“Hello, Alex,” Simber said without turning around.

“Hi.” Alex came up alongside the great cat. He sat down in the grass and leaned up against the gray stone wall. He looked out to the road that encircled Quill, to the very place where he stood with Simber when Quill attacked. A visit to the gate often conjured up strong feelings and vivid memories to those who passed through it. Alex shuddered as he thought about the other side.

“Arrre you cold?”

“No. Just remembering.”

They sat in silence for a while, Simber’s ears, eyes, and nostrils moving now and then.

“Can’t sleep?” A steady, low, rumble-purr added comfort to the night noises. “Orrr doing something else tonight?”

“I haven’t felt like doing much of anything lately,” Alex said, surprising himself’he hadn’t voiced that feeling before, but such was the power of the gate. “Not since . . . you know. Since that whole attack in Justine’s palace.”

Simber nodded.

Alex waved away a mosquito that had strayed in from Quill. “That was really hard, you know?”

“I rrrememberrr,” Simber said in a way that made Alex feel a bit better about it all. “You nearrrly died as I was carrrying you home.”

Alex let his head rest against the wall and he sighed.

“It’s okay forrr you to feel that way,” Simber said. “Yourrr body has rrrecoverrred, but yourrr mind also needs to rrrecoverrr.”

Alex was quiet for a long moment. He pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache coming on. “I just can’t stand to think about another battle like that. About getting hit, and getting hurt like that again. You know?” He remembered how long it had taken to recover, how painful it was. “But,” he said, almost with wonder at the words that were coming out, “if I had to, I’d do it again. I’d do it for Mr. Today and Artimé. For sure I would.”

Then he looked at Simber and asked, “Do you think I have drive?”

Simber tilted his head, as if he were searching for the meaning behind the question. “The rrright question is, do you think you do?”

Alex pressed his lips together tightly and nodded. “I guess so. I think I do.”

Simber almost smiled. “How does it feel?”

“It feels scary. Dangerous. It’s a lot easier to just . . . be nothing. Ignore things.”

For the first time since Alex sat down, Simber looked at the boy. “Yes, it is.”

“Mr. Today wanted me to lead. Like . . . when he’s, you know, gone.”

Simber turned his face back to Quill. “I know.”

“I told him no.”

“I know,” the cheetah said again.

“Does he tell you everything?”

Simber smacked his chops. “Prrretty much.”

“Oh.”

“Rrright.” Simber stood, walked to the road, and then returned, arching his back into an impossibly high arc, and then stretching out his hind legs as well, one at a time. “I feel as if therrre’s something else you want to ask me.”

Alex bit his lip. “I’I guess so. I mean . . .”

Simber sat on his haunches and waited patiently.

“I mean, who would . . . be there with me’for me’if I did it? Like, how you’re there with him. Or, you know, would I just be alone? Or have to find my own . . . Because I don’t . . . really . . . have anyone like that. Not at all.” He thought about his friends, knowing of course they’d be there whenever he needed them, but they just didn’t feel . . . big enough. And the job felt so cavernous, and Alex felt so . . . swallowed up by the thought.

Simber turned once again to face Alex. His eyes were warm and they glinted in the moonlight. “I am alrrready herrre forrr you, Alex. Wheneverrr you need me, as long as you need me. And even longerrr,” he said. “It is my duty. But it’s also my pleasurrre.”

Blood rushed to Alex’s face, but at the same time, warmth also flooded his chest. No one in Alex’s memory had ever said words quite like that to him before.

Magic in Quill?

Aaron and Gondoleery met daily now by the gate to the high priest’s palace, a most peculiar- looking pair, though to the casual onlooker they appeared simply to be a young man with his grandmother’a deceptively innocent combination. Thus they became nearly invisible to the Quillitary over time.

Every day the two were inseparable as they quietly coerced angry Wanteds and lured them with food to their way of thinking. Aaron, after a few days with Gondoleery, took a chance and told her where he was getting the food. He brought her with him to see the Favored Farm and showed her how easy it was to pick fruit and vegetables. And while Gondoleery had heard of this place from the high priest, she had no concept in her head of what it could be like, and had never gone to it because it was a Necessary job.

“This place reminds me of where I grew up. People planted things,” Gondoleery said. She’d been thinking about her childhood a lot lately now that she had her memory back. “Each person grew their own, and brought the extras to a market once a week for the people who had no place to grow things. And those people would buy it,” she said.

Aaron narrowed his eyes. “What’s ‘buy it’ mean?”

“Exchange a valuable coin for it. The coins could trade for anything, and everyone wanted more coins, so that was the best thing to have.”

“Strange,” Aaron said, glancing over his shoulder to see if the guard was watching, and then shoving a handful of berries into his mouth and chewing thoughtfully. “You can’t eat these coins, can you? So what good are they?”