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"No, why?"
Kaye fumbled for an explanation. "There's supposed to be a bear on the loose."
"We're going to the Pier. Don't be weird. So are you coming?"
"No one should go. Janet, it really isn't safe."
"So don't go," Janet said. "By the way, have you seen my brother?"
Kaye's insides suddenly turned to ice. "Corny's gone?"
"Yeah," Janet answered. "Since yesterday."
Kaye couldn't help wincing. Corny was under the damn hill. She knew it. She looked desperately at Roiben, but he regarded her blankly. He couldn't hear Janet. He'd never even met Corny.
"I'll see you, okay?" Kaye said.
"Sure. Whatever. 'Bye."
She hung up.
"Who was that?" Roiben asked.
"Janet's brother is still under the hill… with Nephamael."
Nephamael's name made Roiben stop in his place. "More secrets?"
She winced. "Corny. He was with me that night… when I was a pixie."
"You are a pixie."
"He was there that night—the one when you didn't know it was me—and when I left, he… met… Nephamael."
Roiben's eyebrows shot up at that.
"Corny was totally out of his head. Nephamael hurt him, and he… liked it. He wanted to go back."
"You left a friend—a mortal—under the hill… alone?" He sounded incredulous. "Are you completely heartless? You saw what you were leaving him to."
"You made me leave! I couldn't get back in. I tried."
"I thought we were going to be honest with one another. What manner of honesty is this?"
She felt completely miserable.
"Do you know who Nephamael is?"
She shook her head, dread creeping over limbs, making her feel heavy, making her want to sink to the floor. "He… he's the one that put the enchantment on me and who took it off."
"He was once the best knight in the Unseelie Court—that is, before he was sent to the Seelie Court as part of the price for a truce. He was sent there, and I was sent to Nicnevin."
Kaye just stood, stunned, thinking about the conversation she had overheard between Nicnevin and Nephamael. Why hadn't she deduced that? What other meaning could there have been? "So Nephamael still serves Nicnevin?"
"Perhaps. It seems more likely that he serves only himself. Kaye, do you know who concocted the plan to sabotage the Tithe?"
"You think it was Nephamael?"
"I don't know. Tell me, how did your friends become aware you were a pixie when not even the Queen of the Unseelie Court could see through your glamour?"
