Opening the book, Tess studied the writing. “I can’t picture an adult using a pink book with gold stars, but this writing doesn’t look like a child’s.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Nyx agreed. “But female, based on the human handwriting I’ve seen.”
“Time to find out what it says.” Tess settled a hip on the teacher’s desk and started to read.
* * *
Meg dreamed she was a luscious cake and someone kept licking her frosting.
She jerked awake when Vlad said, “You’d better stop that before she catches you.”
Pushing herself upright on the sofa in Simon’s living room, she stared at Simon and Nathan, who were giving her an “I don’t know what he’s talking about” look.
The last time Wolves had given her that “too innocent to be believed” look was when she discovered empty containers stacked in a cupboard in her sorting room—containers that had been full of Wolf cookies when she’d gone to lunch that day.
“You two have had enough frosting,” she muttered.
“How are you feeling, Meg?” Vlad asked.
Placing her feet carefully to avoid stepping on toes or tails, Meg stood up and took stock. Stiff, sore, hungry. And she really needed to pee—and probably wasn’t the only one. “I’m okay. I need to use the toilet. Would you open the door so Simon and Nathan can go outside? When Jane looked at them last evening, she said it would be better if they didn’t shift at all for another day.”
“Sure. You need help going up the stairs?”
“No, I can do it.”
As she went up the stairs—one stair at a time since the bandaged knee didn’t bend well—she heard Simon and Nathan struggling to get to their feet.
Jane Wolfgard would be here to check on the Wolves and Henry. She would ask the Wolf bodywalker to suggest some quiet activities that would keep Wolves occupied while they recovered. And Dr. Lorenzo should be arriving soon to check on her. She really hoped she could convince him that the Others knew he’d taken good care of her and it was all right to remove the bandages and let her take a shower. It was, after all, just a cut.
Even the Controller, who had valued her skin for profit, hadn’t made this much of a fuss over her well-being. Then again, the terra indigene valued her more than they valued her skin.
You have no reason to feel guilty, Meg told herself. But she did feel guilty, and she dreaded the scolding that was bound to come now that things were quieter.
She would wait until Dr. Lorenzo and Jane had made their visits. And then, once Simon and Nathan were settled with a dish of food and some water, she would walk over to the other side of the Green Complex and visit Henry.
* * *
“Well,” Tess said a while later. “This explains why the HFL movement is still after the Lizzy. But I don’t think it’s sufficient proof that humans will do anything about it. They could say Elayne Borden made it up to cause trouble.”
“Would they have killed her if she’d made up what she wrote in the book?” Nyx asked.
“Truth or lie, it would have caused trouble,” Tess replied. “There are a lot of accusations here by a woman who wasn’t as important as she’d believed.” She might have felt a stir of pity for Elayne Borden if the woman’s judgment and actions hadn’t brought the trouble to Lakeside through the presence of the Lizzy. “Humans will say she wrote these things out of spite, or jealousy that the man who was living with her and making promises to her was also mating with other women. They’ll say she’s trying to discredit the HFL movement as a way to get back at him.”