"I don't care when it is. I'm still asleep." He wandered toward the kitchen. "And you don't need to worry," he added, looking back and sounding more awake. "Because I'm not doinganythingwith the girl and Jade's not doing anything with the brother. Because we're goinghome."He disappeared.
Jade's heart was beating hard. Ash might act frivolous, but she saw the ruthlessness underneath. She looked at Rowan.
"Is Mary-Lynnettereally his soulmate?"
Rowan leaned back, her brown hair spreading likea waterfall on the green brocade of the couch. "I'm afraid so."
"But then how can he want to leave?"
"Well ..." Rowan hesitated. "Soulmates don't always stay together. Sometimes it's too much-the fire and lightning and all that. Some people just can'tstand it."
Maybe Mark and I aren't really soulmates, Jade thought. And maybe that's good. It sounds painful.
"Poor Mary-Lynnette," she said.
A dear voice sounded in her mind:Whydoesn'tanybody say "Poor Ash"?
"Poor Mary-Lynnette," Jade said again.
Ash reappeared. "Look," he said and sat down onone of the carved mahogany chairs. "We need to get things straight. It's not just a matter ofme wanting you to come home. I'm not the only one who knows you're here."
Jade stiffened.
Kestrelsaid, almost pleasantly,"Youtold somebody?"
"I was staying with somebody when the family called to say you were missing. And he was there when I realized where you must have gone. He also happens to be an extremely powerful telepath. So just consider yourself lucky I convinced him to let me try to get you back."
Jade stared at him. She did consider herself lucky. She also considered it strange that Ash would go to such trouble for her and Rowan and Kestrel-for any bodybesides Ash. Maybe she didn't know her brother as well as she thought.
Rowan said, very soberly, "Who was it?"
"Oh, nobody." Ash leaned back and looked moodily at the ceiling. "Just Quinn."
Jade flinched. Quinn ... that snake .He had a heart like a glacier and he despised humans. He was the sort to take Night World law into his own hands if he didn't think it was being enforced properly.
"He's coming back on Monday to see if I've takencare of the situation," Ash said. "And if I haven't,we're all dead-you, me, and your little human buddies."
Rowan said, "So we've got until Monday to figuresomething out."
Kestrel said, "If he tries anything on us, he's in fora fight."
Jade squeezed Tiggy to make him growl.
Mary-Lynnette had been sleeping like a stone-buta stone with unusually vivid dreams. She dreamed about stars brighter than she'd ever seen and starclouds shimmering in colors like the northern lights. She dreamed about sending an astronomical telegram to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to register her claim for discovering a new supernova. About being the firstto see it with her wonderful new eyes, eyes thatshe saw in a mirror-were all pupil, like an owl's or a cat's....
Then the dream changed and she was an owl, swooping down in a dizzying rush from a hollow Douglas fir. She seized a squirrel in her talons andfelt a surge of simple joy. Killing felt so natural. All she had to do was be the best owl she could be, and grab food with her feet.
But then a shadow fell over her from somewhereabove. And in the dream she felt a terrible sick real ization-that even hunters could be hunted. And that something was after her....
She woke up disoriented-not as towhere shewas, but as to who she was. Mary-Lynnette or a hunter being chased by something with white teeth in themoonlight? And even when she went downstairs, she couldn't shake off the sick feeling from her dream.
"Hi," Mark said. "Is that breakfast or lunch?"
"Both," Mary-Lynnette said, sitting down on the family room couch with her two granola bars.
Mark was watching her. "So," he said, "have you been thinking about it, too?"
Mary-Lynnette tore the wrapper off a granola bar with her teeth. "About what?"
" Youknow."
Mary-Lynnette did know. She glanced around to make sure Claudine wasn't in earshot." Don't think about it."
"Why not?" When she didn't answer, he said,"Don't tell me you haven't been wondering what it would be like. To see better, hear better, be telepathic...and live forever. I mean, we could see the year three thousand. You know, the robot wars, colonizing other planets.... Come on, don't tell me you'renot even a little curious."
All Mary-Lynnette could think of was a line from a Robert Service Poem: Andthe skies of nightw re alive with light, with a throbbing, thrilling flame... .
"I'm curious," she said. 'But there's no point in wondering. They do things we couldn't do-they kill"
She put down her glass of milk as if she'd lost herappetite. She hadn't, though-and wasn't that the problem? She ought to be sick to her stomach at just the thought of killing, of drinking blood from a warm body.
Instead, she was scared. Of what was out there inthe world-and of herself.
"It'sdangerous,"she said aloud to Mark. "Don'tyousee? We've gotten mixed up in this Night World-and it's a place where bad things can happen. Not just bad like flunking a class. Bad like ..."
... white teeth in the moonlight ...
"Like getting lolleddead," Mary-Lynnette said. "And that's serious, Mark. It's not like the movies."
Mark was staring at her. "Yeah, but we knew that already." His tone said "What's the big deal?"
And Mary-Lynnette couldn't explain. She stood up abruptly. "If we're going over there, we'd better get moving," she said. "It's almost one o'clock."