CHAPTER TWELVE

It was both a relief and a disappointment to find that being believed a murderer had so little effect on his social standing. His sister was right; no one but the Queen could judge a prince, and the Queen didn’t care.

Vaun abandoned the room of Meresin’s death. Samuel Sinol moved his wardrobe to a spare room without being asked. Vaun didn’t care about the room’s size or sparseness, so long as the bathroom suited. He intended to make the sofa of his new parlor his new bed, but to his surprise, being suspected of killing his lover didn’t stop others from inviting him to their mattresses.

The only occasion he saw his wife was when he returned home to bathe and redress, assuming she wasn’t out herself. She had not said much to him since he emerged from his bedroom. Vaun had never been one to break a good silence but every time they inhabited the same room he felt her eyes on him. She had lost some of her naïvety during the time of his mental absence and he found something severe residing in her gaze now, studying him with a care that bordered on obsession.

At first he thought her intensity was simply a form of fright. She believed he had killed Meresin, after all. But he realized quickly that it wasn’t fear he sensed in her; it was anger in the press of her lips and the gleam of her eyes. Anger and something else, something he either couldn’t place or didn’t care to think long enough on to recognize.

When he came home that particular late morning, she was sitting in the dining room taking her tea with sugared petals and cream puffs. The silence of the last week prevailed on his path to the hallway but her voice broke the tension like the snapping of the first bone in a long tumble.

“No ribbons lately.” The sound of her cup nestling not so gently back onto its saucer followed her words. “Has she run out of them?”

Vaun paused, one hand to the corner of the wall and one foot on the first step. Her words surprised him more than her voice itself: bitterness. It rang so crisp and familiar; how could he not have noticed before? The prince almost laughed, dropping his head back to look up at the ceiling rather than turning to look at her. “Either you have been drinking too much tea, or you have been spending too much time with my sister. Both can be utterly depressing habits.”

He didn’t see her expression but he imagined it to be some beautifully honest mix of anger and embarrassment. He took another step up when her chair crashed against the floor.

“Wait!” Her voice lost the strength of bitterness quickly; not all women could soak their souls in fury as absolutely as his sister. AviSariel floundered for a moment in search of something to offer, some way to keep them from returning to the silence. “Your mail,” she blurted out.

He turned to find her standing at her end of the table, pointing at the small pile of letters in the entry.

He nodded briefly. “I’ll have Sanford bring them to my dressing room.”

“One of them seemed important.” She strode toward him, or at least toward the letters. “The man that delivered it was a servant of Udaro’s.” She brushed a few letters aside to find the long, thin, black envelope. “He said Udaro wanted to deliver it himself but… well, with us residing in Vym, at the moment, he simply couldn’t.” She held it out to him.

Vaun felt much like a duster being lured with a glittering cigarette. He descended the step and leaned close enough to snatch the letter from her fingers. He opened the black envelope only to find a single, long card smeared in bright neon colors inside.

AviSariel stared at it, taking a step to his side to read it. “It’s just an address.”

The prince smiled. “It’s The Circus.”

“The Circus?”

“The most exclusive party in the Realm, princess.” He called for his valet and ascended the stairs. “You should get ready. We’ll leave at dark.”

A unified inhale and resulting hush met Grayc Illan Sanaro as she stepped into The Library. The only one who didn’t look up was the one she had come to see. She had been thinking about it for days, weeks, months, maybe even years. How does a woman ask for freedom?

She crossed the large room to stand beside the chair of Fay Dray Fen Vym. The princess didn’t acknowledge her in any way, so Grayc Illan placed the black envelope beside the woman’s tray of tarts. “Udaro felt it important to invite the Princess Fay.”

Fay put down her fork delicately and picked up her glass, pretending quite expertly that no one had spoken to her and no letter existed beside her pastries.

The silence of the room would have been unbearable if she hadn’t known such gawking before. She touched the back of Fay’s chair, wrapping her fingers around the high back and hearing the reverberating shock in the onlookers that filled the seats of this establishment. She bent over to speak softly near the princess’s ear, though many others were close enough to hear even the slightest of whispers. “I want a word.”

Fay drank from her cup before setting it back down.

“And I’ll have that word, with or without an audience.”

The princess was silent for another set of seconds before turning her eyes to one of the women at her table. “Clear the room.”

The Vym cousin blinked at the Lady of the province before hurrying to stand. The rest of the table followed and started for the door, and soon enough so did every other guest of The Library. The doors closed and Grayc Illan stepped away.

“You—”

“Let me go,” Grayc Illan whispered, the plea exhaled as though another voice spoke it deep inside her.

Fay turned her head, and with no one else to see, looked at Grayc Illan Sanaro.

“I have served decades, your highness. Have mercy and let me free of this shackle.”

Fay’s chair slid back but never fell and the princess stood, every bit of lace and layer of fabric in its place. “You think you have served long enough? Your debt is paid?”

“I never owed a debt,” Grayc Illan bit out before checking herself and looking down at the floor. “Please. You offered me freedom for my slavery, and I have paid.”

“Hardly. You’ve been playing around with my brother.”

“Princess—”

“Are you begging, Grayc?” Fay’s voice took on a curious tone and her skirts shifted as she stepped closer.

Grayc Illan stared hard at the floor. “Yes.”

“Then kneel.”

Her jaw clenched but her legs caved. “Please, Lady Vym, Princess Fay. Let it be enough.”

Fay smiled and buried her long, dark nails in Grayc’s black curls. “Enough?” She wrenched Grayc’s head back. “All your life someone has been trying to put you on your knees and today, of all days, you drop willingly?” She shoved her away. “I don’t think so.”

Grayc Illan clenched her teeth. “I’ll still work for you!”

“And what use would you be then? I gave you power, rat. Purpose. I took away your fear, your hesitation. You should be thanking me. You should be begging me not to give it back to you.”

“Fay, if you leave it like this it’s only a matter of time before Jacobi asks for Larc’s life. I can’t stall him much longer.”

The princess paused and something close to guilt fluttered across her features, there for a moment and then lost to the hard resolve of her high cheekbones and darkly painted lips. “Then don’t. If Jacobi Belholn tells you to kill Larc, do it.”

Grayc Illan stared up at the woman, eyes wide and heart taking a heavy beat that blurred her vision. “Princess—”

The princess returned to her seat. “If he tells you to hang yourself, you tie a good knot and climb up on that chair, Grayc.”

“Fay!”

“Be quiet,” the princess snapped and Grayc’s mouth closed though her jaw trembled. “Leave and never return to this establishment.”

Grayc wished she could slap the cruelty from the woman’s face. Wished she could rail, or fight. Instead, she silently rose to her feet and obeyed.

Even with the dust scare gripping Belholn, the residents of the High could not ignore the call of The Circus. Udaro always promised the best quality at his parties and it seemed that promise was enough for an entire province to gamble their lives.

The drums in Belholn reverberated throughout the Realm. Music thrummed from a converted warehouse in the Main, and by the time Vaun and AviSariel arrived, everyone that mattered in Belholn—and everyone not tied to Vym and Maggrin by blood—packed the floor. AviSariel looked her part, dressed in a full-length gown of vibrant fabrics and striking colors, with a corseted top and a skirt pushed outward by layers of blue tulle. Her hair had been piled high with a feathered fascinator seated among the gold tinted locks, and a veil curtained one blue eye. He wasn’t sure who had dressed her and might have suspected one of his own tailors if their contracts didn’t explicitly forbid such sedition.

Despite all of that fabric and color, it was not difficult to lose her in the mass of bodies that danced and shuffled through the warehouse. She stayed close until tempted by one of the naked beauties dipped in dust-laden sugar. The treat that coated their skin glittered by perfect design in the traveling, multicolored lights. She giggled nervously when invited to take a lick and Vaun lingered just long enough to see her lean in and run her tongue along the man’s dust-caked collarbone.

The prince spun through the party, moving from teacups that he pretended to sip to cigarettes that he pretended to smoke. Eventually, Vaun found himself near the heart of the room. With an arm extended blindly into the crowd he gave his cup away, sure that some eager hand would relieve him of it. Fingers tugged at his belt and he looked down to see a pretty woman dressed in skimpy bits of sapphire crouching on her heels in front of him. She smiled up with lips as eager as he imagined the hand that took his cup to be. She pulled his pants open and if she’d been any rougher about it he would have slapped her for creasing his slacks. A low rumble vibrated through his chest but not even the woman with her lips around his sex would hear it over the music.

There was another rumble, this one heard by all, and he wasn’t so prideful as to think it came from his body. His head tipped back with eyes already glazed and looked up at the piles of clouds that filled the high ceiling of the room. They swam with colors: peach, violet and yellow. They reminded him of AviSariel’s dress. The clouds rumbled again and the crowd below called out, arms stretched high as though begging a deity. Oh, what a kind god it was that had made those clouds. A streak of blue lightning struck horizontally across the pillows of color, splitting them open to pour forth their shimmering bounty. Dust fell like rain, sticking to cheeks, soaking into skin, making already frantic pulses race.

Greedy as they were, they stuck out their tongues and tipped their faces high, breathing in and swallowing down their fill. There was a moment of near silence, an inhale, and then a mewling groan of delight that sent the room back into the engulfing sounds of music.

When the first rain of dust touched his face and soaked into his skin, he turned his head away. The rush of his blood in reply to the rich dust reminded him of red hair.

Keeping his head down rather than turned up to embrace the dust fall, he couldn’t help but look at the sapphire woman. Not a friend or a lover, just eager and first to his belt. With the sort of bored sneer only a prince could muster, Vaun pushed her away and tugged his pants up. He didn’t bother with the buckle, stepping over her on his way to familiar faces.

AviSariel had been standing near the wall when the false clouds erupted. It was amazing how easily she could find his face in a mass of others. She watched for another heartbeat and then turned away, giving unheard apologies to the people she couldn’t help but bump into on her path to the exit. There were hands everywhere, eyes trying to meet hers, fingers reaching out to touch her. There was no space to shy away, for every direction only led her into contact with another stranger.

Holding her skirts up, she nearly fell through a pair of swinging doors and into a narrow hall. The doors closed and muffled the sounds of the party. She found herself drawing deep breaths of only slightly cleaner air. Everything tasted sweet now. Her skin tingled and when she closed her eyes she could still see Vaun standing there among his people, haunted by the feeling that he belonged with them in a way that she never could.

“Your grace.”

The familiar voice came from her side. AviSariel turned sharply. Grayc Illan stood with her back to the wall, dressed in a strapless black dress that showed off shins and heels. A bright yellow ribbon circled her neck.

“Do you feel well?” the rat asked and the princess disliked her even more for her concern.

“I’m fine.” AviSariel tried to snap but it felt foolish to be impolite in the face of manners. “Shouldn’t you be out there?”

Grayc Illan shrugged, her naked shoulder moving her loose curls. “I thought I’d wait until after the storm.” There was a stretch of quiet before she spoke again, voice raised over the pound of music through the wall. “I can send for a car to take you home, if you like.”

AviSariel turned away to hide the roll of her eyes. Of course Grayc Illan wanted her to leave, to go home and hide. She hated how tempting that offer was.

“Your grace, if—”

“Illan!” The music muffled the shout, but it echoed down the narrow hall nonetheless.

AviSariel jerked her gaze to the man striding toward them. A drawn hood shielded his face, but something about the set of his shoulders and the narrow of his hips seemed familiar. As he passed under a hanging lamp, his eyes shone like rubies in the depths of his hood.

Grayc inhaled sharply and pushed herself away from the wall. She darted for the door but the man closed the distance in a heartbeat, snatching the rat up by her hair and lifting her onto her toes.

AviSariel screamed, but she may as well have been a shadow. Grayc Illan struggled, pulling a dagger from some hidden pocket. The man’s hood fell back, revealing Addom Vym. He grabbed Grayc’s wrist and twisted; the blade fell from her hand with a crack. AviSariel gasped as he slammed the woman face first into the wall, crushing her between the metal and his weight. Her toes beat a frantic cry against the wall, like an answer to the drums beyond. He palmed her skull and slammed her head again; her struggles quieted.

“S-stop,” AviSariel whispered.

“Go back to the party, princess,” Addom Vym huffed, ignoring the way Grayc Illan tried to tear his fingers from her hair. She didn’t look afraid, not even now. Angry and flustered, but not quite afraid.

Her large, green eyes looked to AviSariel and the princess stared back. She couldn’t tell what the woman was thinking, what that look was supposed to mean, but she found herself taking a step back from the brutal scene. Then another. Why would Addom attack Grayc Illan? Was he going to kill her? AviSariel spared the rat one last look and some wicked little part of her wished he would.

She slipped through the doors and back into the party.

“Wait,” Grayc Illan ground out through her teeth just before he jerked her away from one wall to throw her into another. When she slumped to the ground she saw the knife she’d tried to pull on him. She reached for it only for his boot to stomp over her hand, grinding her fingers into the concrete.

“Where is she?”

She shivered at the calm of his voice and hissed back, “Who?”

He growled low and kicked the blade further down the hall before pulling her upright again by her curls. His knuckles smashed into her cheek, spinning her into the wall. She coughed red and sank to the floor, hands out and vision swimming.

“You think you can lie to me? I’m a Vym.” He grabbed her arm and hauled her up. “What did you do?”

She leaned into the wall, ankles wobbling on her heels. Her chest heaved with every breath and hot blood dripped from her face. She smiled despite herself, agony lacing through her features. “What have I done?” she whispered, and thought of such a long list of answers.

He grabbed her jaw and yanked her face toward his. Red eyes stared down at her. “I don’t care why you took her. Just tell me where she is. Tell me she’s still alive.”

It was tempting to say Larc wasn’t. He would kill her, wouldn’t he? It would be over. “There’s nothing to tell.” Grayc Illan coughed.

He laughed and it was an awful sound. Vyms were not laughing creatures. They had smiles that could steal souls but their laughter was almost purely reserved for the dying. “You’re playing a game you can’t win, rat. They won’t even find your parts when I’m done with you.” He jerked Grayc off her feet with his fist curled in her hair. She scrambled beside him as he dragged her down the corridor, clawing at his wrist, trying to pry his fingers free of her hair and ripping up trails of flesh with her nails. Her knees scraped against the wall and ground as she staggered. A metal door banged and he hauled her out into the night.

“Tell me where she is!” Addom flung her into the street, pavement tearing her knees. Grayc crumpled into a ball, sucking in shallow breaths. “Where?” he roared.

Grayc tried to focus on his blurred form, shoving hair from her eyes. “Vym…” Light flickered beyond him, a strobe of safety that never—never—wavered. She blinked, and it swam into focus. A streetlamp. It blazed, then dimmed, then shuddered out.

“Grayc—” Addom snarled.

“The light,” she exhaled in disbelief.

“Don’t—”

Her head jerked, following the flickering as more lamps dimmed. Down the length of the street, the enormous hanging globes of safety wavered, rallied, and died. In the distance, toward the Low, entire buildings vanished into the night. “Vym, the lights.”

Addom gazed into the nearing dark, eyes widening and mouth parting to suck in a gasp of disbelief. “That can’t be.”

“It’s a blackout,” she whispered in horror, crawling to her feet, heels long lost in the struggle.

“No,” Addom said, staring in a morbid daze. “The lamps never go out. Not in the Main. Not in the High.”

Because the lamps kept the swarms of pixies at bay. Kept the magic-soaked residents of the Main and High safe. Sometimes the lights flickered or failed in the Low, but the vicious bugs didn’t bother the rats much, with so little magic on their skin to be worth the bother.

Grayc watched the Realm be swallowed up one block at a time, then bolted for the warehouse. Addom shouted her name, but she flew through the doors, down a corridor, and burst into the full blare of The Circus.

She pushed her way through bodies, grabbing at shoulders to catch glimpses of faces, searching for one she knew, one that could help. Her body jerked to a stop when she saw his top hat bobbing along behind a group of heavily dusted dancers. She didn’t apologize when she shoved her way through them. She lunged forward to twist Udaro around. The man smiled down at her at first, still playing his role as ringmaster, but the grin gave way to shock and fury at the sight of her. He hurried her away from the center of the party and toward a vaguely quieter corner.

“Turn off the music!” she yelled at the top of her lungs so that he might hear. “The lights are going out. You have to evacuate. Get them back to the High.”

Udaro scrunched his face in confusion. “What?” he shouted over the music.

“Blackout!” Grayc Illan screamed.

He stared at her. Blackout. Pixies. The Circus. The gravity of it drained the blood from his face. “Run!” He pushed her in the direction of the exit and shoved his way toward the stage. Precious minutes ticked away until he cut the music and raised his hands.

“Ladies and gentlemen, The Circus is hereby post-poned. Exit the warehouse immediately and proceed to the High…”

Grayc Illan sneered as Udaro advised them not to take any dust with them, not to risk attracting the swarms, as if they weren’t all living beacons by now. She moved through the bodies, straining to see over those that were so much taller than herself and find him in the mess of others. The grim thought that most of these people were too dusted to understand the danger or find the exit struck her, but she couldn’t spare them the time that kindness would take. She could only push them out of her way and call his name louder.

Of course, he didn’t call back. He never did.

“Grayc?” AviSariel whimpered, probably more than a little surprised to see her alive. Grayc Illan wondered if the princess understood what was happening, what was about to happen.

“Where is he?” she shouted over the other voices that were finally starting to panic.

AviSariel hesitated before pointing toward one of the walls deeper in the room. The dim lights went out, plunging them into darkness. “What do I do?” the princess pleaded, her voice louder in the dark.

Screams started; not the shrill, excited screams of fright, but heart clenching cries of pain and terror. The crowd lurched, shoving in all directions, pushing toward the doors with new vigor, but it was too late. If they were screaming in that direction, then the pixies were already inside.

She grabbed AviSariel’s hand and pulled her along the wall, making their way to the couches arranged near that far corner. The swarms poured in through the front doors, frail wings beating in the thousands. She saw the shapes of them in the shadows, clouds of ill intent moving up the walls to lick at the magic. Soon they were everywhere, crawling over the floors, the chairs, and the tables. It wasn’t long before they found better meals in the guests, taking greedy bites from those magic-filled bodies slow to escape.

The crowd grew thicker around them as people fled toward the back, desperate to find another exit. They reached the couches but Vaun wasn’t there. A man so dusted he merely smiled at the screaming crowd lounged there, instead. His female companion stretched her arm high and watched in addled awe as a pixie wrapped itself around one of her fingers, gnawing at the tip with its sharp, little teeth. She didn’t flinch or panic even as blood began to drip down her wrist and the bone of her fingertip shone.

Cursing and slapping a pixie from her hair, Grayc Illan spun around. Her eyes strained in the dark. There were shapes of bodies everywhere and moving clusters of shadows in the air, dipping down to attack flailing limbs. She called out his name but the growing buzz of wings drowned out her voice.

AviSariel pulled at her arm, tugging her closer to the mass of bodies. “The door,” the princess wailed. “We have to get out.”

Grayc tried to let go of the other woman’s hand. AviSariel could try the door if she wanted, but even from here she could make out the shape of a pile of bodies clogging the entrance. People were trampling each other and attracting the swarms with their blood. They were everywhere now, nipping at every bit of flesh they could find. With her free hand, Grayc swatted them away. A few of their small, naked bodies broke against the force of her palm but there were always more.

She cursed AviSariel when she pulled at her again, almost knocking her over. This time Grayc pulled back, jostling the princess on her heels. “Go, if you want!”

AviSariel sobbed in reply and clutched Grayc Illan’s hand harder. She pushed on into the room along the wall, shouting his name over the sharpening screams. AviSariel screamed, too, when they stepped over a fleshless body on the floor. His skin had been eaten clean off his sinew with no clothing at all to get in the way. It took little time for Grayc Illan to realize that he had been one of the dust-dipped treats roaming the party.

The pixies crunched beneath their feet, so greedy for the mess of dust on the floor that they couldn’t be bothered to avoid their footfalls.

People ran blind in the darkness that had only grown as those swarms filled the air around them. Grayc pulled AviSariel along, fingers digging into the back of the princess’s hand when she staggered behind her.

“Where are we going?” AviSariel sobbed.

Grayc didn’t answer, running her free hand along the wall. The sounds of wings and wet carnage grew louder than the cries. Her fingers found a crack in the wall and her body jerked to a stop, AviSariel running into her from behind.

“Grayc?” The princess pleaded, frantically swatting away the bugs that tore out chunks of her skin.

“It’s here,” Grayc Illan assured, only realizing when she spoke that her lips were bleeding. Finding the doorknob, she yanked open the door and dragged out the brooms and mops stored inside. The tiny space was smaller than she’d hoped; room for one. She hesitated, then shoved AviSariel inside. The princess stared back, face shining wet with tears and blood even in the darkness, eyes wide with blind terror just before Grayc Illan slammed the door.

Her body curled against the barrier. She couldn’t run, even if she knew where to go. There was a chance someone might open the door if she left it. Her skin burned and she knew it was their teeth. She pressed her forehead to the door, trying to think while at the same time trying not to scream and run. Perhaps Vaun had already made it out. The door quivered and scratching filled her ears. At first she thought it was her own nails, only to realize the sound was getting louder and more frantic. Her arms skimmed the surface, prying pixies away where they clawed at the seams of the door. They could smell AviSariel inside, soaked in the finest vanity crafts the Realm had to offer. It was enough for the bulk of the bugs to ignore Grayc in their attempt to tunnel through the wood.

She cried out as she fought them off the door. Splinters of wood dug into her flesh, indistinguishable from the bites. As though the insects possessed a unified thought, most of the swarm abandoned their assault on the door and turned their fury on her. Grayc wrapped her arms around her head, trying to shield her face, and sank slowly to the floor.

AviSariel continued calling her name through the wood, voice trembling with sobs. She must be twice as frightened now that Grayc had stopped screaming. She should be. The world blurred and faded around her, and curiously, Grayc found herself thinking about trees. Tall trees, in a wood, with branches that blocked out all but thin slivers of daylight. Leaves shifted in a breeze. Grayc thought about running, her legs strong, her heart beating wild. Fury bubbled up inside her, because this wasn’t a thought. It was a memory, and it wasn’t even hers. Her last thought was being wasted on something gleaned from the mind of a wolf.

There came a stillness in which Grayc was certain she had lost consciousness, only it was that same certainty that told her it wasn’t so. The buzzing of wings grew quieter, almost distant. Battered wood filled her vision, bathed in a soft, white glow. She pulled back, frowning at her hands. They looked too bright in that gentle light, slashed with vibrant blood and gouged with splinters. The stillness broke, and something breathed deeply behind her. Grayc turned slowly and stared into the eyes of a wolf.

Its ghostlike body gave off a pool of light as it stood within arm’s reach, its large head swung toward her, eyes so icy a blue that they shimmered white. It tore its gaze from hers to tip its face high and howl. The cry was so loud that she covered her ears. Other wolves echoed the call of the first. One sounded as though it might be right outside the building while others were far away. The beast eyed her once more, almost as if it might speak, before it turned away with a snort. It prowled the perimeter of the room, snarling to keep the pixies crawling high up the walls. Some had fled out the doors, either full or ready to seek their meals elsewhere, while others lapped at the ceiling and watched the beast with cautious, beady eyes.

A group of people rushed into the warehouse, each wearing plastic suits with masks and carrying weapons she recognized as torches, the kind they used to fend off pixies around the Dust Factories out in the Ash. Flames burst forth, so bright it made her eyes ache. The fire curled in the air, growling like the beast that stood nearby.

“Grayc!”

Her eyes had closed against the painful brightness of the flames, and for a heartbeat she thought his voice was a hallucination. When his fingers found her face she opened her eyes. Vaun breathed heavily. Her vision swayed and for a moment his pupils sharpened and his eyes looked a shade of silver like the eyes of Evan Kadem himself. Before she could recoil, the hallucination passed and Vaun wrapped his arms around her. He pulled her up, his cheek bleeding from tiny, crescent cuts that trailed down his neck, but otherwise he looked well. Samuel Sinol lingered nearby, looking more than a little rumpled himself.

Vaun pushed her hair back to study her face. His fingers hovered over her torn skin, making their way down to her arms. She held them out to her sides, blood dripping in thick globs from her fingertips to the floor.

“The closet.” Grayc Illan swallowed and then coughed. Her voice was raw and foreign. “The princess is inside.” She gestured to the ravaged door and Vaun’s gaze followed.

Samuel Sinol crossed the space to examine the assaulted door before prying it open. The wood cracked and fell into two large pieces. AviSariel screamed and the light of the flames made her tears shine. It was absurd that a person could still look so lovely with her cheeks wet, her hair tousled, and blood smearing her skin.

It took more than a little effort for Samuel Sinol to coax the princess from her broom closet and when he finally did, she promptly fainted. It was probably for the best; the warehouse looked almost as bad as it had sounded. Somehow, the prince’s valet managed to carry AviSariel and all of her skirts with no sign of trouble.

Grayc Illan hadn’t realized that she, too, was being ushered out until she found herself looking back at the wolf. She could have sworn that it watched her go.