IZABEL
Izabel bolted awake on the sofa, sitting up with a yelp. Lucas had been curled asleep
beside her. He leapt away, yowling.
The TRUTH stone had fallen from her hand while she was asleep. It lay on the floorboards,
glimmering in the rapidly dimming light from outside. Slowly, she leaned over and
picked it up, her brain feeling too full and her movements deadened with the cold
feeling she vaguely recognized as clinical shock.
A whisper came out of her mouth, almost on its own: “I remember.”
Once she could get up, she walked—slowly—into the kitchen, the stone clutched tightly
in her hand. She had a laptop, but didn’t use it for much of anything except looking
up work-related stuff. After all, she had no one to write to. Most of the people
around here weren’t too keen on techno
