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“What? You mean, poke inside their heads? No Of course not”

“Then how do you knohether this is love or mere lust?” He seemed honestly perplexed

“It’s pretty obvious”

“Is it?” He sighed “I suppose it is for you I must resort to less delicate means I have filled myself with their memories and feel what they feel Yes It is love”

I whispered the word, “Duh” I don’t know if Messenger heard me or not

Night had fallen, turning the forest around us into a place of eldritch fears, a fairy-tale forest wherein erbread and pluular circles of light on the ht or the tangle of weeds to our left

“And what do you think of that? Of love?” Messenger asked me

“Okay, that’s getting—”

Suddenly his insinuating voice, that whisper that always seemed to be directly into , Mara: You will answertoback”

It was said with undeniable authority His tone was not pleading nor was it cruel He stated it as a sih it was beyond question And as he spoke, he seerow, to becoht shone from him

Then he returned to his norh how could I knoas normal for this creature?

“Understand that I ask you questions out of respect In the hope that you will understand that you mustthat you maytrust me I can as easily enter your mind as the minds of any of those we meet But if you are open and honest with me, Mara, I will not do that”

I was feeling that I’d been pushed around just about enough And I was readying a devastating response when—

“Look out!”

At the same instant the car swerved sharply and there was the sound of i steel on flesh