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What came next was not a verbal shout-if it had been, Jenny would have thought it was Toy And the energy was sheer negation, opposition No! No!

Stop

The , gasping, a little closer to one of the cave entrances To their faces, as if to get rid of so, too Everyone seee of hysteria But the shout had co in the middle of the room Desperate hope leaped inside Jenny- he could do But the next moment the hope folded and collapsed

"You know the law," the tall Shadow Man repeated blandly

And Julian’s eyes fell

They’re playing with us, Jenny realized dimly With Julian, too; they like to see anybody suffer They didn’t stop because he yelled at theer

Another Shadow Man spoke This one had liver-colored skin, with splotches here and there as if he’d been burned by acid The white of one of his eyes wasn’t white at all, it was red, red as rubies, red as blood

"Nothing can stop us froo in her place"

It took Jenny several heartbeats to get herproperly anyrandfather They’d said exactly the sao in her place And her grandfather had, and now Jenny had rescued hi back to the starting place

And meanwhile the terrible silence went on and on and on

Then she heard a voice, a voice that was quite calo"

Tom had stepped forward His dark brown hair was neat and short and his so out and get pizza for the baseball teaed to make his rumpled and frost-touched clothes look like the latest fashion He stood casually, and there wasn’t a trace of fear in his expression

For aelse, Jenny was simply proud of him Fiercely, passionately proud that a human, a seventeen-year-old who hadn’t even heard of the Shadow Men until a o, could stand up to them like this Could conceal his terror and smile that way and offer to die

That’s hoant to die, Jenny thought, and a strange serenity came over her I want to do it well-since it has to be done And I hope I have the courage, and I think-I really do think-that I just ht We’ll see

Because of course there was no possibility of letting them take Tom She would never allow that

Before she could say so, though, there was a short, wild laugh Dee was beside Touar’s She was as beautiful as sooddess who’d just sprung up to defend her people And she was grinning, the old barbaric grin that contrasted so oddly with her delicate features The grin that Jenny hadn’t seen since Audrey had gotten hurt

"No," she said to To very quickly, and laughing-she seemed almost exuberant "Jenny needs you, you jerk She’d never let you do it I’ll go"

"Just back off, Dee," Tom said softly His eyes were oddly tranquil, even drea in his voice At any other tiht, Dee would have backed off

Now she just laughed She looked like Dee-reckless, warlike, and unconditionally loyal-but she looked like reater Dee

"It’sinto"

And then, as Jenny listened in disbelief, other voices joined in

"She’s my cousin," Zach said His face was sharp as a blade, and there was an intense, clear light in his gray eyes He ht beside Dee "I’oes, it should behastily together; now they stepped forward Audrey’s burnished copper hair was loose on her shoulders, and with her white clothing she looked like soant but exquisite, and holding herself with pride Her skin was camellia-pale, and her voice was cool and steady

"If everybody else is going to be a hero, then we can, too," she said "The truth is that Jenny’s worth more than any of us, and we all know it So, now You can take your pick" She looked at the Shadow Men She very nearly, Jenny thought, tossed her head

"Yeah," Michael said "The only thing is, we figure we’ll go together, her and , and then his rabbed for Audrey’s hand He looked for ato be sick, but then he wiped histhe Shadow Men squarely There was a curious dignity about his stocky little figure

Jenny’s throat was so swollen that she could barely breathe She was opening herlike a small blue thunderbolt shot into the clear space in the middle of the rooasped She was looking utterly terrified and as fragile as spun glass, and there was a wild blankness in her eyes Her words came in an incoherent rush "Please -please-you can’t take her I’m not brave or smart-I should have been dead in the paper house, j__"

That was as far as she got She collapsed like a bird shot out of the sky, and lay in a pool of blue until Zach picked her up He held her-Zach, who never paid attention to any girl

The Shadow Men were pleased Jenny could tell This was probably turning out to be a ame than they ever could have hoped-much better sport They had sevenit

"Are you sure you knohat you’re offering?" the one with the crocodile eyes asked gravely

"We could explain to theested

"Tell them exactly what they’re in for"

"Hoe mean to enjoy them" Other voices joined in, and the Shadow Men h Jenny at the sight of the them for the first time They were old as spiders, old as stone They were-abo any of her friends was insufferable

It was tih," she said in a voice as sharp and dictatorial as Audrey’s "You’ve had your fun, but the game’s over I’et everybody else Let’s go"

That was good, she thought, and a little wave of serenity calad she could be as brave as the others She was going to do this well, and that was all that counted now

The Shadow Men seemed to knoas over, too The red-eyed one held out a hand to her alorilla’s-black, padded, thick as sausages and co to a point at the ends

Jenny put her hand in his

The Shadow Man lifted his lips to show long, blunt teeth like tusks

So knocked them apart

Jenny was knocked breathless, too, startled and confused She thought it was some sort of attack

It was Julian

His hair was shining like lightning, like quicksilver His whole being see intensity And his eyes were the unbelievable, luminous blue of the precise moment before dawn

He looked at Jenny for just one second, and then he turned and she could only see the clean purity of his profile

"Go through the door!" he said "That’s your way home They won’t come after you"

He was between her and the Shadow Men And apparently, unlike Dee, he could interact with the back

"Go on!" he shouted

"We must have blood," the crocodile-eyed Shadow Man said "We will have blood"

"Hurry!" Julian shouted

Through the open door Jenny could see her grandfather’s hallway

"We have a right to a kill," the crocodile-eyed Shadow Man said Fro and flat and incredibly ancient-looking His fingers were covered in scaly skin like a dinosaur’s, Jenny saw Then she realized what the long, flat branch randfather’s journal, except that this one was real-was more real than any object Jenny had ever seen It was like sohter andthan Earth This stave was so real that it looked alive, throbbing with raer

There were not just single runes carved on it, but lines and lines of theh they were delicately inscribed, each stroke stood out clearly It was as if the cuts were filled with liquid diaround of wood

Jenny couldn’t keep looking at the runes It was like trying to read in a dream-first the details were sharp, and then the whole stave seees The runes seemed to move before she could identify the ever was, that’s the stave of life, she thought The voice like faraway ice bells said, "Give her to us

"No," Julian said

Jenny feltSu near her, and their as clear to the door But nobody started for it

"What’s happening?" Audrey whispered

"You knoe can do," the tall Shadow Man with the crocodile eyes said to Julian, and he held the runestave higher

"Go through the door," Julian said, without turning

"We can unmake you!" the tall one shrieked, and in that moment his voice wasn’t beautiful It was like an ice floe breaking, a cracking, s sound of destruction

"What are they talking about?" Tom said