She was sitting on the ground staring up at him, wide-eyed. The look on her face was so odd that he automatically lowered his arms and folded his wings against his back.

"What is it?" he asked. "What's wrong?"

"I - I'd forgotten that you flew to the park. Well, and from the park, too." She made a sound that could have been a laugh had it not sounded so choked. "That's stupid, isn't? How could I have forgotten somethin' like that?"

"I suppose you got used to seeing me broken," he said, trying to understand why she suddenly seemed so withdrawn from him.

"What fixed your wing?"

"The earth," he said.

"No, not now. It wasn't broken when we came out here. The pain you were filled with didn't have anything to do with that."

"Oh, no. I've been healed since last night. The pain was caused by the remnants of Darkness and what he did to my body."

"So how did your wing and your arm get fixed last night?"

Rephaim didn't want to answer her. As she stared at him with those wide, accusing eyes, he found himself wanting to lie - to tell her it had been a miracle wrought by the immortality in his blood. But he couldn't lie to her. He wouldn't lie to her.

"I called on powers that are mine to command through my father's blood. I had to. I heard you scream my name."

She blinked, and he saw realization flash through her gaze. "But the bull said you'd been filled with his power and not your daddy's."

Rephaim nodded. "I knew it was different. I didn't know why. Nor did I understand I was getting power directly from Darkness himself."

"So Darkness healed you."

"Yes, and then the earth healed me from the wound Darkness left inside me."

"Okay, well, good." She stood abruptly and brushed off her jeans. "You're better now, and I gotta go.

Like I said, it's tough for me to get away now that the House of Night is all freaked about a Raven Mocker bein' in town."

She started to walk quickly past him, and he reached out to grab her wrist.

Stevie Rae flinched away from him.

Rephaim's hand dropped instantly to his side, and he took a step away from her.

They stared at each other.

"I gotta go," she repeated.

"Will you return?"

"I have to! I promised!" She yelled the words at him, and he felt them as if she'd slapped him.

"I release you from your promise!" he yelled back at her, angry that this small female could cause such turmoil within him.

Her eyes were suspiciously bright when she said, "It's not you I promised - so you can't release me."

Then she swept past him, her head turned away so he couldn't see her face.

"Do not return because you have to. Return only because you want to," he called after her.

Stevie Rae didn't pause and didn't look back at him. She simply left.

Rephaim stood there a long time. When the sound of her car faded away, he finally moved. With a cry of frustration, the Raven Mocker ran and then launched himself into the night sky, beating the cold wind with his massive wings and heading up, up to find the warmer thermals that would lift him, hold him, carry him anywhere - everywhere.

Just away! Take me away from here!

The Raven Mocker swooped to the east, away from the direction Stevie Rae's car had taken - away from Tulsa and the confusion that had entered his life since she'd entered his life. Then he closed his mind to everything except the familiar joy of the sky, and flew.

Chapter Nineteen

Stark

"Yeah, I'm listening to you, Aphrodite. You want me to memorize that poem." Stark spoke to her through the helicopter's headsets, which he wished he knew how to shut off. He didn't want to listen to her run her mouth; he didn't want to talk to Aphrodite or to anyone. He was totally preoccupied with turning over and over in his mind his strategy for getting himself and Zoey on the island. Stark stared out of the window of the helicopter, trying to see through darkness and fog for a first glimpse of the Isle of Skye where, according to Duantia and just about the entire High Council, he was going to meet his certain death sometime in the next five days.

"Not that poem, idiot. That prophecy . I wouldn't ask anyone to memorize a poem. Metaphor, simile, allusion, symbolism . . . blah . . . blah . . . ugh. It makes my hair hurt thinking about all that crap. Not that a prophecy sucks any less, but it is - sadly - important. And Stevie Rae has a point about this one. It does read like a confusing poetic map," Aphrodite said.