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He was staring at me as if I were a half-dried blob of old clay that he was supposed to be molding into a work of art.

“I’m done. I’m going back and eating breakfast. Come find me when you can act civilized.”

He grabbed my arm, stopping me from leaving.“You think being civilized is going to save you? Save the people in Nowhere? Herrick didn’t believe the Kradix could gain their former power and strength. It’s the only reason he’s left a lot of these people alone. He thought he could just wait for us to die off and then sweep in with no mess or effort. Now he’s going to come with everything he has, and he’s going to try to kill off our entire race. I thought you wanted to fight, but I guess not. So yes, go be civilized.” He dropped his hand and waved toward the direction of the house.

“Why did you even save me? You should’ve left me at Herrick’s if everything was going to be my fault.”

“Because I got you into this, and I couldn’t leave you for dead. Not because I thought it was a smart move. Now you need to step up before all hell breaks loose. We can’t afford fear. Now you’re going to hit me again, and then again, until you figure out what you need to do.”

He wasn’t screaming, but he might as well have been. The words couldn’t have stung worse. If I didn’t figure this out, we were dead. We were all dead.

“Okay. I’m going to figure this out.”

“Good. Now let’s try again.”

Chapter Nine

I cut my meat with shaky hands, every muscle screaming in exhaustion from the workout I’d gotten, while Marina and Chelsie stared at me and Kaden across the dinner table. They looked at us as if we were unicorns that had wandered into their midst.

I smiled,trying to encourage them to think of us, or at least me, as a normal human. Kaden seemed oblivious, but then again, he had probablyneverbeen normal, so this treatment wouldn’t throw him. He’d probably be more alarmed if they did speak to him.

“So you were, like, an everyday person before?” Marina said, seeming encouraged by my repeated smiles.

“Marina, you don’t ask those kinds of questions,” Luisca said.

“It’s okay. I don’t mind talking about it.” It was the opposite, in fact. Maybe they wouldn’t look at me as if I were scary if they spoke to me. “I was a completely ordinary girl growing up. It wasn’t until I met Kaden that I knew anything different even existed.”

“But how did you go from that to full-blooded Kradix?” Chelsie asked, and then leaned in, waiting for every nitty-gritty detail.

This was a little trickier to explain than I’d expected, since I wasn’t quite sure how I became what I was. Kaden glanced at me as if to say,You asked for it.

“Well, first I became a tinker. That didn’t seem to take too much work. I guess I always had some ability in me somewhere.” I looked at Kaden, not really sure myself.

“Yes. That was there,” he said, and then went back to eating.

Yeah, he wasn’t a whole lot of help. Did he not realize talking to them would make him more approachable? Of course he’d have to care about being approachable.

“Then what happened?” Marina said, and both girls leaned as close as they could. If the table wasn’t there, they might have climbed onto my lap, the intrigue thick in their stares.

“Well, after that, Kaden marked me. He didn’t think it would take as well as it did, but that got me almost to full Kradix. But I was still missing a sliver.” I glanced to my side, waiting to see if Kaden would kick in any details. He was happily eating, oblivious to any need to contribute.

“Wow. Then what?” Marina was about to fall off her chair.

“The rest was fixed by eating a seed.” That part sounded a little ridiculous, but it was true, so…

Chelsie turned to Luisca. “Mama, can you eat a seed?”

“It doesn’t always work. Billie was almost fully transitioned. If I took it, it could be dangerous.”

“Is it dangerous?” Marina asked as both girls’ heads swung back to me.

“What happened when you took it? Was it scary? Did it hurt?” Chelsie said.

Was it dangerous? I glanced at Kaden again.

He nodded and gave me a bittersweet smile that silently screamed,You didn’t bother asking.

Good thing that turned out okay. It was probably better I hadn’t known. “I didn’t really feel much of anything other than completing the change.”