The sorting room filled with an awkward silence until a truck pulled into the delivery area.

“I have to get that,” Meg said.

“And I have to get to work.” He walked out the back door of the Liaison’s Office, then stopped. He didn’t want to go to Howling Good Reads yet, didn’t want to talk to Simon.

Meg had lied to him about not remembering the dream. It wasn’t that he’d thought she couldn’t lie. She was human after all. But he’d never thought she would lie to any of the terra indigene who had befriended her.

Was their friendship less valued now that there were more humans around? Or was he making too much out of things that weren’t important?

Too agitated to work, he headed for the Market Square to sit and think.

•••

The moment the deliveryman walked out the front door, Meg rushed to the back room and peeked out the door to make sure no one was around. Then she opened the door all the way and leaned against the doorjamb.

She had lied to Vlad—and had lied to Simon and Henry and Tess earlier that morning when they asked her if she remembered the dream. She remembered enough. More than enough.

She’d dreamed about making a cut, had dreamed so vividly she could still feel the razor slicing her skin. Prior to the cut, she had run her hands down her arms, down her legs. But the buzz hadn’t been in her arms or legs; it hadn’t been on her back or her belly. In the end, she laid the razor along the right side of her jaw and pressed the blade against skin. Then her dreamself had endured the agony that came before a cassandra sangue began speaking prophecy, had continued to endure the agony by staying silent. And that dreamself had seen something so terrible that Meg had flung herself on Simon to protect him, to save him.

She had bled in a dream and seen prophecy. Something bad was going to happen to the Wolves. Unfortunately, she hadn’t seen the prophecy, so she couldn’t tell anyone what was coming, couldn’t give a warning.

Were any of the other cassandra sangue who were living outside the compounds having similar experiences of seeing visions without making an actual cut? Hope was making drawings that, until that morning, had been a different way to reach the visions without cutting. What about Jean, who was living with a Simple Life family on Great Island? Was she sensing things now without cutting?