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I wondered how much of the change I saw in him now had to do with the dragon-presence being gone. With Black being only Black.

“Do you miss him?” I asked.

He blinked. His eyes grew even more intense.

“Who?” he asked, gruff.

“Coreq. The dragon presence.”

There was a silence. I felt Black think about my question, but I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. After a few seconds, he slowly shook his head.

“No.” He looked at me, his eyes strangely brighter. “Is that bad? I feel guilty saying that. I felt responsible for him for so long. I felt responsible for Coreq. I felt like I let him down for so many years. Like that fucked-up seer took him from the slave pens because of me. I held myself responsible. I thought he died and got put into that machine because of me… but now I can only feel relieved. I feelrelievedthat he’s gone. Is that fucked up?”

I only understood part of that.

He’d told me he and Coreq had been kids together in the slave pens in Thailand.

Black and Coreq met in the first slave holding area where Black got taken, only days after his parents sold him in India, or Tibet, or Afghanistan… or whatever country they’d lived in when they sold their only son into slavery. I’d never been fully clear on where Black was born, since Black had been so young when he left.

Also, it all happened on Old Earth, and some of the regions and countries had been different there, in terms of who owned what.

“India,” Black said, looking at me. “I was born in India, doc.”

I nodded.

Thinking about what he was really asking me, or telling me perhaps, about Coreq, I looked up at him again.

“I don’t think that’s fucked up at all, Black,” I said seriously. “I’m glad he’s gone, too. He got too much of you as it is. He stole too much of your life onthisworld. And it was never your fault he got taken in the first place.Yougot taken, too.”

“But I wasn’t butchered. Or made into a machine.”

“You could have been.” I tugged on the sleeve of his black tuxedo jacket. “Anyway, how is any of that your fault?Youdidn’t do those things. You tried to help him. You lived in a fucked up world, Black… and you were a child. You couldn’t possibly have done anything. You couldn’t possibly have saved him, or any of the kids who got taken. And you had no idea that seer would want Coreq more than he wanted you. You had no idea that Coreq had more of that dragon thing inside him than you did.”

Black nodded, frowning.

“So you still think I have some of that in me?” he asked.

I thought about that.

I’d sounded pretty sure when I said it.

Slowly, I nodded.

“I think you must have,” I said carefully. “I don’t think you do now. I think that’s all in Jacob Mulden now… or what used to be Jacob Mulden before he became Dragon. Just like I think all of that ‘Tortoise’ thing that was in me is now in his girlfriend, Nina.”

I studied Black’s eyes.

“I think that crazy seer went to that slave pen looking for some essence of the Dragon God specifically,” I added. “I think that essence is what drew you and Coreq to one another. I think he had more of it, which is why that seer chose Coreq over you. But you had some of it too, Black. I don’t think you could have absorbed Coreq like you did if you hadn’t. Also… that seer owner you had. Johan.Hesaw it in you. That’s why he put that dragon tattoo on your back, isn’t it?”

Black nodded to my words.

Something in his brow relaxed.

I could feel him agreeing with how I’d interpreted the memories he’d shown me.

I watched him replay those memories behind his eyes now.

I saw that crazy seer again, the one at the slave pens who first picked out Black, then Coreq, ignoring all the other seer children.