Too soon to cut, she thought as she went into the bathroom to wash her hands. And no point cutting now that the burning has gone away.
Returning to the sorting room, Meg set the decks of prophecy cards on the table and opened each box. She hesitated a moment, then retrieved the discarded cards from the cityscape box—the cards that identified Thaisia’s larger human cities. She even included the two sets of the more fantastical images. Last, she spread out the sheets of paper that held Hope’s sketches of the cards that should be included in this new Trailblazer deck everyone expected her to create somehow.
Hope’s sketches showed a mix of cards. Some were scenes that might be taken as a whole or be relevant because of one image, and some were images of things. Was that mix already in the decks? She hadn’t really given the cards a proper look the last time she’d touched them.
Meg wasn’t sure how long she’d been staring at the decks, feeling overwhelmed even before she began looking at images, when she realized she wasn’t alone. She looked up at the big man standing on the other side of the table.
“Henry?”
“You sighed. I wondered what was wrong.”
“You heard me sigh?” She looked toward the open window. She and her friends hadn’t considered that anyone might overhear them when they talked in this room, especially since they usually spoke quietly to avoid Nathan eavesdropping from the front room.
“I was working outside and heard you. Jake heard you from his perch on the wall. And Nathan heard you. It was a loud sigh.”
She hadn’t thought her sigh had been that loud, but all the Others had excellent hearing, so it could have sounded loud to them.
“Reading the newspaper bothers me,” she admitted.
“This is recent?”
She nodded. “Every time I read about the HFL movement or something Nicholas Scratch said, my skin prickles or burns. I’m trying not to cut. I really am.”
“That Nicholas Scratch and the HFL humans are trouble. You don’t need to cut to tell us what we already know.” Henry gestured to the decks of cards. “And those?”
“I don’t know what I’m doing with these cards. I don’t know how to combine images from these decks to make one that will be useful to cassandra sangue. What if I leave out something that another girl needs but isn’t significant to me?”
Henry pursed his lips. The scar on the right side of his face still looked raw and painful, a daily reminder of the HFL’s agenda where the Others were concerned.
“Why do you need to know right away?” he finally asked.
“So that other girls can use the cards instead of cutting.” Other girls. Was she that addicted to cutting that she didn’t want an alternative? No. Cutting would kill her in the end. She could—would—learn how to use the cards for her own sake as well as that of other blood prophets.
“First you learn the nature of a thing,” Henry said. “We have a teaching story among the Beargard. A young bear is hungry. He goes to the river looking for fish. He waits by the river for days and days until he is weak with hunger, but there are no fish. Why?” Henry looked at her expectantly.
“I don’t know this story. I don’t know why there are no fish.”
“He arrived too soon. If he had learned the nature of the fish that spawned in that river, he would have looked for other things to eat and come to the river at the proper time.” Henry gave her a careful smile. “Look. Learn. Then you will find what you need.”
Meg sighed.
“Arroo?” Nathan queried from the front room.
“She is fine, Wolf,” Henry said. Then he gave her a long look. “Are you fine, Meg?”
She touched one of the decks. “The cards might reveal an answer to a question, but using them doesn’t produce the euphoria. Using them doesn’t feel as good as cutting.”
“Until you learn their nature, how do you really know that is true?”
She didn’t have an answer, but she did have a question. “Henry? Are the bison going to roam around the Courtyard?”
“The two males have been taken to the Chambers. The fences should keep them from roaming beyond the Sanguinati’s part of the Courtyard. The females are grazing where they will. Why?”
“They’re going to get bigger.”
“Much bigger.”
“Do they chase things?”
At first she thought he was amused. Then he said, “Ah. The BOW.”
“Sometimes a deer is in the road when I’m making deliveries, but it moves out of the way. I don’t think a grown-up bison needs to move out of the way of much.” Merri Lee had promised to check Howling Good Reads and Ruth said she would check the Market Square Library for information about bison. Mostly they were concerned that the new residents would devour the kitchen gardens. Meg wondered how bison felt about a Box on Wheels that chugged along on the Courtyard’s roads.
“I will give you an answer when I have one,” Henry said.
When he left, Meg moved over to the window but kept out of sight. She heard the wooden gate open and close, heard footsteps on the path. But they stopped before Henry reached his studio because Jake cawed, announcing that a truck had pulled into the delivery area.
On impulse, Meg opened a random deck of cards. Unsure how to shuffle cards, she fanned them out in one hand with the images facedown. Picking a card, she turned it over.
Basket of ripe apples, looking so . . .
Rotten. Wormy.
Meg blinked. No. The card showed a basket of ripe, unblemished apples—a delicious harvest.
The office door opened. She heard Nathan scramble off the Wolf bed to meet the deliveryman at the counter.
Meg dropped the cards and hurried into the front room.
“Hi, Harry.”
“Miz Meg.”
Harry’s voice. Worn. Drawn. “Is something wrong?”
“Got a package here for Miz MacDonald. Says to keep it cool.”
“Harry?”
Nathan stood on his hind legs, resting one front paw on the counter.
“Might not be making deliveries much longer.” Harry lowered his voice and leaned toward Meg. “There’s been talk about Everywhere Delivery becoming Everywhere Human Delivery.”
“Arroo?” Nathan asked at the same time Meg said, “What are you going to do?”
“Hand in my notice; that’s what I’ll do,” Harry replied hotly. Then he looked over his shoulder, as if afraid of being overheard. “Course, I don’t know what the wife and I will do without my paycheck, but I’ve also heard talk that if you’re fired for being a Wolf lover, you forfeit your pension, what there is of it. So I would rather resign and get what money I can. But that means you might have some trouble getting deliveries. And something like this”—Harry tapped the box—“might not arrive before it spoils.”
Meg thought about the prophecy card and shivered.
“Arroo?”
“I’ll tell Mr. Wolfgard what you said.” Meg stepped back from the counter. “Thanks, Harry.”
“You take care.” Harry looked at Nathan. “Both of you.”
Meg pressed both hands against the Private door’s frame and waited until Harry drove away. Then she focused on Nathan, clenching her teeth to keep from biting her tongue to relieve the buzz and burn. “Get Henry.”
Nathan cocked his head.
“Something is wrong with that box.” She didn’t dare unclench her teeth to speak clearly. “Get Henry. Get Tess.”
Nathan howled.
Running through the sorting room and back room, Meg clawed at the back door until she finally got it open and bolted outside.
“Meg?” Pete Denby ran down the stairs from his office and caught her as her legs gave out. He half carried her to the stairs, sat her down, and gently pushed her head between her knees.
“Meg?” Tess’s voice, as sharp as a razor.
“Package. Something bad,” Meg mumbled. “Tongue burning.”
“What does that mean?” Pete asked.
“That means you don’t let her out of your sight.” Tess went into the Liaison’s Office.
“Are you cut?” Pete patted Meg’s shoulder. “Did you see something?”
“Heard a truck. Picked one of those prophecy cards from a deck. Saw rotten apples, but the picture was of a basket of ripe apples.”
“Gods. Okay. How’s your tongue now?”
Meg raised her head. “Better.”