Chapter 123

How many of them had been here when Dallin was chosen? Some, most, all?

"Most" seemed the likeliest answer. They were extraordinarily long-lived, but Wil supposed it wasn't entirely logical to assume at least one or two hadn't popped off in the more than twenty years since Devon had called Dallin's name with his last breath. And now, for the first time, it occurred to Wil that it was quite conceivable that Calder had been one of them then.

It made Wil pause. People were still tugging at him, murmuring to him, but he no longer registered their existence.

He couldn't get it out of his head. They'd known the raid was coming. Just as they knew the Brethren were here before Dallin told them. They'd known Dallin as a boy, all of them, and Dallin didn't remember it, but *they did*, and yet they pretended otherwise. Why? What were they hiding from their Shaman?

"Wil?"