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We broke into a run, exhaustionup puffs of black dust A minute later e stopped for breath, the view had cleared A shroud of greenishwall of white stone, and beyond that, a high pale tower, the top of which was lost ahts’ fortress There was an unsettling blankness about it, like a face with its features wiped clean There was a wrongness about its place bizarrely with the burned-over waste of S center plopped in the ed me with dread and purpose, as if I could feel all the disparate strands of le point, unseen behind those walls That’s where it was: the thing I was supposed to do--or die trying The debt I had to pay The thing for which all the joys and terrors ofhappens for a reason, hing I gave her a baffled look and she co?" she said by way of explanation

"It would seem so," Addison said "Do you find that huhts Across all those years, I can’t tell you how ined the moment we’d finally find their lair, their den I’d expected at the very least a foreboding castle Walls dripping with blood A lake of boiling oil But no"

"So you’re disappointed?" I said

"I aly at the fortress "Is that the best they can do?"

"I’m disappointed, too," said Addison "I hoped at least we’d have an arside us But from the looks of it, perhaps on’t need one"

"I doubt that," I said "Anything could be waiting for us on the other side of that wall"

"Then we’ll be ready for anything," Emma said "What could they throw at us that we haven’t faced already? We’ve survived bullets, bo, hollow attacks… The point is, we’re finally here, and after all these years of theht to the in their boots," I said

"I’ to find hi for his worthless life, and then I’ to put both hands around his neck and squeeze until his head et ahead of ourselves," I said "I’ between us and hiuards probably"

"Maybe even hollows," Addison said

"Definitely hollows," said E," I said, "I don’t think we should stor for us on the other side We may only have one chance at this, and I don’t want to throw it away"

"Okay," said Eest?"

"That we find a way to sneak Addison inside He’s the least likely to be noticed, sot the best nose He could do recon, then sneak out again and tell us what he found That is, if he’s up for it"