AM NOTHING if not resilient, but usually I can handle only about one humongous life-shaking situation per hour. Now here it was, the second earth-shattering thing in five minutes. That, on top of the millet balls, made for a dangerously unsettled stomach.

“Where’d you come from, Dylan?” Fang’s steady and calm voice gave nothing away. He sat down and picked up a small bag of water to drink.

Dylan gave kind of a wry little smile. “A test tube,” he said. “A lab.”

Dr. Hunker-Gunther smiled and clapped his hands. “Oh, you have so much to talk about! But it is late and we are all tired.” He gave an old-fashioned bow. “We will be looking forward to seeing you tomorrow.”

We were silent for several moments after they left. My eyes followed their outlines until tents got in the way.

“Well!” said Patrick finally. “I certainly never expected that! Did you know there were more of you?”

“Nope,” I said.

I glanced around at the dazed flock, wanting to get Angel alone so I could grill her for more details of her pronouncement about Fang. It would be best not to upset the others by bringing it up again publicly.

It’s pretty inconvenient sometimes when Angel is able to pick up my thoughts. She practically glued herself to Gazzy, and twenty minutes later, everyone was already settling down for the night in our tent. Angel was (at least pretending to be) asleep next to her brother, looking deceptively sweet and innocent. Iggy, a famously restless sleeper, was in a corner by himself.

Fang, Nudge, and I were together, tucked like the others under a treated netting that was supposed to ward off malaria-bearing mosquitoes.

“Don’t think about what Angel said,” Fang whispered next to my ear. “You have to remember — she’s still just a little kid.”

“A weird little kid,” I whispered back. We were holding hands; our feet were entwined.

“Besides,” he began. “If she’s right … well, I’m glad. It has to be me first. Not you.”

“Fang, don’t —”

“Go to sleep,” he broke in, then lightened up. “Long day tomorrow. Starting with your fascinating breakfast.” I could barely make out Fang’s grin in the darkness — without raptor vision, I wouldn’t have been able to see a thing.

“Yeah,” I said wearily. A few minutes later, I felt a subtle relaxing of Fang’s muscles that meant he’d joined the sleeping flock. I was still wound up, though my body was crying out for sleep. I just kept running over everything in my mind.

Fang — dead. It was unthinkable. A year ago it would have been the worst thing that could happen, and now — it was a thousand times worse. Now I knew what it felt like to hold him, what it felt like to kiss him until we were both breathless. How could I possibly go on without him?

The really, truly horrible thing was, Angel had never been wrong. Never, ever.