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“I’ve got to go,” Darcy said.
“ Will you do it?” John shouted through the door.
“I don’t know,” she said. And then thought—if she did that—if she did that, John would be on her side. John was her arbiter of what the village thought. What John said was what they thought was good.
And if she quieted Brio
So she went to the cabinet, and turned the key and shook powder into a prescription vial. Her hands were shaking, but she got it in, knowing fairly accurately the girl’s weight. She thought she’d make another pot of tea and put it in that. She stopped the vial and tucked it in her waistband, under her sweater.
Then she went to the kitchen, where Brio
The crockery was all broken in pieces all over the floor. The teakettle was lying against the wall. Brio
“Honey. Put it down. It’s all right. I told him go away.”
“You’re lying!” Brio
“I’m sure I don’t believe them. I think it’s all rather silly.” The playing cards were all over the floor. She crossed the kitchen and picked up the teakettle. She wasn’t sure there was a whole cup in the kitchen.
“My friend will come for me,” Brio
“Not a horse?”
“I’ll have a horse. I’ll have a horse when I want one! And everybodywill be sorry.”
Darcy felt such an angerfrom the girl, from somewhere, so much angerand confusion…
Brio
“No!” Darcy said sharply, expecting obedience, but Brio
The door banged wide. A black shape was there, yellow-eyed, yellow-fanged. It reached a shaggy arm—an arm!—around Brio
Very much like that day.
Da
“Open the gate!” Da
He did know <horses and riders and danger in the distance, something inside the walls,> and he didn’t waste time trying to understand the shouts about <beasts> and <bears> and <men dead,> he just got control of his coughing enough to swing up to Cloud’s back, feeling the wobble in himself and the wobble in Cloud’s legs as he landed. He started moving through the crowd, aware of <Tara on Flicker behind him,> and it was a measure how frightened the crowd was that people bunched around two riders on horseback and pressed up close to the horses as a point of safety.
Cloud wasn’t used to that kind of treatment. It was a question whether they were going to get through before or after Cloud bit somebody, but the instant there was an opening Cloud jumped forward, instinct-driven toward the <nighthorses ahead> of him, and Cloud’s rider was along for the ride for an instant, Cloud knowing beyond any doubt there was <safety in the nighthorse herd.>
Flicker was close behind them as Cloud ran, and Flicker might not know the horses ahead, but they were a band Cloud knew: <Slip, Shimmer and Rain> was the presence at the mountain-end of the street. <Cloud and Flicker> flung the ambient wider and louder than Da
They came in where Ridley, Callie and Je
“Tara Chang,” Da
He got more than he wanted. Cloud shied back from a rush of <beast with yellow eyes> and <Brio
“Tarmin,” Tara said beside him. “That’s what it was like.”
Like and unlike, Da
This thing—this confusion—had hands and walked upright, or it was Brio
“It’s in the upstairs of the house,” Ridley said, and how glad Ridley was to see the two of them was evident in the ambient. “It’s strong. God, it’s strong. We haven’t dared get close to it.”
“Five of us, now,” Tara said. “Let’s push it. Let’s get it out of here and hunt it later.”
Ridley was <scared,> and thought of <Je
“I don’t think it’s a rogue,” Da
Tara, last person he’d have thought would agree, slid into that image with astonishing quickness and memories of <ruined shelter> and <nest. Bones with plaid cloth, near the lake.> “Smart like a horse,” she said. “Damn sure.”
“Paired with that?” Callie said in disgust.
“Nothing I want to see leave here,” Tara said, and intended <shooting it,> no question, while Randy Goss hovered in the low edges of the ambient, <scared,> and <sad,> and <homesick for Tarmin.> Da
But Tara was trying to pull them together in <fighting the intruder,> which with Flicker’s essential skittishness had its difficulties. So hewanted it, in support of Tara’s effort, and Callie wanted it; then Je