Page 76 of Aleko
“They’re all mine,” said Lia. “You can’t hurt them.”
“Little one,” said Anuket, throwing up her hands. “You can’t just go around collecting random Shifters. Those ones over there are seals. They don’t even match the rest!”
“I like those ones,” said Lia, sullenly. “They make me laugh.”
“Ugh,” groaned Anuket, as if Lia was completely useless.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Lia, urgently. “It doesn’t. You don’t have to talk to them after you’re done.”
“Iamdone! He’s dead. We’re done.”
“No!” wailed Lia, feeling the damn of overwhelming sadness breaking over her. “No, you have to. That’s the whole point. I have to fix everything. If I fix you then… Then I can be done.”
“You can’t fix me,” said Anuket.
“But you took Seth’s magic,” said Lia.
“Well, no sense in letting it go to waste. But I’d probably have to find and kill all of you if I wanted to get back what Adda stole.”
“All of us?” Lia faltered.
“Well, it’s been some number of years,” said Anuket. “The way humans multiply, I’m pretty sure the magic has spread rather far and wide. Taking your magic would just be a drop in the water pail.”
Lia gaped at her. “No! No, I need to fix everything. So I can be done.”
“Done with what?” demanded Anuket. “What are we fixing?”
Lia froze. “Everything,” she whispered. “I’m all wrong. I came out wrong. I make everything wrong.”
Anuket was staring at her like she was speaking gibberish. “Name one thing,” ordered Anuket. “One thing that you have done wrong.”
“I… I killed Pellos.” She didn’t dare look at Alex.
“No!” said Yazmin, sharply. “No, that was a lie. He isn’t dead.”
“But I shot him,” said Lia feeling uncertain. She shifted her hands nervously on the wand. Yazmin took a few more steps closer.
“Also a lie. That was Luca or Seth. Whatever you want to call him. He lied to you and he lied to Alex.”
Out of the corner of her eye Lia could see Alekos watching her with furious intensity and she could hear Hudson speaking to him in a whisper.
“I know...” Eliandra swiped tears out of her eyes. “I know I get confused sometimes about who is really here and who isn’t, but... I know... There was so much blood.”
“Oh, yes,” agreed Yazmin. “Yes, we’re still cleaning that up. Absolutely horrible. Pellos did get shot, but it was Luca. He shot Pellos because you and Pellos realized the truth—Luca was Seth Reda. He was on theStrumwolkethat night. You found that out, didn’t you?”
Eliandra choked on a sob. “Yes. Everything got so confused.”
“Yes, but Pellos is better now and he told everyone the truth. We know it wasn’t you.”
“He was shot,” said Eliandra. “How is he better?”
“Ah. Um. I’m sorry, I’m going to have to switch back to English for this part of the story. Some concepts don’t translate well.”
“We aren’t speaking English?” asked Lia feeling at sea.
“Um. No. But that’s fascinating. Do you hear everything as English or do--”
“Yazmin,” murmured Hudson.
