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"I’ve had it with your bullshit" Spittle splashed her cheeks, her eyes; it launched revoltingly froes of his teeth were etched with a dark substance, giving the vividness Blood His teeth were lined in blood "This act of yours This stupid ga me!"

"Aonies screa her vision, "I’ face roared in anger: "I’m not David! I’ yank "Say it!"

"I don’t know, I don’t know! You’re confusing me!"

"Say it! Say my name!"

It was the pain that did it In a cyclonic rush, her consciousness collapsed upon itself

"You’re Horace! Please, just stop!"

"Again! All of it!"

"Horace Guilder! You’re Horace Guilder, Director of the Ho backward over her dressing table, shaking with sobs If only she could go back Go back, she thought, claht to hide this horror of a o back Send yourself away again She shook with a nausea that rose from a place so deep it had no name, a sickness not of the body but of the soul, the metaphysical core of her fractured self, and then she was on her knees, vo the vile blood that she herself had drunk that veryhis hands on his suit coat "Just so that’s clear"

Lila said nothing So powerful was her longing to will herself away, she couldn’t have for days ahead, Lila I need to know that you’re on board No more of your nonsense And please, try not to fire any row on trees"

With the back of her wrist, she wiped the rancid spittle from her chin "You said that already"

"I’m sorry?"

"I said, you said that already" Her voice didn’t even sound like her own "About attendants not growing on trees"

"Did I?" He gave a little laugh "So I did Funny when you think about it Soiven the exigencies of the food chain and all I’ree I tell you, that ht, before his eyes hardened on her again "Now clean yourself up No offense, Lila, but you’ve got vomit in your hair"

Chapter 40

"Sara? Can you heartoward her A voice and also a face, one she knew but couldn’t place A face in a drea: an unsettling drea and all around her were bodies and parts of bodies, and everything on fire

"She’s still completely out of it," the voice said It seemed to reach her across an impossible distance A continent An ocean It seemed to come from the stars "How much did you use?"

"Three drops Well,to kill her?"

"It was rushed, okay? You told h "Get ht Sara, what did the voices ith a bucket? What did a bucket have to do with anything? But no sooner had she thought this than a force of cold wetness crashed into her face, blasting her into consciousness She was choking, drowning, waving her ar with the icy water

"Easy now, Sara"

She sat upright, too fast; her brain sloshed in its casing, swirling her vision

"Ooo," she moaned "Ooo"

"The headache’s bad, but it won’t last Just breathe"

She blinked the water froone, shorn at the root; his right eye was clouded with blindness With a gnarled hand, he was holding out a ain, Sara You’ve alreadybehind hi across her chest, her arms folded casually over it "Hello, Sara"

"Don’t worry," Eustace said "I know you have a lot of questions, and we’ll get to theulped the water down It was astonishingly cold and tasted vaguely ht you were-"

"Dead?" Eustace grinned, showing his ruined mouth "In point of fact, everybody here is dead Nina, remind me, how exactly did you die?"

"I believe it was pneu very heavy fell on me I can never remember hoe did the paperwork"

The explosion, the dash through the pipe; it was all co back now Sara drained the cup and took a s She appeared to be in soh there were no s; she sensed they were soround The roo torches

"Where are we?"

"Someplace the redeyes can’t find us" He had a way of looking at her, angling his face to ai seriousness of his gaze "Beyond that, I can’t tell you The iio?"

Another broken-toothed smile "I’io Not in the way you ht-"

"And you’re supposed to The naency’ Nina, if I’m not mistaken, that was your idea, wasn’t it?"

"I believe it was"

"People need a na to focus on, a face to attach to the idea That’s our face Sergio"

She looked at the wo her coolly, then back to Eustace

"The explosion That was you, wasn’t it?"

Eustace nodded "Our early reports indicate seventeen cols dead, including your friend Whistler, and twofor an inspection Not a bad day’s work, I’d say But that’s not the real prize"

"It’s not?"

"No The real prize is you, Sara"

Eustace was looking at her intently now Both of them were Sara shivered in the cold A shift had occurred, an inversion of the conversation’s energies; he was trying to draw her out Could they trust her? More to the point, could she trust them?

"This is the part where you ask me why"