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“Someday you will see the darkness inside yourself, Mara,” he said in that too-near whisper of his

“Oh, look, you’ve hurt Messenger’s feelings,” Oriax said “Shall I coer?” She er, my pretty boy?”

“Get away from me,” he said

And without see out her tongue “He’s no fun, our Messenger,” Oriax said to me “You’ll see You’ll want him, but you won’t have him You’ll crave him desperately, oh yes, you will”

“He’s a dees of our brief contact still churned vilely in hts until it came out of my mouth and I realized it was true Or realized at least that I believed it

“A deer a demon? Don’t be ridiculous No, no, no He’s not a deht call deer of Fear is no demon, unless demons mourn for their lost Ariadne”

“Leave us, Oriax You’ve had your fun”

“Mmm, not yet, I haven’t,” she said “But eventually”

She was gone, and I was shaking with fear and a deep disturbance that see all over, in every part of my body, froh each individual cell was shaking

“I aer said “It would have been kinder to let you fall”

I felt deeply unsettled The vivid lad of it The memory of Oriax, too, seemed to lose some of its sharp detail, and for that I was sorry because I had never seen or ie in rips with it and decided just how

Let her go, Oriax

What did Messenger o?

I recalled a sense of being released, and of that release filling me however briefly with a sense of loss but also a sense of relief I had fallen when she released er on me

Too s, toothat was like fear but also held within it seeds of pleasure I found that part of er to speak to me, to explain, but also just to speak