27

For the next three days, everything was an uncomfortable blur. For one, Anzi had let slip to Letti that there would be a gala or some such thing happening soon, not realizing that it would promptly send her into deep, long-lasting convulsions. Secondly, she was still diligently pretending she could sense no life in any of the dragon eggs whenever she and Bastien made their rounds. And there was the matter of Kai, who had unfortunately noticed there was something wrong with her and refused to leave her alone until she told him exactly what it was.

She couldn’t tell him, obviously. Couldn’t tell anyone. She had to keep this secret and guard it closely until she could figure out what to do next, until she figured out why she couldn’t expel the lingering dread that plagued her from morning to night. Was it shock at all the gruesome things she had learned over the last several days? Maybe that was what it was. Poisonous disappointment, the sinking of her optimistic ideals into a miry swamp