"I changed my mind about leaving you alone. I wanted to make sure you were real y okay."

"Oh. Thank you."

An awkward silence fel between us. I hated that it had come to this when only hours ago, everything had felt so right between us. I had to get away.

"I'm going to take a shower," I said at last. "Are you . . . going to stay here?" I felt a little odd about a guy hanging around my room while I was showering. There wasn't real y much I had to hide. I supposed the most embarrassing thing I had was my movie col ection. Then again, he probably didn't care that I had al the High School Musical movies next to Sailor Moon on my top shelf. I was such a dork. At least Gossip Girl was up there too, so I was sort of redeemed. He nodded. "I won't get into anything, I promise. I've known you for five hundred years, so I don't think anything you do now could shock me." He stifled a laugh, but I gave him a quizzical look. A fleeting worry about what he might know about me crossed my mind.

I hurried in the shower as fast as I could. When I finished, I stepped out and toweled myself off. My reflection in the mirror was mildly more pleasant considering how my face no longer quite resembled the car wreck I'd been in that night. I looked around for my robe, but I didn't see it. Worried, I wrapped the towel around myself.

"Oh no," I breathed. My robe was not in the bathroom. There was no way I was going to put my bloody clothes back on. I kicked at the filthy pile of laundry in the middle of the bathroom floor and cringed. "Gross, gross, gross . . ."

I'd have to go back into my room in my towel to get clean clothes. This was not good. I did not want to walk around practical y naked in front of any boy, let alone Wil . I trembled as I walked back to my room. I poked the door open a few inches and whispered just loudly enough for only Wil , and not my parents, to hear me.

"Wil ?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you turn around for a sec?"

He paused. "Okay."

I tiptoed in, hugging the towel as tightly as I could. He had turned around and faced the window.

"I need my clothes. Sorry." I shimmied into my closet and shut the door behind me. I blew out a loud sigh and let the towel drop. I put on a lacy tank and flannel pajama pants and left my closet.

"I was hoping you wouldn't have to meet Ivar for a while,"

Wil said. He didn't bring up my embarrassing episode from minutes ago, and I was going to be eternal y grateful.

"Yeah, me, too," I said, my voice quivering. "I could feel her power, Wil . It was so different from Ragnuk's. His energy felt angry to me, like pure violence. But hers . . . Ivar's power was dark. It made me feel fear. Not afraid, but it felt like fear. Does that make sense?"

His lips tightened. "You've said things along those lines before."

"What does it mean?"

"It means that you, the Preliator, are beginning to awaken," he said, picking absently at a rip in his shirt. "As your strength and memory return, your abilities wil , too. It wil take some time for you to reach your ful potential."

I sighed. "And here I thought Ragnuk was the scariest thing out there. Ivar beats him by a mile."

"There wil be other vir--Bastian's thugs--that you'l meet," he said gravely. "They wil only get worse. Bastian is likely to save his best for last."

"Great," I groaned. "So the scary chick and Ragnuk are the weak ones."

"They are not weak," he insisted. "They've earned bragging rights, believe me. Ivar could kil Ragnuk with a single strike. And she is not the weakest of Bastian's vir. She was sent as a messenger, not to kil you, which makes no sense. I feel like Bastian is stal ing. Perhaps kil ing you isn't his ultimate goal, since that would be pointless. You would just be reborn again."

My lips tightened. That wasn't good. How could I possibly defeat any of them when Ragnuk had nearly kil ed me twice already in this life, and actual y succeeded once in a previous one? What was I going to do when I had to face Ivar and the other vir, or even Bastian? And what was this game Bastian was playing with my life--sending an assassin to kil me and then cal ing him off? Was he trying to keep me occupied while he looked for this Enshi? Was al of this real y leading up to the Apocalypse?

Wil seemed to read my mind. He tucked my half-dried hair behind my ear sweetly. "You can do it," he said, his soft voice fil ed with hope. "You're stronger than any of them."

"Then why do they keep mopping the floor with me?" I demanded.

He let out a breath. "You need to have more confidence in yourself. Believe you can do it."

"I need some proof first," I said with a smal laugh. "It's a little hard to believe I can defeat Ragnuk when he keeps kicking my butt."

He frowned. "That's the point of believing in something. There's so much doubt and tribulation during your journey that you've got to hang on to something, or else you'l fal ."

I rol ed my eyes. "Stop being so wise. You make me look bad. What do you think Ivar meant by 'developments'?"

"Most likely something with the Enshi. We need to redouble our research efforts. Maybe Nathaniel has found something." He frowned. "I don't even know where to start looking for information."

"Then I guess we'l have to concentrate on kil ing Ragnuk and Bastian's vir?" I asked, unable to quel the doubt in my tone.

He nodded. "Ragnuk is hunting you. We caught a lucky break tonight when Ivar cal ed him off, but I don't know much we may benefit from that in the end."