He lay on his blanket and stared at the flat sand. Beneath his head lay that book. There was something about that book. Oh yes, the thing about blood. Maybe using it for a pillow wasn’t so brilliant, with a cut on his head and all. But it was wrapped, wasn’t it? And his cut had probably stopped bleeding by now.

“Fellows—” he started, but then realized they weren’t fellows. They were both girls. But they would understand. He had to set the record straight, and he didn’t care whether they were fellows or girls. So he just told them what he felt.

“I’ve been an idiot,” he said in a dry voice.

Neither disagreed, and that hurt a little. They could have said something nice, like “Don’t be silly, Johnis.” But they were right not to disagree. He had been an idiot, hadn’t he?

“I don’t know what got into me. Trapped in the canyon like that, with the Horde coming down on us, what did you expect? I was probably fantasizing. And now we’re going to die because I fantasized two fuzzy white bats who told me to go off and save the world. I’m sorry, really. I was an idiot.”

They didn’t even look at him. They could at least look at him.

“Will you forgive me?” he asked, trying to ignore his self-pity.

But Silvie and Darsal just lay down on their backs and stared at the first stars, twinkling in the red sky. It is too early to sleep, Johnis thought, resting like a lump.

“What happens if we’re Scabs when we wake?” Darsal asked.

It took a while for Silvie to answer. “Then I’ll kill my first Scab,” she said. “You won’t mind, will you, Johnis?”

“You’ll kill me?”

“I’m sworn to kill Scabs, and you’ll be a Scab. I won’t have a choice.”

“Even if you’re a Scab?”

“Does that change my vow?” she asked.

Johnis thought about that. “I suppose if I’m a Scab, I’d prefer to be dead. Go ahead, kill me.”

Darsal faced him, wearing a scowl. “You see why all but the foolish understand that the legends are nothing more than ghost stories? Because pretending to see white and black bats when they don’t exist can get you killed. If I live through this, I’m going to remember that.”

“I’m sorry, Darsal,” Johnis said, and he really was. He wasn’t so sure he really had seen the Roush, or for that matter, the Shataiki bats. He had, after all, been accused of daydreaming more than once. What if it was all a mistake?

“I’m really sorry, guys.”

Johnis shifted his body on the blanket. Resting his head on the book in its cloth, he closed his eyes and let his mind fade. Darsal began to snore softly.