“I figured out how Hugh teleports,” I said between bites. “He wears an emergency vial of water around his neck. He breaks it and the water wets his skin, he says a power word, and it teleports him to the water’s source. Once the process begins, you go ethereal for a few seconds from start to finish. He teleports only as a last resort—if the tech hits during transit, he’s toast.”

“Good to know.”

“Was Gene’s invitation a setup?”

Curran shrugged. “I don’t know. But when we get back, I’m planning on asking him. He is our guest at the Keep.” The way he said “guest” didn’t bode well for Gene.

“What happened after I left?”

Curran leaned against an overturned chair. “I chased Hugh across the field, but he teleported before I could get to him. I got his horse. You want it?”

“His Friesian? No thanks. It looks pretty, but they don’t make the best riding horses. Did they tell you I rode a giant donkey?”

He blinked. “You what?”

“A giant black-and-white donkey. She was like twelve feet tall and bad tempered. I left her in the Keep’s stables. I’d rented her from a livery stable, so we may have to buy her now, because of all the time that’s passed. Her name is Cuddles.”

He struggled with it for a minute. “Sometimes hunger has strange side effects . . .”

“No, I was there,” Robert said, his eyes still closed. “I’ve seen Cuddles. Long ears.”

Curran’s eyes widened.

“If we get out of here, I’d like to keep her,” I told him.

“If you finish eating this food, I’ll get you a whole herd of giant donkeys.”

“That’s the strangest bribe I’ve ever heard of,” Robert said.

“I don’t want a herd. I just want one.” I ate more of Doolittle’s paste. “What are you going to do with Hugh’s Friesian?”

“I don’t know. Hell, I might keep it. I’ll walk it around like a dog on a leash.”

I laughed. “You hate horses.”

“No,” Curran said. “I don’t trust them. There’s a difference.”

“So what else happened after I went poof?”

“Then I had a problem,” he said. “You were gone, Hugh had disappeared, and Ghastek vanished, too. The People were screaming bloody murder and running back and forth. Jim told me about Brandon and his water trick. I needed more information and I wanted to know what inside Brandon made him so stupid that he would do this, so I opened Brandon’s stomach and pulled his guts out while Jennifer watched. I told her that if she moved an inch, I would do things to her that would make what I was doing to Brandon seem civilized and kind.”