been watching my brain?”
Perceiving is a better descriptive. I am uncommonly good at this.
“Is this perception like what a physical empath does?”
Closer to what one of your healers does. I need to observe that. I am not perfectly clear on the time frame, but since it will fall to me to—oh. You don’t know about that yet.
“About what?”
If you don’t know, I can’t tell you. There was a broody feel to his thoughts. This splintering of time can be disruptive. I am not accustomed to it.
Alarmed, she sat up straighter. “What splintering? What are you—does this have anything to do with—”
The troubles foreseen by your Ruben Brooks? Of course. Oh. You are thinking I meant that time itself splinters. His breath huffed out, hot and smelling of metal and spice, in what might have been amusement. No. I am newly arrived at . . . you lack a referent. It is the time when a dragon begins to grasp threads from not-now. It is a confusing period. Such threads are experienced much like memories, but they arrive tangled and before the events occur. Of course, “before” and “after” are poor constructs for out-time perception, but as usual, your language lacks more precise terms.
Lily blinked. “Are you talking about precognition?”
No, I do not manifest those threads the same way Ruben Brooks does. Not that you have the slightest understanding what he does, either, so there is little point in discussing it. You need to bring me your healer. Oh, and someone who is injured, also, so I can observe the process.
“I don’t happen to have a healer,” Lily said dryly. “You know about Ruben’s—”
I see. She is Rule Turner’s healer. I will tell him I require her.
Rule didn’t “have” a healer, either, but he had access to two. Nettie Two Horses was Rule’s niece, Nokolai’s healer, and on the other coast. The Leidolf Rhej was also a healer and was much closer. Leidolf’s Clanhome was in Virginia.
That one will do. I believe my observation of your brain is helping me untangle your muddy thinking. A definite tinge of satisfaction coated that thought. Why do humans all believe they are their thoughts?
“I don’t know. You know about Ruben’s visions.”
Why else would we ally with him? The wolves do not mistake their thinking for their selves, although they err this way when they are men. Li Lei, of course, has the advantage of having been dragon for a time, but I had thought that a human with a true name would know the difference. Yet you do not.
“Wait. Wait. You’re allied with Ruben?”
A contemptuous snort. We do not pass on his communications for the pleasure of reading your murky minds. If you could be a bit quicker to learn mindspeech . . . oh. A whiff of chagrin. You did not yet know that part. Not-now is very confusing.
“You—you’re how Ruben and his Shadow Unit communicate? You and the other dragons?” Of course. Dragons were the most undetectable communication device possible.
It is time for you to go.
“Mika—”
When a dragon says it’s time to go, he can make it so whether you agree or not. Mika scooped Lily up in his front talons and hurled himself skyward. His wings snapped up and out. The jolt from their first massive buffeting of the air was huge. So was the second. And the third.
The jolt of terror and memory was pretty huge, too. Lily had been carried this way across the plains of hell, sundered from everything, even her name, hurt and lost and terrified, unable to do anything but endure . . .
You are loud!
“Put me down!” she screamed with mind and voice together.
He did. He landed about twenty yards from a teeming horde of fourth- or fifth-graders and the outnumbered adults trying desperately to corral them, set her on her feet, and leaped skyward again.
The shriek level was ear-numbing. She could not let her wobbly legs give out on her. She had to go calm down the miniature civilians and . . . oh, shit. Not all of the screaming was from fear, and here came . . .
“Tawny!” screamed one of the adults. “You come back here right now!”
The pigtailed sprinter had long legs for her age and a head start on the heavyset woman in pursuit. Lily could see how that was going to work out and started toward the girl, calling out, “It’s okay. I’m, ah, a friend of Mika’s. He didn’t hurt me. It’s okay, everyone.”
The kid jolted to a