Exit Light by Megan Hart Page B

of the moss-covered boulder next to him. Ben took his hand away from Tovah’s.
    She looked back at them, one to the other. “What’s going on? What aren’t you telling me?”
    “I told you there’s shapers who don’t play nice.” Spider stretched out his two foremost legs like a magician demonstrating he had nothing up his sleeves. “Ben found one.”
    “The same one who is messing with the Ephemeros?” Tovah asked, still confused. And concerned. She and Ben didn’t always get along, that was true, and after their last conversation she was fairly convinced they weren’t ever going to be anything more than casual friends, but that didn’t mean she wished him harm.
    “We don’t know. Maybe.” Ben steadfastly didn’t look at her.
    Like anything else in the Ephemeros, the pain could be shaped away, or it went away upon waking. Why Ben’s hadn’t was more interesting than his pain, itself. She looked at Spider again, then back to Ben.
    “Guys, c’mon.”
    Spider sighed. “Sometimes things happen, Tovahleh.”
    “Yeah, really?” She crossed her arms. “I’d never have guessed.”
    “Not as often as they could,” Spider continued as though she hadn’t been snippy. “But they do.”
    “This woman—”
    “It was a woman?” Tovah interrupted. She thought of the boy with the red-and-white striped ball, the dogheaded man. There had been a woman with them, too. “A woman did that to you?”
    Ben looked at her, the line of his jaw tense as he gritted his teeth. “She represented as a woman, anyway.”
    “But…you think she wasn’t?” Tovah watched Ben pace. “C’mon, Ben. Talk to me.”
    He whirled to face her. “It was a bad dream, okay? You’ve had them!”
    “Everyone does.” Tovah looked to Spider for support and found none. She looked back at Ben, determined not to let his prickliness work her up. “But now that you can shape—”
    He shook his head once, violently, then again. “No. She was strong. And she wasn’t alone.”
    “Shapers working together to create havoc,” Spider said. “Not a good thing, Tovahleh.”
    “No. I don’t think so.” She rubbed Spider’s back lightly the way she’d scratch Max behind the ears. “But what can we do?”
    “We can be careful, that’s all.” Spider turned to look at her with eight small dark eyes like glittering jewels. “I want you to be careful.”
    “I will. Of course I will.” She thought of the man with the dog’s head and shivered.
    “And it wouldn’t hurt if we stuck together.” Spider’s colors darkened.
    “Do you think I need a babysitter?” Tovah stopped rubbing his back. “Aside from the fact you’re the only one of us three who can always find the others, why would you assume that this person, whoever she was, is going to even bother with any of us again?”
    “Because she can,” Ben said. “She likes to. I mean…I wasn’t doing anything to her. At first I thought she was a sleeper. She had that feeling around her. That drain, you know what I mean? From someone who wants something?”
    Tovah knew what he meant. “Yes. But she wasn’t a sleeper?”
    He shook his head. “No. But she didn’t seem like a shaper, either. I mean…she could shape. She did. But it was more like she…took. And she didn’t know what a guide was. She didn’t know Spider.”
    Spider made a low noise. “You told her about me?”
    Ben nodded slowly. “I thought every guide knew you.”
    Spider’s mandibles clicked. “No. Not all. The Ephemeros is a big place, Ben. Big and tiny at the same time, you know what I mean?”
    “I know.” Ben flexed his hand without wincing this time. “I’m sorry.”
    “We’ll just have to be on our guards, that’s all. Make sure we’re strong. Don’t put ourselves in her way. Like Spider said, the Ephemeros is a big place.” Tovah looked at Spider carefully. “What? You’re worried about something else.”
    Spider sank lower, his legs gripping the boulder. “Something’s affecting