I dreamed of sheep.
Lots of sheep.
SOMEWHERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NEXT DAY I REGRETTED that I had not eaten the food Amber had prepared.
But I was more thirsty than anything.
The fairy staff showed up once, and I told it to go away and be safe, speaking softly so no one would notice.
When I glanced back at the corner it had been in, it was gone again.
Chad taught me and the oakman how to swear in ASL and worked with us until we were pretty good at finger spelling.
It left my hands aching, but kept him occupied.
We knew that Blackwood was paying attention to us again when Corban stopped in the middle of a sentence.
After a few minutes he turned his head, and Blackwood opened the door.
The vampire looked at me without favor.
"And where do you suppose I'm going to find another cook for you?" He took the body away and returned a few hours later with apples and oranges and bottled water--tossing them carelessly through the bars.
His hands smelled of Amber, rot, and earth.
I supposed he'd buried her somewhere.
He took Corban away.
When Chad's father returned, he was stumblingly weak and had another bite mark on his neck.
"My friend is better at that than you are," I said in a snotty voice because Blackwood had paused, with the cage door open, to look at Chad.
"He doesn't leave huge bruises behind." The vampire slammed the door, locked it, and stowed the key in his pants pocket.
"Whenever you open your mouth," he said, "I marvel that the Marrok didn't wring your neck years ago." He smiled a little.
"Fine.
Since you are the cause of my hunger, you may feed it." The cause of his hunger ...
when I sent Amber away from her dead body, it must have hurt him.
Good.
Now all I had to do was get him to make a lot more zombies or whatever he wanted to call them.
Then I could destroy them, too.
I might weaken him enough that we could take him.
Of course, the nearest available people to become zombies were us.
He opened my cage door, and I had to think really hard about the present not to panic.
I fought him.
I didn't think he'd expected it.