Page 29 of The Knights of Gaia

He stopped turning. “You probably should.”

Wow. He was something else.

He surprised me by adding, a few moments later, “Kato. My name is Kato.”

“Kato,” I repeated, nodding. “Sounds very knightly. Well, now I know everything there is to know about you.”

From his sudden change of posture, I could tell he was pretty confused.

“Just teasing,” I chuckled.

“No time for that.” I was sure he was done indulging me, so I was surprised when he added, “What is your name?”

“Savannah,” I said.

Or at least tried to say. His question was so unexpected—aKnightwanted to know my name!—that I tripped over my own tongue, and my name came out as a big, jumbled mess.

“Seven?” he asked. “Your name is Seven?”

I cleared my throat and repeated my name. Thankfully, it came out right this time.

But he replied, “I like Seven.”

That must have been the most normal thing he’d said to me so far.

And that little touch of humanity I sensed in him compelled me to say, “Call me Seven if you’d like.” I tacked a smile on to the end of that invitation to show him I meant it.

“Very well, Seven.”

Hmm. I actually liked the nickname more than I’d expected.

“We should get going,” Kato said.

“You haven’t told me which way,” I pointed out. “Or come up with an actual plan to get us out of here.”

I regretted the words as soon as I said them. I hadn’t meant to sound so harsh. It wasn’t fair to place all the responsibility for getting out of here on Kato’s shoulders, even if he was a Knight.

But he didn’t seem to mind taking charge. “When I sent the Cursed Ones into Shadow Fall, it created tears in the veil between this dimension and our own. The plan is to find one of those tears and use it to return to the Garden.”

“Tears in the veil. Got it.” I nodded. “What do they look like?”

“You can’t see them. They’re invisible.”

Of course they were.

“Can you hear them?” I asked. “Or maybe smell them?”

“No.”

“Then how are we supposed to find them?”

“It’s a work in progress,” he said.

“Ok, just so we’re clear—” I ran my hands through my hair. It had long since broken loose from the pretty braid I’d put it in…uh, yesterday. Before facing the Cursed Ones. Twice. It had been way too long since I’d slept. “—so this is a needle-in-a-haystack sort of plan, isn’t it?”

He shifted his weight. And that said it all.

“Is thereanyway to find these tears in the veil?” I asked him.

---