pain He says, "Ian Privett Penda Byanswers in a low voice not hers "Thank you"

Then Ian is off the rock and the next rider isthe steps It’s Mutt Malvern, who repeats the process, holding his hand out to let it drip after she’s cut it When he says, "Matthew Malvern Skata By my blood," he looks out from the rock to find someone in the audience, and his lad I’ain, riders step up onto the rock, holding out their hands, giving their na Gratton thanks theo So many of them! There must be forty I’ve seen the race reports in the paper before, and there’s never been anywhere near forty in the final race What happens to all of theine I can smell the blood on the rock from here

And still the riders coers sliced and to announce their intention to ride

As it gets closer to when Iand nervous as can be, but I’ for Sean Kendrick to step onto the rock I don’t know if it’s because he raced me or because I watched him lose that mare or because he told me to stay off the beach when no one else would speak to me at all, or merely because his red stallion is the most beautiful horse I’ve ever seen, but I’m curious about hiroup has coone by the tinize him He has blood smeared across both of his sharp cheekbones, and the way he looks is at once striking and disturbing, harsh and godless, wary and predatory Like someone ould climb this rock back when it was a real man whose blood they spilled on it, not just a bowl of sheep’s blood

I wonder suddenly what Father Mooneyhaht -- if he’s sequestered in St Coluation keep their wits about thean oddess could possibly be, anyway, even if she had existed, that she is satisfied by a bowl of animal blood in place of a man I’ve seen sheep’s blood and I’ve seen a dead person, and I know the difference

Sean Kendrick holds out his hand "I will ride," he says, and when he says it, I feel heavy, likeGratton slashes his finger She really doesn’t look like Peg Gratton at all, not when she’s up there in the light of the bonfire, the shadow of the beak hiding her face

His voice is barely audible "Sean Kendrick Corr Byfros, but Sean doesn’t look up or acknowledge their cheers I think I see his lips ht movement that I’m not sure Then he’s off the rock

"This is you," Elizabeth says "Up with you Don’t forget your na hot I throw my chin up and walk around the rock to where I can step up onto it like the others It seeh the rock must be quite solid, the surface seems to tip and roll as I make my way across it I can see three different colors of blood underin et theht and piercing beneath the beaked headdress She looks fierce and powerful

I feel the attention of everybody in Skarmouth, everyone on Thisby, and all the tourists that the ht as I can I will be as fierce as Peg Gratton, even if I don’t have her great bird headdress to hide under I have h

I stretch out my hand I wonder how much her little knife will hurt My voice sounds louder than I expected "I will ride"

Peg lifts her blade I brace myself No one has flinched and I refuse to be the first