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“ ’Course he is.” Ivy sniffed. “Wouldn’t be up here otherwise.”
I gave Uncle Abner and his scavenger a wide berth.
When I was close enough, Twyla jumped up and threw her arms around me. “Can’t say I’m happy you’re here, but I am happy to see you.”
I hugged her back. “Yeah, well, I’m not all that happy to be here either.”
Uncle Abner took a swig of whiskey. “Then why’d you go and jump off that fool tower?”
I didn’t know what to say, but Sulla answered before I had to think of anything. “You know the answer to that, Abner, about as well as you know your own name. Now stop givin’ the boy a hard time.”
The crow flapped its wings again. “Somebody should,” Uncle Abner said.
Sulla turned and gave Uncle Abner the look. I wondered if that was where Amma had learned it. “Unless you were strong enough to stop the Wheel a Fate yourself, you know the boy didn’t have a choice.”
Delilah brought a wicker chair over for me. “Now, you come on and sit down here with us.”
Sulla was still flipping cards, but these were ordinary playing cards.
“Can you read those, too?” It wouldn’t have surprised me.
She laughed, and the sparrow chirped. “No, we’re just playin’ gin.” Sulla slapped down her cards. “Speakin’ a that—gin.”
Delilah pouted. “You always win.”
“Well, I’ve won again,” Sulla said. “So why don’t you sit down here, Ethan, and tell us what brings you ’round our way.”
“I’m not sure how much you know.”
She lifted her eyebrows.
“Okay, so you probably already know that I went to see Obidias Trueblood, this old—”
“Mmm hmm.” She nodded.
“And if he’s telling the truth, there’s a way I can get back home.” I was stumbling over my words. “I mean, to the home where I was alive.”
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“Mmm hmm.”
“I have to get my page from—”
“The Caster Chronicles,” she finished for me. “I know all that. So why don’t you go on and say what you need from us.”
I was sure she knew, but she wanted me to ask anyway. It was only proper.
“I need a stone.” I thought about the best way to describe it. “This will probably sound strange, but I saw you wearing it once, in kind of a dream. It’s shiny and black….”
“This one?” Sulla held out her palm. There it was. The black stone I saw in my vision.
I nodded, relieved.
“Darn right you do.” She pressed the rock into my hand, closing my fingers around it. It pulsed with a kind of strange warmth that seemed to come from inside.
Delilah looked at me. “You know what that is?”
I nodded. “Obidias said it’s called a river’s eye, and I need two of them to get across the river.”
