"Thank you," she said, quietly, but in a voice thatshook slightly. "I think you probably saved mylife again."
"You were really thirsty."
"Yeah." She stood up.
"But when you thought there wasn't enoughwater, you were going to give it to her." He couldn'tseem to get over the concept.
"Yeah"
"Even if it meant you dying?"
"I didn't die," Maggie pointed out. "And I wasn'tplanning to. Butyeah, I guess, if there wasn't anyother choice." She saw him staring at her in utterbewilderment. "I took responsibility for her," shesaid, trying to explain. "It's like when you take ina cat, or-or it's like being a queen or something.If you say you're going to be responsible for your subjects, you are. You owe them afterward."
Something glimmered in his golden eyes, just fora moment. It could have been a dagger point ofanger or just a spark of astonishment. There wasa silence.
"It's not thatweird, people taking care of each other," Maggie said, looking at his shadowed face.
"Doesn't anybody do it here?"
He gave a short laugh. "Hardly," he said dryly."The nobles know how to take care of themselves.And the slaves have to fight each other to survive." He added abruptly, "All of which you should know.But of course you're not from here. You're fromOutside."
"I didn't know if you knew about Outside," Mag gie said.
"There isn't supposed to be any contact. Therewasn't for about five hundred years. But whenmy-when the old king died, they opened the pass,again and started bringing in slaves from the outside world. New blood." He said it simply andmatter-of-factly.
Mountain men, Maggie thought. For years there had been rumors about the Cascades, about menwho lived in hidden places among the glaciers andpreyed on climbers. Men or monsters. There were always hikers who claimed to have seen Bigfoot.
And maybe they had-or maybe they'd seen ashapeshifter like Bern.
"And you think that's okay," she said out loud."Grabbing people from the outside world and dragging them in here to be slaves."
"Notpeople.Humans.Humansarevermin;they're not intelligent." He said it in that same dispassionate tone, looking right at her.
"Are you crazy?"Maggie's fists were clenched; herhead was lowered. Stomping time. She glared upat him through narrowed lashes. "You're talking to a human right now. Am I intelligent or not?"
"You're a slave without any manners," he saidcurtly. "And the law says I could kill you for the way you'retalkingto me."
His voice was so cold, so arrogant...but Maggiewas starting not to believe it.
That couldn't be all there was to him. Becausehe was the boy in her dream.
The gentle, compassionate boy who'd looked ather with a flame of love behind his yellow eyes,and who'd held her with such tender intensity, hisheart beating against hers, his breath on her cheek. That boy had been real-and even if it didn't makeany sense, Maggie was somehow certain of it. And no matter how cold and arrogant this one seemed, they had to be part of each other.
It didn't make her less afraid of this one, exactly.But it made her more determined to ignore herfear.
"In my dream," she said deliberately, advancinga step on him, "you cared about at least onehuman. You wanted to take care of me."
"You shouldn't even be allowedto dream aboutme," he said. His voice wasas tense and grim asever, but as Maggie got closer to him, looking directly up into his face, he did something that amazed her. He fell back a step.
"Why not? Because I'm a slave? I'm a person."
She took another step forward, still looking at him challengingly. "And I don't believe that you're asbad as you say you are. I think I saw what youwere really like in my dream."
"You're crazy," he said. He didn't back up anyfarther, there was nowhere left to go. But his wholebody was taut. "Why should I want to take care of you?" he added in a cold and contemptuous voice."What's so special about you?"
It was a good question, and for a moment Maggie was shaken. Tears sprang to her eyes.
"I don't know," she said honestly. "I'm nobodyspecial. There isn'tany reason for you to care aboutme. But it doesn't matter. You saved my life whenBern was going to kill me, and you gave me waterwhen you knew I needed it. You can talk all youwant, but those are the facts. Maybe you just care about everybody, underneath. Or-"
She never finished the last sentence.
As she had been speaking to him, she was doingsomething she always did, that was instinctive to.,her when she felt some strong emotion. She had done it with P.J. and with Jeanne and with Cady.
She reached out toward him. And although shewas only dimly aware that he was pulling his handsback to avoid her, she adjusted automatically,catching his wrists....
And that was when she lost her voice and whatshe was saying flew out of her head. Because something happened. Something that she couldn't ex plain, that was stranger than secret kingdoms orvampires or witchcraft.
It happened justas her fingers closed on hishands. It was the first time they had touched like that, bare skin to bare skin. When he had grabbed her wrist before, her jacket sleeve had been in be tween them.
It started as an almost painful jolt, a pulsatingthrill that zigged up her arm and then sweptthrough her body. Maggie gasped, but somehowshe couldn't let go of his hand. Like someone beingelectrocuted, she was frozen in place.
The blue fire, she thought wildly. He's doing thesame thing to me that he did to Bern.
But the next instant she knew that he wasn't. This wasn't the savage energy that had killed Bern, and it wasn't anything the boy was doing to her. Itwas something being done to both of them, by some incredibly powerful source outside either of them.
And it was trying ... to open a channel. Thatwas the only way Maggie could describe it. It was blazing a path open in her mind, and connectingit to his.
She feltas if she had turned around and unexpectedly found herself facing another person's soul.A soul that was hanging there, without protection,already in helpless communication with hers.
It was by far the most intense thing that hadever happened to her. Maggie gasped again, seeingstars, and then her legs melted and she fellforward
He caught her, but he couldn't stand up either.Maggie knew that as well as she knew what wasgoing on in her own body. He sank to his knees, holding her.