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I SAT ON A DOUBLE BED, MY BACK PROPPED UP BY PILLOWS and s stretched out The hard, lumpyplace in Myrddin’s guest room I felt weak and tired, and every cell inmy hand in both of hers Kane lay on the bed besideMy hand rested on his shoulder, fingers burrowing into his warm fur We were in a run-down motel somewhere north of the airport

I was a little fuzzy on hoe’d arrived here I’d been too weak to walk--an attempt to stand up had ether incarried past white cinder-block walls and up a long staircase Passing through a doorway into cool air that smelled of exhaust and wet ce a seatbelt across ht it was Kane’s BMW, but I don’t knoho drove Not Kane, as lying across the backseat I didn’t think Mab kne--Jenkins did duty as her chauffeur in Wales--but I sure as hell hadn’t been in the driver’s seat As soon as the car door had closed, I’d sluh the streets of Boston

Now, I ss It was the cheapest kind, a hideous orange-and-brown floral print, pocked by cigarette burns

"Are you still cold?" Mab asked, leaning forward

"Not as , at least Mab pulled the comforter off the other bed and draped it around my shoulders I probably looked like a pile of dead leaves

"Warenerates"

"That will happen?"

"It’s happening already I just thank all the heavens we reached you in time"

"Ho did you reach round facility beneath a construction site Stanhope was the name of the street, I believe"

I stared at her It still seeht, when I called you on the dreah your dreay was to rerasp"

"I didn’t h the collective unconscious A form almost absorbed me" I rubbed at et away fro like that would happen So I ency plan," I chimed in She’d only told me that a million times over the years We both smiled

"As soon as you woke up," she said, "I could feel you’d left the dream realms If you couldn’t ency plan"

"What did you do?" I asked

"Jenkins called Mr Kane--"

"Wait You put in a phone at Maenllyd?" For my whole life, my aunt had refused to modernize her old stone manor house: no phone, no TV, no Internet I always felt kind of lucky she’d allowed plu

"At my house? No, of course not Jenkins drovehi him to stand by When he came back out to let me know he’d h her drea before, I definitely was now "You talked to Gwen on the dream phone?" That was even more remarkable than Mab’s sudden appearance in Boston Kind of on a par with an ice stor to the skies

"No, I did not She wouldn’t respond I brought up her colors again and again I tinged thenored me"

"It’s been years since Gwen used the dreaotten how"

Mab’s brow creased in a frown "There is no forgetting Although she gave up her shapeshifting ability, she’s still Cerddorion She could have answered had she chosen to So" Mab paused, watching my face "I contacted Maria"