Page 21 (1/2)

Thiago was cally calent danger He was content to let theain Karou’s stomach seized She could smell it today Maybe because it had fresh fodder--Bast had finally taken her ith the Wolf Karou had already conjured her new body; it lay on her floor even now--and maybe because the breeze was one of those ht have been saying, Here, smell this Here, s and stood before the Wolf She put her shoulders back and tried not to shake, tried to sound like soo down there and help theranary" It was cool in the granary, and isolated The truck was there "I’ll give them some water, they will see no one, and then I’ll drive them to a road" She paused She heard herself, and knew she wasn’t conveying the forcefulness she wanted "You won’t have to do anything," she said, but her voice cracked and her head filled with cursing What a perfect time to sound like an adolescent boy "I’ll take care of it"

"Very well," Thiago said His expression was so arranged Karou i it in place, this benign Thiago- her fists against a wall talking to hi to have sonity and not stoate, and the breeze was stronger here: rot rot, wrong wrong Bodies putrefying in a pit, and if she didn’t help them, the hikers would end up there, too, and any other huodforsaken place What had she done, leading the rebels into this world?

But then she thought of Eretz, and what the rebels’ prospects would have been if she hadn’t--and the prospects for all chiht anymore She’d wanted to believe that they could be trusted to have some humanity They were soldiers, not brute killers, and not wild animals, either, whose appetites functioned beyond the reach of reason She knew A wouldn’t harm anyone without justification, and neither would Balieros, or Ziri, or most of the others But she had only to think of Razor--and his sack--to know that all bets were off

She had to reround as she left the kasbah; it was her first impulse now to fly, so unaccustomed had she beco on the shifting scree

She realized that her hair was uncovered What if the hikers recognized her? They really could be a danger But as she supposed to do?

It didn’t take long for the down the slope froht They were still too far off for her to see clearly, but she heard the cry that ca like she’d hit a barrier It ca over the rocks and scrub, full-throated but dissolving at the edges into weakness

The voice

It just wasn’t possible But the cry was "Karou!" and the voice was Zuzana’s, and Karou had certainly learned that "possible" and "iod, no, she thought, staring at the figures and seeing what she had never expected to see: Zuzana and Mik, here

Not them, not here

Ho?

Did it er--of heatstroke, of chimaera--and Karou’s heart pounded and swelled within her--with panic, with… gladness… and er--ere they thinking?--then tenderness, astonishment, and her eyes hen her feet left the earth and she flen the slope and caught the that threatened to finish what the heat had begun

It was really theed doith exhausted relief Tear tracks stood out against the red of her cheeks, and she was laugh-crying, crushing Karou’s hands with a vise-tight grip--a squeeze right on the bruised web of her hand that asp

"Jesus, Karou," Zuzana rasped, her voice spent in crying out "The freaking desert? It couldn’t have been Paris or so, too, but Mik wasn’t laughing or crying He had a careful hand at Zuzana’s back, and his face was tense with concern "We could have died," he said, and the girls fell silent "I should never have agreed to this"

After a beat, Karou agreed "No, you shouldn’t" She took in the desert panora across it on foot "What on earth were you thinking?"

"What?" Mik stared at her, looked to Zuzana then back to Karou "Didn’t you want us to come?"

Karou was taken aback "Of course not I would never… God How did you even find ured out your riddle, that’s how"

Riddle? "What riddle?"

"The riddle," Zuzana said "Priestess of a sandcastle, in a land of dust and starlight"

Karou blinked at her She reht the chih the portal to the kasbah, and had been in Ouarzazate scrounging supplies for Aegir "That’s how you found me? Oh, Zuze I’ht…"

"Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me" Mik raised his hands to his head and turned his back "We’ve coodforsaken navel of nowhere and you don’t even want us here"

Zuzana looked crestfallen Karou felt horrible "It’s not that I don’t want you!" She dragged her friend into another crushing hug "I do So ht you into… this" She gestured to the kasbah

"What is this?" Zuzana asked "Karou, what are you doing out here?"

Karou opened her ain, twice, like a fish Finally, she said, "It’s a long story"

"Then it can wait," Mik said firer on his face before, but he was flushed with it now, his eyes narroith accusation "Can we please get her out of the sun?"

"Of course" Karou took a deep breath "Coed the other Mik helped Zuzana up the slope, and Karou didn’t take theranary, but the ate, where they froze on the threshold and stared

Again, Karou saith new eyes, io stood looking beo himself you could almost mistake for human, but Ten was another story with her wolf head and humped shoulders As for the rest of the court, it was a horror show: soldiers gathered in the gallery and on the ground, even on the rooftops, strangely still but for the lash of a tail here and there, the flick of a wing TheirRazor, too near for coue, and Karou found herself in a ready stance, light on her toes, in case he should leap