The Tattooed Heart by Michael Grant Page B

between us—she had seen so clearly that a frightened, lonely girl would be drawn inexorably to the tall, mysterious boy in black.
    I smashed my fist into the water.
    No way out. I deserved my fate, yes, yes, I did. I did. But at the same time the less ethical parts of my mind were already looking for an escape. And such an escape had been offered, had it not? Oriax had been oblique, but it was there in her words and attitude, a suggestion that she was my way out.
    Oriax.
    What could she offer me? What did I want? My old life? Some entirely new life? That’s what I would have wanted, should have wanted. But what I wanted now,was him, and no, not Oriax, not any creature, could give me that.
    I wondered if beneath the stunning and sensuous exterior Oriax was just like Graciella’s demon. Perhaps not an incubus, but some other form of demon. Maybe even something worse, if that was possible.
    But I pushed that thought aside and turned my imagination to the question of Ariadne. She had done something wicked, clearly. And Messenger had been tasked to deal with her, to offer her the game, to discover and then inflict on her the most terrible punishment she herself could imagine.
    What must that have been like for him? I tried to put myself in that same situation, but I had no great love in my life. I had no Ariadne of my own. The closest I could come was to think of my mother. We had all the usual teenaged daughter vs. mother fights, plus some more, since she’d started dating following my father’s death.
    But could I impose the messenger’s fear on her if required? My God, how would I live with that? How did Messenger live with it?
    That, at least, I knew the answer to. He lived with it by searching for her whenever he could, whereverhe could think to look. Daniel indulged him, though Daniel clearly did not believe it was a wise use of Messenger’s time.
    What in fact had happened to Ariadne?
    And with that came the dark serpent of temptation, for my mind answered the question with a possibility: Messenger might choose to avoid the Shoals, but could I not go there alone? Could I not perhaps answer the question of Ariadne’s fate?
    And if she were there in that place I’d heard spoken of only in the most somber of tones, would Messenger be free at last of his obsession?
    I pushed the stopper knob up with my toe and the water started to drain out.
    This much I was sure of: Messenger would never be whole until he knew the truth.
    I slept. And I woke. And another “day” began, with no mention by Messenger or me of Ariadne.
    Messenger and I appeared at a small house on a tidy lot with an impressive elm tree in the front yard and a fenced backyard.
    Maybe the day will come when I feel not so queasy simply letting myself into people’s homes and indeed,minds, but it has not come yet. Messenger and I walked up the steps and through the front door. As always, solid reality seemed to bend out of our way as if it was avoiding our touch. As though walls and doors and window glass found us objectionable.
    And were we not objectionable? That seems the kindest way to describe our wholesale violation of privacy. We entered where we wished, like police with a warrant to serve. I have no idea where Messenger is from, but as an American it did not sit well with me.
    And yet it was a duty I had taken on. I was doing penance for my own sins by making others pay for theirs.
    We had, in fact, come to inflict pain and fear. Not just cops: we were judge, jury, and, with the help of the Master of the Game, executioner, all rolled into one. We had powers no one should possess.
    I fervently hoped that the book of Isthil I’d begun to read was something more than mere myth, because if we did not have some great purpose, if we were not saving the world by maintaining the balance, then we were just home invaders.
    A woman was in the living room, sitting on the couch, watching TV with her feet up. She wore a