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“Hot da my sword

“Yeah,” he croaked, looking at his euess I did all that, then”

I was right yet again Never, ever underestimate the empty-handed

15

I looked on with open awe as Florian reached out his hand to calm the vines, as they retreated back into the bushes, back into the earth, to sleep once ht, the touch of silver froht sky made the curls of

his hair glow a strange, deep jade green For possibly the first time, I saw him for what he really was: a powerful ally, and a threat to everything that opposed us

“Thanks for savinghi and ”

He clenched his fingers, then unclenched theuess I don’t know ht green of his frenzy fading froic waned “And it’s easier – or oes wild, because of all this nature around us”

Florian gestured vaguely at the arboretuerous and incredibly short-lived fight But with the deone, and with Florian’s pet vine ain, just a beautiful, sprawling botanical garden

Except there was that weird cri towards us

“Oh no,” I groaned “Not this again”

I was grateful for the fact that a lot of the entities – and a lot of ular, signature colors It made it easier to find your allies on the battlefield, and conversely, to pick out your enemies Of course, I never could tell whether the bearer of the criht was our ally or our enemy You never can tell with deor

The criht faded as he approached and joined us under the looe et lost, far away froor, from the demons, from the entities From all of them But I burned with a need to knoell Why did he keep showing up? What did he want from me? And, most important of all, I wanted to knohat he had to do with all these attacks

“I’ve got soet the etiquette of entities, all the supernatural niceties

He rolled his eyes and shrugged, ever the iot here”