Artemis Invaded Read Online Free PDF Page B

sure she’d like a visit.”
    An image from Sand Shadow flickered into her mind: Terrell and Griffin passing through Ridgewood, turning onto the road toward her family’s lands.
    â€œI should go down the road and meet my friends,” Adara continued.
    â€œCan I come with you?” Elektra asked, glancing between her mother and Adara.
    â€œCan she?” Adara asked.
    Neenay smiled. “I think we can handle clearing up from supper without you, Elektra, but mind that you make up for it tomorrow, understand?”
    â€œYes, ma’am,” answered both sisters at once, then giggled as if they weren’t ten years apart in age and nearly strangers.
    *   *   *
    Not surprisingly, Terrell and Griffin were a great hit. True, Nikole did give Adara a long look or two, as if wondering what games her sister was playing with two such handsome fellows, but both men had the gift of making themselves pleasant. Griffin was introduced by the tale they had evolved when they had stayed with the Old One. He was a member of a family who had lived isolated in the mountains somewhere vaguely near Shepherd’s Call. They had become friends when Terrell and Adara had escorted him to Spirit Bay because he had desired to meet the Old One.
    Questions regarding the upheaval in Spirit Bay—the flooding of the Old One’s Sanctum and that revered personage’s disappearance—were so based on garbled rumors that answering them was easy enough without going into uncomfortable details. When some element of the conversation became awkward, Terrell showed a factotum’s gift for turning the discussion in other directions while appearing to give a complete reply. The full truth would mean explaining too much that must be kept secret, including Griffin’s true origin and the existence of the unfortunates who had been born as a result of the Old One’s experimentation.
    When, toward the end of evening, Neenay Weaver beckoned for Adara to come with her, Griffin was deep in conversation with Akilles, Willowee, and Orion about the manner in which this region was governed. Willowee, who had grown up on one or another of her family’s watercraft, proved to have a sophisticated view of the differences of rulership in theory and in practice.
    Terrell held the rest spellbound with tales of his travels as he had trained to be a factotum. Watching her littlest sister, Adara wondered if Elektra—like Sashi in Shepherd’s Call—was counting through the months until she would be fifteen and of legal age to propose marriage.
    â€œI’m taking Adara out to show her what we’ve done since she was last here,” Neenay called. “We’ll shut up the hens while we’re out.”
    Adara suspected that Neenay was taking this opportunity to probe after which—if either—of the young men might be a candidate for future son-in-law. The grin that quirked Hektor’s mouth and a knowing look on Nikole’s face confirmed her guess. However, when they were safely away, and Neenay had led Adara to the pleasant, well-lit building that was her new workshop, Neenay surprised her.
    â€œAdara, the time has come for me to tell you things I hoped I would never need to raise.”
    Adara was about to explain that she understood where babies came from and that she knew to take precautions, when Neenay went on.
    â€œI never told you why we fostered you with Benjamin Hunter. However, now that the Old One has been discredited I feel I must. Why don’t you sit there?” Neenay gestured to a heap of cushions patchworked from what must be scraps of her own weaving. “I’m more comfortable behind my loom.”
    She slid into the chair, and her hands began moving the shuttle and the beater bar through their routine with a practiced rattle and thump.
    Adara thought, Putting a wall between us again, even if the wall is only spun wool. But what is this about the Old