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"What do you mean?"

David spoke up "The lesions aren’t an accident, Tally They’re part of the operation, just like all the bone sculpting and skin scraping It’s part of the way being pretty changes you"

"But you said not everyone has them"

Maddy nodded "In some pretties, they disappear, or are intentionally cured - in those whose professions require theency roo out a fire Those who deal with conflict and danger"

"People who face challenges," David said

Tally let out a slow breath, reers?"

Az nodded "I believe I had a few rangers in atives"

Tally reers who had saved her They had an unfamiliar confidence and surety, like David’s, completely different from the new pretties she and Peris had always made fun of

Peris

Tally sed, tasting so more bitter than tea in the back of her throat She tried to remember how Peris had acted when she’d crashed the Garbo Mansion party She’d been so asha specific about Peris He’d looked so different and, if anything, he seemed older, more mature

But in some way, they hadn’t connectedit was as if he’d become a different person Was it only because since his operation they had lived in different worlds? Or had it been so out here in the S his own clothes The old, ugly Peris would have enjoyed the challenge But what about pretty Peris?

Her head felt light, as if the house were in an elevator heading swiftly doard

"What do the lesions do?" she asked

"We don’t know exactly," Az said

"But we’ve got soood ideas," David said

"Just suspicions," Maddy said Az looked uncomfortably down into his tea

"You were suspicious enough to run away," Tally said

"We had no choice," Maddy said "Not long after our discovery, Special Circumstances paid a visit

They took our data and told us not to look any further or we’d lose our licenses It was either run away, or forget everything we’d found"

"And it wasn’t soet," Az said

Tally turned to David He sat beside his rim-faced, his cup of tea untouched before hi they suspected But she could tell that David saw no need for caution "What do you think?" she asked him

"Well, you know all about how the Rusties lived, right?" he said "War and crime and all that?"

"Of course They were crazy They almost destroyed the world"

"And that convinced people to pull the cities back from the wild, to leave nature alone," David recited

"And now everybody is happy, because everyone looks the saht?"

"Yeah In school, they say it’s all really complicated, but that’s basically the story"

He srimly "Maybe it’s not so complicated Maybe the reason war and all that other stuff went away is that there are nochange Just s"

Tally re them have their endless fun She and Peris used to boast they’d never wind up so idiotic, so shallow But when she’d seen hie the way you look," she said

"No," David said "It changes the way you think"