Galen shut his eyes, looking dizzy. "I'm sorry. But when I saw you-I couldn't let you die...."
"I'm expendable. I don't know who you are, but I'm willing to bet you're expendable. The only one here who isn't expendable is her." Keller jerked a thumb at Iliana, who lay in a pool of pale silver-gold hair on the seat beside Galen. "And if you think that dragon isn't going to come back and try to get her again, you're crazy. I'd have died happy knowing that I'd gotten rid of him."
Galen's eyes were open again, and Keller saw a flicker in them at the "don't know who you are."
But at the end, he said quietly, "I'm expendable. And I'm sorry. I didn't think"
"That's right! You didn't! And now the whole world is going to suffer."
Galen shut up and sat back.
And Keller felt odd. She wasn't sorry for slapping him down, she told herself. He deserved it.
But his face was so pale now, and his expression was so bleak. As if he'd not only understood everything she'd said but expanded on it in his own mind. And the look of hurt in his eyes was almost insupportable.
Good, Keller told herself. But then she remembered the moment she'd spent inside his mind. It had been a sunlit place, warm and open, without dark corners or shadowed crevasses. Now that would be gone forever. There was going to be a huge black fissure in it, full of horror and shame. A mark he would carry for the rest of his life.
Well, welcome to the real world, Keller thought, and her throat tightened and hurt. She stared out the window angrily.
"See, it's really important that we keep Iliana safe," Winfrith was saying quietly to Galen. He didn't ask why, and Keller had noticed before that he hadn't asked why Iliana wasn't expendable. But Winnie went on telling him anyway. "She's a Wild Power. You know about those?"
"Who doesn't these days?" He said it almost in a whisper.
"Well, most humans, for one thing. But she's not just a Wild Power; she's the Witch Child. Somebody we witches have been expecting for centuries.
The prophecies say she's going to unite the shape-shifters and the witches. She's going to marry the son of the First House of the shapeshifters. And then the two races will be united, and all the shapeshifters will join Circle Daybreak, and well be able to hold off the end of the world at the millennium." Winnie finished out of breath. Then she cocked her strawberry-blond head. "You don't seem surprised. Who are you, guy? You didn't really say before."
"Me?" He was still looking into the distance. "I'm nobody, compared to you people." Then he gave a little wry smile that didn't reach his eyes. "I'm expendable."
Nissa caught Keller's eye in the rearview mirror, looking concerned. Keller just shrugged. Sure, Winnie was telling this expendable guy a lot. But it didn't matter. He wasn't on the enemy side; and anyway, the enemy knew everything Winnie was saying. They had identified Iliana as the third Wild Power; the dragon proved that. They wouldn't have sent him if they hadn't been sure.
But still, it was time to get rid of this interfering boy. They certainly couldn't take him to the safe house where they were taking Iliana.
"Nobody tailing us?" Keller said.
Nissa shook her head. "We lost them all miles ago."
"You're sure?"
"Dead certain."
"Okay. Take any exit, and we'll drop him off." She turned to Galen. "I hope you can find your way home."
'I want to go with you."
"Sorry. We have important things to do." Keller didn't need to add, And you're not part of them. "Look." Galen took a deep breath. His pale face was strained and exhausted, as if he'd somehow lost three days' sleep since he'd gotten into the limo. And there was something close to desperation in his eyes. "I need to go with you. I need to help, to try and make up for what I did. I need to make it right."
"You can't." Keller said it even more brusquely than she meant to. "You're not trained, and you're not involved in this. You're no good."
He gave her a look. It didn't disagree with anything she'd said, but somehow, for just an instant, it made her feel small. His greeny-gold eyes were just the opposite of the dragon's opaque ones. Keller could see for miles in them, endless light-filled fathoms, and it was all despair. A sorrow so great that it shook her. She knew it must be costing him a lot to show her that, to hold himself so open and vulnerable. But he kept looking at her steadily.
"You don't understand," he said quietly. I have to help you. I have to try, at least. I know I'm not in your class as a fighter. But I..." He hesitated. "I didn't want to say this-"
At that moment, Iliana groaned and sat up.
Or tried to. She didn't make it all the way. She put a hand to her head and started to fall off the seat. Galen steadied her, putting an arm around her to keep her propped up.
"Are you all right?" Keller asked. She leaned forward, trying to get a look at the girl's face. Winnie was leaning forward, too, her expression eager.
"How're you feeling? You're not really hurt, are you? You just fainted from the shock."
Diana looked around the limousine. She seemed utterly confused and disoriented.
Keller was struck again by the girl's unearthly beauty. This close, she looked like a flower, or maybe a girl made from flowers. She had peach-blossom skin and hazy iris-colored eyes. Her hair was like corn silk, fine and shimmering even in this dim light. Her hands were small and graceful, fingers half curled like flower petals.
"It's such an honor to meet you," Winnie said, and her voice turned formal as she uttered the traditional greeting of the witches. "Unity, Daughter of Hellewise. I'm Winfrith Arlin." She dimpled. "But it's really 'Arm-of-Lightning.' My family's an old one, almost as old as yours."
Diana stared at her. Then she stared at the back of Nissa's mink-colored head. Then her eyes slid to Keller.
Then she sucked in a deep breath and started screaming.
Chapter 4
Winnie's jaw dropped.
"You-you-keep away from me!" Iliana said, and then she got another breath and started shrieking again. She had good lungs, Keller thought The shrieks were not only loud, they were piercing and pitched high enough to shatter glass. Keller's sensitive eardrums felt as if somebody were driving ice picks through them.