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"Hunter, Hunter, Hunter"

Sounded so real I wanted to yell, "I ain’t the hunter!" The hunter was the idiot who got all those people killed The idiot who otten Evie killed

"Hunterrrrrr"

"Va t’en! Laisse-moi tranquille!" Go away! Leave ht from the dirt Damn near blacked out Was thatthe Fool’s voice?

22

The Empress

Cold rain fell outside, but Gran and I ar fire

If the flaain after thisI’d furiously filled half a notebook with sketches of hih I sensed a nervous energy in her, she looked more exhausted than yesterday

She nodded toward the fancy tea tray, with its cheese and fruit selections "Despite all of Death’s faults, he does provide some perks"

"He’s definitely equipped to ride out an apocalypse in style" The inside of the castle was as luxurious as the outside was spooky

The Flash had charred its gray stone walls with black streaks Fog seeas la drive

I re this castle was haunted by Death By his loneliness I told Gran, "You could call hied "I know Death introduced himself when he pickedhiot here, I snooped around," she said "And I asked Paul questions We talked a lot" She sounded as if she liked the guy Paul was about twenty-six or so, with buzz-cut black hair His blue eyes idely spaced, and he had a toothy grin that made him approachable "He told me Death calls this place Lethe, naetfulness Do you knohy?"

I’d called this place the castle of lost time, which hadn’t been too far off the mark "It is close to lethal But I don’t know for certain" Aric was such a stickler for s and details, I could be sure he’d picked the name for a reason

In the past, he’d told etcenturies between gaet

"The knight prepared this place for just about every catastrophe," Gran said "It’s out of the flood zone, and away from nuclear fallout sectors There are thick metal shutters to cover everyI even found copper plating in the walls to shield against electrical stor, this castle was a self-sustaining oasis I pictured it as a spaceship on a barren moon, with the only life support around: crops and livestock, clean water, sunlamps, filtered air, and tankers of fuel