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Curled on her side, she let her right hand trail off the edge of the rout between the stones in the floor In the dark, she could not see them, but she could feel the difference in texture between the shup off of the roove between two stones

In the dark, Collette frowned She ran the ball of her finger over the sa between the stones and the grout cah whatever adhesive quality it had once had no longer existed

A trerit froer with the tip of her thumb In the dark, she bent forward and tried to see the section of floor she had been scraping Her fingers ran over the stones and the grooves again She found the place where she had done her small excavation and brushed away the loose powder Oncebetween the stones

Now, though, nothing happened

"Shit," she whispered, so away Collette tried the grooves between the other stones in the floor of the cell, but found only a few grains of loose grit, norh, she turned to regard Julianna In the dark, all she could see was the outline of the wo up on the mat Some tiny bit of illumination must have filtered in froleam

"I’m sorry if I woke you," Collette said

"I wasn’t really sleeping What’s wrong?"

Collette gnawed her lip for a ed ahead

"Do you re from that pit the Sandman kept me in? What I did with the sand?"

She could still re into the walls One iven way under her touch and she had been able to create handholds and footholds and cliht through the walls of the sandcastle

"Of course," Julianna said "You and Oliver figured it had to do with yourBorderkind"

"Melisande," Collette replied Speaking her endary creature had been their e to her

"That’s how you tere able to destroy those sand-things so easily, and when you hurt the Sandman--"

"Yeah Exactly," Collette interrupted "It was like we could undo the things the Sandman had built Unmake them"

"Unravel…" Julianna said

In the dark, Collette reached out to take her hand, afraid to hope "I was just lying here, scrapingup soht’ve just been loose Probably that’s what it was, since I tried again and now it’s all pretty solid But for a second, it felt the way it had at the sandcastle…like I was just, what did you say? Like I was unraveling it, soers and started to stand, pulling Collette to her feet

"What are you doing?"

"You’ve got to tell Oliver"

Collette hesitated "It isn’t working, though It’s probably just loose mortar"

"What if it’s not?"

The question echoed in her ht about it, Jules Ever since we ended up here, I’ve been thinking about the time I spent down in that pit I’ve tried it Maybe Oliver and I are half-legend and ic in us We’re notabout it this time, were you? You’re hurt and exhausted, like you were then It just happened, like before"

Collette took a breath, then nodded "Maybe"

Julianna pulled her toward the door of the cell Collette put her hands against the wood and stood on the tips of her toes to see through the rate

"Hey," she whispered "You awake?"

A tiny bit of light filtered down the corridor fro up the stairs where the guards stood sentry It gave her enough illumination to make out the door to her brother’s cell

His voice came from the darkness within

"Who can sleep with you two gossiping over there?"

Collette sh, her little brother could tease her Maybe there was hope after all She and Julianna had been whispering, but Oliver had overheard them That meant he had been unable to sleep as well

"You heard?"

"Yeah"

"What do you think?" Julianna asked

In the dark, behind that door, Oliver hesitated Collette felt the regret co from him, even with the space between the to say

"You’ve been trying too," she whispered across the corridor

"Not recently Not much," Oliver replied "But I did ere first thrown in here How could I not, after what you did, Coll? I tried a million times to loosen the stones around the door or theNo such luck"

Collette caainst the door She ran her hands over the wood and traced the fra her eyes, she tried to rerit of that soft powder

Her eyes opened

"Oliver?" she said, raising her voice so it wouldn’t be as muffled by the door

"Yeah?"

Collette looked at Julianna In the slight illurate in the door, she saw her friend’s deter," Collette said "It wasn’t ination"

"This was a mistake," Blue Jay said as he and Cheval threaded their way along a narrow, curving alley alive with s of the citizens of Palenque

Cheval took his hand and leaned into hirinned The kelpy ht be a beast in truth, but her human mask was exquisite and sensual