Daria's POV

I felt it before it happened.

This friendship between Lucius and me--slim, cut, yet unbroken--was a nerve in a suture. There came a cutting pain down into my chest, and it made my breath go away. I cut off the bunch of herbs I was sorting, and put a hand to my heart.

"Lucius," I whispered.

Harriet flushed her eyes at me. "Mommy?"

He is in pain, I said--my voice was wavering. "Badly."

It was quiet in the forest about us, though there was a roar and a roar in my brain. Pictures hurled up to me, and pulled me away to other places, into stone walls and...