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I ran toward the music Music meant people People meant victims I could rob

Over the last several days, I’d beco the few survivors I’d encountered (even though all I could e was the merest show of a vine)

Do you have a map? I would steal it from you

Food? Hand it over

I like your backpack It’s mine now

To keep myself alive for Jack, for Aric--and for Richter--I’d beco in the shadows

As a black hat, I understood so ers, cannibals, and militias worked Always seek out people; they’ll have so or starving others As I told them, "Tick-tock On a clock None of this will ever have happened" Because I was going to reverse time

Thanks to my thievery, I noore a hooded poncho over loves On ear: MREs for another couple of days, a knife, glow sticks, and salt for Baggers

I trudged up that hill, digging with one hand into the ainst streams of water Between breaths, I said, "You there, Circe?"

The ht about that epic clash, the more I realized the flood had been the unintended aftermath of her attack on the Emperor

While her tidal wave had vibrated with her presence and hostility, the flood had been violent butlifeless

Controlling a wave like that couldn’t have been easy for her Hell, I’d nearly poisoned Jack withthat Circe hadn’t been trying to murder me, I’d hailed her in puddles She could see and hear from any body of water She would knohere Aric was

She’d never answered No one did I hadn’t heard a single telepathic Arcana call Unless I’d been running in circles--possible--I should have covered a lot of ground Had I not neared any Arcana?

Daain: Aric? Tess? Gabriel? Joules?

Nothing I was tempted to hail Matthew--but he had allowed the ht : "Sometimes the World spins in reverse Sometimes battles do too The word carousel means little battle"

Maybe all this was an exercise to enhance Tess’s uni that I would bring Jack back! Mattheays did things like this

I called for hile- of the airwaves--hadn’t responded to me What if he’d been injured? What if the Emperor had been able to side-step Circe and advance? Surely I would sense if other Arcana had died

Focus, Evie Every second counted On a clock