“I wouldn’t know.”
Silence settled between them for a time, except for ambient sounds of rats scurrying, water dripping, and the soft hoot of an owl calling... She lifted her head.
“A blue owl,” she said. “I haven’t heard one of those in... years.”
“Are you a Rae?” he asked.
Turning towards him, she attempted to focus through the interference of the bars, but still, he was shrouded, nothing but a darker silhouette amongst shadows.
“You’re doing something,” she said, “to prevent me from seeing you.”
“How could someone do that?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “What manner of creature are you? Why are you here?”
“If you’re a Rae, why didn’t she just kill you?” he asked, ignoring her questions.
“She wanted to kill me, but she thinks I know something.”
“About the Enneahedron.”
She let out a long breath and then laughed.
“Something humorous?” he asked.
She smiled up at the iron bars overhead and the stone ceiling above that.
“For seven years I’ve been exiled, and now that I’m finally back, finally home, this is where I end up.”
She raked her fingers into her hair. The thick swath that hung over her forehead and fell across her brow was knotted and damp like dead dog fur. As she combed her fingers through it, smoothing it, it occurred to her...
Reaching into her shadow’s vault, she was greeted with nothing but emptiness. Her chest heaved around a sob. Lavana had taken her finger-knives. To have her weapons seized... she may as well have been a corpse.
“What is your name, shadow stranger?” she asked after a time.
He was silent, and she wondered if he had fallen asleep. If the blue owl was calling, then it must’ve been very late.
But finally he answered, “Kaelan.”
“Magda,” she said.
“And are you a Rae, Magda?” he asked.
She dropped her chin to her knee. “I was.”
“But you’re not anymore?”
“I haven’t been a Rae for a long time.”
“I didn’t know you could give up being a Rae,” he said.
“Apparently you can’t,” she said. “But I certainly tried.”
“You didn’t want to be a Rae?” he asked. Though his voice was soft, she could hear the skepticism, as if he thought she was lying for some reason.
“I wanted to be Radiant,” she said. “And then I was exiled. And I realized...”
Her chest hurt, wondering what had happened to Damion and Riker, if they were dead or had somehow managed to escape. And Kirk, where was he? At least, she guessed, Frank didn’t have to worry about her bringing him anymore trouble. For a strange moment, she longed for nothing more than to wake up from this nightmare and find herself tangled in her cheap, scratchy sheets on the tiny, hard mattress in her messy, ugly mobile home by the sea.
