Page 64 of Boy of Chaotic Making

You’re a girl,Owein said.

Kegan laughed. “Well, she’s not a hawk! Not always, just lots of the time. Otherwise she’d a—”

“Easier to travel that way,” she interrupted, breaking into a grin. She spoke with the same Irish accent as Kegan.

You can hear me?

“She can’t,” Kegan answered. “But I can! Fallon’s just a shape-shifter.”

She gave him a withering stare.Justa shape-shifter. Before encountering the Druids, Owein had never met anyone who possessed enough alteration prowess to change their entire body. Those were different spells than he had, maybe even different percentages.

He nodded, yawned.

“Am I so boring to you?” Fallon laughed.

He shook his head.Sorry. I just don’t sleep as well as I should.He usually made up for it with naps during the day, but Lady Helen had kept him a little too busy for much more than a snooze.

“He says he doesn’t sleep well,” Kegan translated.

“Why not?” She raised a black eyebrow.

Owein lowered his head, choosing not to respond.

But Kegan poked him in the ribs. “Why not?”Why not why not why not?

Owein nipped at him, which only made the boy giggle.Because,he said, and hoped to leave it at that. But two sets of eyes stared at him with the patient curiosity of children, and Owein inwardly sighed.Because I have nightmares.

“Because he has nightmares.”

Fallon lay down in the grass on her stomach and propped her face on the heels of her hands, her head only a foot from Owein’s. Her skin pebbled, but she seemed unaware of the March chill. Owein had fur to protect him. The Druids must just be used to the cold.

“What kind of nightmares?” She sounded fascinated.

A soft whine emitted from Owein’s throat.

Kegan petted his back. “He doesn’t have to say.”

“Sure he does,” Fallon challenged. “Nightmares are things that scare us. But if you stop being scared, you stop having nightmares.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Kegan spoke for him.

“How does it not make sense?” She reached over and pinched him; Kegan slapped her hand away. “Remember how you were scared of those stupid green spiders?”

“Was not!”

“You’d jump whenever we saw them! Then Sean made you keep one in the corner of your room and make sure it got fed, and then you named it and called it your pet until it died.”

Kegan looked away. “Sorcha was a good spider.”

“See?” Fallon’s eyes shot back to Owein. “So what are you scared of?”

Owein squirmed.I’m not reallyafraid, I don’t think. I was just ... I’m really old. But for a lot of those years, I was alone in a dark house by myself. And the darkness is still there.

Kegan related, growing a little hoarse as he finished.

“In the house?” Fallon asked. She must have had some skill in reading canine expressions, for she amended, “Ah, just in your dreams. In your head. I get that. I had to stay in the dark for a long time when I was little.”

Owein’s ears perked.

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