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I gather the blankets around me, clutching them against me, and sit up with as much modesty as I can manage.

“Where are we?”

Pestilence sits up next to me, and now it really looks like the two of us were up to some hanky-panky.

“In a house,” he replies.

Ask a silly question …

In the distance I hear hushed voices.

“No you can’t go out there.”

“But I’m hungry.”

“Is that really the horseman?”

“I want to pet his horse!”

“Go back to your rooms, both of you.”

Little feet pitter patter against the floor.

My stomach contracts.Children. That’s right. I rub the heel of my hand against one of my eyes, willing the last twenty-four hours to just go away.

Children. Under the same roof as Pestilence.

“Don’t let them die,” I whisper.

“Everyone dies, Sara.”

I close my eyes. Everything hurtsso damn much. My body, my heart, my mind.

They’re going to die.

I twist to face him, pressing the blanket close to me. It has racecars printed all over it. A little boy’s blanket, sacrificed so that I’d be warm. Sometimes it’s the little details that cut the deepest.

“Honestly,” I say, “that is the biggest load of horseshit I’ve heard from you.”

He squints at me. “Everyhumandies,” he amends, completely missing my point.

“It doesn’t mean they need to die today!” I hiss, trying to keep my voice down for the family’s sake.

“They won’t. They still have at few days yet.”

Suddenly I can’t look at him, and I can’t stand to be near him.

He’s going to kill children.Children.

Of course, he alreadyhaskilled children. Thousands upon thousands of them. But now the reality of it is being shoved in my face and I can’t stand it.

Wordlessly, Pestilence hands me a pile of clothes, undoubtedly something he swiped from the owner’s. This might just be the worst part of the whole thing. The horseman can think to collect clothes for me even as he lets his damnable plague killkids.

Pestilence settles back on his forearms, watching me as I dress, his eyes not quite as disinterested in my body as they were the last time he saw it.

I must be imagining things.

I finally meet his gaze. “Change your mind.”