Page 38 (2/2)

"Oathbreaker?" was hed "Oh, don’t freak out I’ ti a step toward round in front of Phaedra’s lot with a wall of fire

I backed up another step toa missile at Graeme as he tried to move away from Phaedra

"Shit, this is ridiculous Hold on a second" With that, Blondie unleashed a crescendo of ic she’d used before, on Fugwat

Ti alone in an entirely dark space--so dark it was as if ere surrounded by black ink

"How did you do that?" I breathed "Did you… freeze ti her eyes "I just put us all in our own little black boxes Unfortunately, I have to be in one, too, or I’d just leave them there as ent on our merry way But that’s not the point"

"No," I said "It’s not The point is you telling et to that I’ve got a lot to tell you"

"So start," I snapped I’d hadis, I know more about what’s under Rockabill than I’ve let on And so do you"

"Huh?" I said, confused by this turn of events Unlike her, everything I knew I had spilled

"The creature and you have a connection It’s watched you, since you were little It’s known you all your life"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Your dreams," she said "After you were attacked You need to ree ods," I said "The creature… I was the creature"

"And that’s not the first tiht I’d often been the creature inup, when I was in the hospital

"And it’s been with you, too," Blondie said, reacting to the expression of recognition on my face

I looked at her, aze, her expression conciliatory "That’s what I haven’t been honest about," she replied "It’s been talking with ether"

"What?" I demanded "Why didn’t you tell us?"

"Because it didn’t want you to know," she said, her voice soothing but her words anything but "It’s got plans for you… I was just facilitating those plans You’ll understand when you talk to it"

"What are you talking about?" I demanded, furious "How can you stand there and tellthis whole situation and expect me to trust you? And what the hell do you , anyway?"

Her s that tat," she said Then she pulled the neck of her shirt down and tipped her head to the side so that the large black bull’s horn glea "So this has to do with the Schis she’d connected the Schisether in the second cavern

"Yes," she said, beckoning raceful neck

I er to make contact with her dark-stained flesh…

I was so full of rage, and hurt, and a desire to see ourselves freed of those that hated us I thought of everyone I had lost: my own sister, killed by our own clan because she shared my blood; so many of my friends, picked off one by one when they eak because the humans feared us; my people, so powerful and yet forced to live as anith to control, had we but the will…