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I kicked one in the head by accident With a grunt it ca that if I ran it would only chase ister me--but as neither a threat nor a potentialeach foot with care until I had passed the carpet of hollows and reached a wall Here the tunnel ended The way out was above rate and that cluttered roo the chute, but they were spaced too far apart, built for hollows’ acrobatic tongues, not huht far overhead, hoping a friendly face ht appear there, but I dared not shout for help

In desperation I ju for the first hold Somehow I reached it Pulled round (How had I done that?) I juain and reached the next hold--and the next one I was cliher andfarther than I kneas possible--this is insane--and then I was at the top, pokinghard

I looked around, saw Eht, and ran toward it across the cluttered floor I tried calling out but couldn’t seem to make the words No lass door, in the office Warren was on this side, tied to the chair Miss Glassbill had sat in, and when I caroaned fearfully and knocked himself over Then their faces were at the door, suspicious and peering--Erine and Horace, and behind them other ymbrynes and friends, too All there, alive, beautiful They had been freed from their cells only to be imprisoned once more in here, locked behind Caul’s bohts (for now) but trapped

Their expressions were fearful, and the closer I got to the glass door, the more terrified they becaht, and my friends jumped back

It’s lish was a husky snarl and three long, fat tongues, waving in the air before me, spat from my own mouth in my attempt to speak And then I heard one ofthat had just occurred to me:

"It’s a hollow!"

I’m not, I tried to say, I’m not--but all evidence was to the contrary I had somehow become one of them, been bitten and turned, like a vaod oh god oh god it can’t be …

I tried to reach out with nized as huues that reached out

I’

Emma swiped blindly atpain flashed through ain

Or rather, jolted by sudden pain, I woke back intoin the dark in the slack jaws of a sleeping hollow And yet I was still the hollow above, too, snatchingaway from the door I was somehow dually present in both my mind and the hollow’s, and I found now that I could control both--could lift my own arm and the hollow’s, turna word aloud, butit--without consciously trying--I had h its eyes, feeling through its skin) that it had felt, for a ti clear I was this fallible and broken-bodied boy, deep in a hole surrounded by groggy ht me down here in its jaws (it had so ht sleep for years), and they were sitting up now, shaking the numbness frome, quiet and attentive Semicircled around like well-behaved children at storyti for input

I rolled myself out of the hollow’s jaws and onto the floor I could sit up but was too hurt to stand But they could stand

Stand

I didn’t say it, didn’t even think it, really It felt like doing, only it wasn’tto their feet before , of course, and yet I felt a profound sense of cal into the purest depths ofdown all our ether--a collective reboot--had brought us into a kind of har me to tap into the unconscious heart of my power, as well as into the hollows’ minds at just the moment their defenses were down

And now they were s But how much could I do? What were the limits? How an to play

In the room above, I lay the hollon

He lay down

(They were all hes, I had decided)

I made the ones in front of roups now, the loner above and the ones beforeone raise a hand without the rest doing it It was a bit like asking just one toe on your foot to wiggle--difficult, not i of it The less conscious I was of trying, the easier it becained an action being performed