I opened my eyes—my eyes, not the alien things in my hands—and saw the branches shaking deep in the dark. They were on the move again—the Nano-Ts—closer even than before. They were getting ready to strike; to do what they did best, which was to rend and kill. I shut my lids and refocused, feeling as though Time had fast forwarded, as though it had leapt ahead.
Show me, I thought. Show me now, or forever hold your peace. Show me or see us all join the choir of the damned!
And that’s when it happened: that’s when I saw it, the moment that had changed—still would change—everything. That moment Puck had skidded to a stop after surpassing our location and begun to c**k his head, and to tilt it quizzically; to look from the road to the tree line and sniff at the briny air—to bolt into the wood
