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"Allie the Outcast is here!" he told his restless troops "I can feel it" And he could That connection, forged the ht under his nose, if only he knehere to look "Keep searching!" he told there by the minute

Then, on their sixth day in Memphis, Johnnie-O approached hi," Johnnie-O said By the tone of his voice, and the look on his face, and the way he cracked his knuckles, Nick knew he didn't mean Allie "Somehow Mary kneere here!"

Nick stood froly harder for hied his feet, leaving chocolate skid round

"How close is she?" Nick asked

Johnnie-O cracked a knuckle, the sound as penetrating as a sonar ping

"Stop that," Nick said "For all we know she has a kid with big enough ears to hear that a hundred miles away"

"Sorry" Johnnie-O looked deeply worried, and he was not an Afterlight as easily intiain

"You're not gonna like it," Johnnie-O said

"Just tell e hands fall limp by his side "She's already in the city Less than two miles away"

Nick stared at him incredulously How could that be? Everywhere they went, they sent scouts out for tenthe skies for the HindenburgIf there was one thing Mary Hightower could not do in an airship, it was sneak up on theet so close?"

"I think h," said Johnnie-O, nervously cracking his knuckles again

Tworopes heaved theiant airship Inch by inch it round

Mary had been unconvinced that the western as the obstacle others claimed it was Still, she had Speedo conduct the airship due south froo, and didn't turn west until they were over Tennessee airspace As Meun to loom in the distance, their airspeed slowed, and the airship's rudder strained hopelessly to keep theet no closer by air, Mary had Speedo set the ship down, and arranged for an alternate hts were chosen for the tea forward toward Mely powerful wind It was ahter than air could feel heavier to drag than a stone obelisk

Fortunately, obstacles in the living world were not obstacles at all, for the airship passed through living forests and buildings--and although it was difficult for the tea world, Mary's children always did what they were told Within the airship, the rest of Mary's kids filled the rigid alu space between the huge hydrogen bladders Mary had briefed the mission, and now an air of exciteiant craft, like the static electricity that brought the airship to Everlost in the first place

She had left behind a dozen of herInterlights--more than two hundred of them when she left She didn't knohen she would return to Chicago, but when she did, there would be a fine coht up with the benefit of her teachings

As the grounded airship crawled toward Me the htened of her children to her in the Starboard Pro stories she could res she tweaked toward the positive Happily-ever-afters fabricated where none existed before Still, the children were on edge

"What if the Ogre attacks us before we get there?" one of her children asked

"He won't," Mary told him, for as much as Mary wanted the world to think that Nick was a ruthless monster, she kneas not He would try diploy counted on it

At noon, she could see fro forward, for theit had reached an iowhich esture to Nick A letter--which she wrote and rewrote until she was sure it was just right She crafted it tobetween the lines It would not reveal the feelings she still had for him--mainly because she couldn't be sure he still felt the sas would no longer matter

Once the letter was ready, she sealed it with old-fashioned sealing wax stamped with an M, then she called for one of her fastest runners

"I need a brave er," Mary told her "Can I count on you?"

The girl nodded enthusiastically, thrilled to be able to please her

"I need you to go to the Ogre's train as quickly as you can--Speedo will tell you the way--and bring the Ogre this letter You re personally, and to no one else"