Page 37 (1/2)

"Where’s the fun in that? Surprises are much better"

"Tickles must’ve taken a fancy to you," said another "He chewed the legs off his last visitor!"

"That’s nothing," said a head with a shiny hoop earring like a pirate "Once I saw him tie a rope around a peculiar, lower him into the river for five minutes, then reel him up and eat him"

"Peculiar al dente," the third said, iourmand"

Not quite ready to stand, I scooted over a few feet to E her head, he tested his weight on an injured paw

"You okay?" I asked

"I knockedas I parted her hair to examine a trickle of blood

Addison held up a limp paw "I fear it’s broken I don’t suppose you could’ve asked the beast to set us down gently"

"Very funny," I said "Come to think of it, why didn’t I just tell it kill to all the wights and rescue our friends, too?"

"Actually, I ondering the sa"

"Well, I’m not," she said I dabbed at her wound with my shirt cuff She drew a sharp breath and pushed my hand away "What happened back there?"

"I think the hollow understood me, but I couldn’t make it obey I don’t have a connection with that hollow like I do--did--with the other one"

That beast was dead, crushed under a bridge and probably drowned, and noas a little sorry about it

"How did you connect with the first one?" asked Addison

I quickly recounted how I’d found it frozen in ice up to its eyeballs, and after a night spent in strangely intied to safe-crack soy

"If you had no connection with the bridge hollow," said Addison, "why did it spare our lives?"

"Maybe I confused it?"

"You need to get better at this," Eet Addison across"