Текст книги "Drowning in Fire"

Автор книги: Hanna Martine

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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

“Fire feeds fire,” Nem said, the truth in his gold-silver eyes. “Fire destroys.”

She made a sound of frustration. “But the Queen found the Source. She touched it.”

“No,” Griffin said. “She never made it.”

Keko gasped.

“No one’s ever gone down there,” Nem said, and Griffin noticed with a shudder that the Son did not ever blink. “My ancestor killed her when her boat landed right over there.”

“No—” Keko looked unsteady as she glanced at the small beach thirty yards away.

“Think about it,” Griffin said. “If she’d touched the Source, the world would’ve known. There would be stories or legends, or geological proof of such a huge disaster. Because she was fire.” Taking her arms, Griffin turned her to face him. “And I’m water,” he whispered.

Her sorrowful gaze dropped. Then her shoulders followed.

He cradled her face, lifting it back up to him. Pressing closer, her heat enveloped him.

“I know you want to do this yourself. Believe me, I know this very well.” She stared at him with glittering, dark eyes. “But you can’t, and I won’t let you try. You will die down there. You’ll trigger something huge, something deadly. You won’t come back with any kind of cure. And your Chimerans will still lose their magic.”

She shuddered within his grasp. “What will you do? How will you do it?”

He licked his lips. “I have an idea.”

She took his forearms in that enhanced grip. “But . . . you’ve ruined your chance with the Senatus.”

“Said it once before and I’ll say it again: Fuck the Senatus. I came here for you, remember?” He touched his forehead to hers. “This will help you. And your people. Mine will be there when I get back, no worse off than how I left them. The good thing about the future is that it can always change.”

He would think about the Ofarians later. For now, he belonged to Keko.

Her lips parted, a sweet little cloud of her magic smoke leaking out. He breathed it in gladly.

He released her, gently pushing away. Her arms hung in midair. He looked at the rock and its narrow crack, his intent clear.

“No!” screamed Nem, thrashing from inside the circle of fire. It sizzled and bit at his flailing limbs. “No! You don’t know what will happen!”

Keko lowered her arms. “He’s right. You don’t know what’s down there, what will happen. You’re not Chimeran. How will you hold the magic?”

Griffin smiled sadly. “Why, Kekona. Are you worried about me?”

“I was willing to bargain my life.” She slapped an angry hand to her chest. “I don’t want to gamble with yours.”

If he touched her again, he’d never want to let go, so he took a step backward instead. “This time,” he said, “I’m going on faith. And I have to say that it feels pretty damn good.”

A sound somewhat like a choke came out of her mouth. She turned her face to hide her emotion, but he wasn’t fooled.

She murmured, “After all I’ve done to you, after all I’ve said, after how the Chimerans have acted against the Ofarians, I can’t believe you’d do this for my people.”

Griffin took one final look at her with his human eyes. Ofarian words rolled across his tongue and spilled out from between his lips, bringing up his magic, transforming his body to liquid.

He watched her eyes widen as she finally realized his plan. The humbled, overwhelmed woman disappeared. The confident, steadfast woman stood before him now, and he couldn’t have asked for a better partner.

She came closer to his watery shape, blowing orange flame across one palm and holding it out to him. “Let me do it.”

Griffin nodded his liquid head.

She touched him, her burning hand pressed to his wobbling, translucent chest. The heat from her fire, her magic, turned him to steam. It was a far different feeling, to have it done to him rather than doing it himself. It was an incredible feeling, one he wanted to experience again and again.

He gently entwined himself around her whole body. Curling his molecules next to her ear, he thought I would do anything for you. She sagged as though she’d actually heard him. Maybe she had.

Reluctant to leave, but resolved to help her, he peeled the steam away from her skin and floated toward the crack. Flattening himself into a long, thin stream, he slipped into the narrow fissure and instantly surrounded himself with dark. With earth and rock. With unadulterated magic. The world around him was shadowed and craggy, the lava rock slicing off at harsh angles, turning directions without sense, making his path crooked and dangerous. Even though he wanted to zoom ahead at full speed, he had to go slowly or else risk being drawn too thin or being broken apart. There were limits to his power; time was one of them, and the careful pace set him on edge, made him worry about how much energy he’d have left for the return trip.

From somewhere deep, deep down in the blackness, the Source sensed his presence. Maybe it knew he was water. It blasted against him. Intense heat and stormy magic sent out constant shocks. They pulsed against him like giant waves and he was the tiny minnow trying to swim against the riptide. He had to pull his steam body along as much as thrust it forward, and, like when he’d been tracking Keko across the Big Island, it drained his magic exponentially.

He kept going, kept driving on, without any indication of how far he had to burrow into the heart of the earth. He couldn’t think about it because turning back wasn’t an option. Every second brought increased heat, more treacherous maneuvering, and the dizzying counterstrength of pure, untouched fire magic.

All of a sudden, the narrow, twisting passage exploded into openness. A vast cavern yawned in the shape of a near perfect circle, a separate contained universe hidden deep in the bowels of the planet . . . complete with its own brilliant, pulsating, dangerous sun.

Only this was no sun. This was the Fire Source—a giant, blistering orb of white, with tongues and whips of blue and sparkling silver snapping out like poisonous snakes trapped behind wire. They left tiny floating flecks of flame in their wake, which flared on their own for a second or two, then died. The Source was a living thing, an amorphous beast contained in an elastic shape, constantly pushing against its constraints. It reeked of danger and power.

Griffin hovered at the circumference of the cavern, awed and petrified over what glowed before him. It was astounding that something like this existed in a human world, on the human plane. It had been born with this planet, not brought here like his own people. It would die when the Earth did. Or vice versa.

That was all the time he allowed himself to think. He had something else to do.

When he’d taken Keko beneath the ocean’s surface and encapsulated her in magic water, he’d sensed her trying to release her fire. The water wouldn’t let her. His element hadn’t killed hers, it just . . . contained it.

He had to trust in that same principle here.

The Source pulsed in a great, uneven heartbeat. It seemed to grow more and more agitated by the second, Griffin’s presence feeding and affecting it. It knew something had infiltrated its lair and it was merely biding its time before unleashing its weapons, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. It was a dragon—a chimera—stalking and teasing its prey.

Death churned inside that thing. Hope, too. And they were all tied together by faith.

Those blue and white flames continued to loop out from the surface of the Source like the solar flares in the Earth’s sun. They stretched and bowed then snapped back, leaving remnant flecks floating in the air, glowing in their wake. Griffin watched them greedily.

Then he saw his opportunity. Perhaps his only one. He prayed—to the stars, to Keko’s Queen, to whomever might be listening—that it would be enough.

A bolt of crackling blue flame shot out—straight for where he’d flattened his particles against the wall. It wanted to dissolve him. To destroy him. The whip of fire snapped before it reached him, leaving behind a web of tiny blue-white motes—pure specks of magic no longer attached to the Source itself. Residual fire just lingering in space.

His for the taking.

Before another flare could stretch for him, he ballooned his steam out from the wall. Sent it looping around a flickering blue remnant no larger than a pebble. He grabbed it, encased it as he had Keko’s body. Stole it.

Here in this cavern of extreme heat and elemental fire, Griffin fought for control of his own magic. Digging deeper into his power than he’d ever dug before, he forced the steam immediately surrounding the live spark into liquid, wrapping it in a dense bubble cage.

The fire sputtered but held. Weakened but did not die.

There was no time to worry or think or do anything else other than run. He gathered up the floating, translucent particles of himself, cradled and cushioned the speck of the Source inside his magic, and fled back through the crack.

The Source did not like that at all.

The cavern and passage walls vibrated, throwing Griffin’s already tenuous form against the rocks, threatening to break him apart and loose the treasure he carried. A great cloud of heat and smoke screamed at his back, the soundless voice of a mother who’d had one of her many children ripped from her bosom.

He would not be deterred. He would not let it go. This thing he stole belonged to Keko—this infinitesimal bit of fire—and she would use it for the noblest of purposes.

Tightening the hold on the fire speck, he pushed harder. Raced up through the quaking, narrow passages. The planet felt ripped off its axis, gravity and direction meaning absolutely nothing. Still, he flew. Zoomed. Faster and faster.

Hot fire consumed his trail. Not just heat or threats anymore, but actual liquid lava, scorching rock, and attacking flame. They all chased him down. He may not be made of fire, but he had still caused an eruption.

He zigged and zagged, concentrating hard on keeping his magic whole, on keeping the fleck safe and alive. Tremors hunted him, wielding the Source’s weapons, but he could feel the air getting fresher up ahead. It fed him energy. He pushed on. And then . . . light.

It refracted off the rock lining the sides of the fissure. It pierced his vapor and the bubble and struck the fire fragment, making it come alive, turning it into a starburst. He clutched it, feeling the magic trying to get out but unable to release through his water.

It seemed to call to the Source, too—a child to its mother—and the Source answered with a burst of heat and flame that actually pushed Griffin the final few yards up and out of the entrance, sending him soaring between the halves of the great split rock, shooting high above the island.

The sky was a dazzling, blinding sheet of blue above, and the island below was a quivering black mass of lava rock, crumbling and cracking like an egg from the force of the Source’s expulsion. The ocean immediately surrounding the island rippled, billowing blooms of white rising up from underneath.

He saw Keko, a dark figure being thrown about on the small, quaking mound of land in the middle of the water, trying to keep her balance as the rock shifted. Nem was still there, screaming death threats, but only for a moment longer. The island gave a great heave and Keko tumbled to the side, thrown to the ground. She must have lost control of her magic because the circle of fire around and below Nem suddenly died. And then, barely a second later, he was gone. Sunk back into the shaking, breaking earth.

Griffin made sure the fire speck was still safe and zoomed down to Keko. Ash belched from the bowels of the earth, the distinct odor of sulfur and the tang of hidden fire consuming everything. Steam and black smoke poured out of the fissure now, and he shot through it. Even in the growing murk he could find her. He would always be able to find her.

As he drew closer, Keko pulled herself to her feet, but the ground fought back, continually trying to throw her down. He’d seen many emotions cross her face in their time together, but panic had never, ever been one of them. Her wide eyes darted around, looking for escape, for answers. For an enemy to fight. But this time the attacker, the Source, was made of her own element and her weapons would never be strong enough to win.

Griffin swirled around her in a misty ribbon, gently pressing against her, letting himself go more liquid. When she realized it was him, he felt her body shiver, her slight exhalation of relief. He rolled the bubble containing the fire spark up through his being, aligning it with her sight. Her eyes turned glassy when she saw what he carried.

Now to figure out how to give her the pure bit of magic. If he released the bubble, the fleck would likely sputter and die as it had within the cavern. If he assumed human form, the result would probably be the same.

Another lurch of the earth. Keko’s mouth dropped open . . . and he saw his answer.

Without thinking, without allowing himself doubt, he opened a space in the mist, released the bubble, and shoved the blue-white spark free. It arced out and away, shooting straight for Keko’s mouth. Her jaw jutted out and she caught the tiny flame between her lips. It disappeared into the dark behind her teeth, then her mouth closed around it.

She swallowed, then gulped and gasped, both hands flying to her throat, fingers scratching at her skin. Her eyes rolled back in her head and her body convulsed.

The island lost all stability. The rock that had been the gateway to the Source exploded, hot shards flying, the first bubbles of red and gold lava erupting out of the split in the earth. A molten river rushed toward them.

Keko’s eyes had gone wholly white, one hand still at her throat, the other pressed to her chest. Her body was tilting sideways and she did not put out her arms to stop her fall. If she collapsed here the encroaching lava would consume her.

Though weary, his strength and magic nearly gone, Griffin wrapped his mist tightly around Keko, cushioning her fall. Catching a gust of hot, sulphuric wind, he swept them both up and away from the ground as a surging roll of lava consumed the spot in which they’d just stood.

He spun around her as he carried her away, smashing his molecules together to form another, larger bubble around her limp form. He took them away from the broken island and the angry magic that was burying it in fire, and plunged them back into the churning ocean.

The water had gone cloudy with agitation. Within the waves the volcanic eruption felt entirely different—muffled and distant, but no less deadly. He shot through the water, Keko’s inert body bouncing around weightless and powerless inside his protection. He pushed on, back toward the Big Island, sensing the eruption fade and dim the farther away they got, until they were well away from its threat altogether.

At last the ocean floor started to slant upward, forming the base of the giant, ancient volcanoes of the Big Island. Griffin speared through the water, rising up, fighting and then using the mighty push and pull of the waves as they neared the shore. The surface was in sight, a sparkling invitation. He’d reached the dregs of his power, but even that wasn’t a good enough excuse to give up.

He gave one last push and propelled himself up and out of the water, spitting them over the waves and onto land. He lost all water magic in midair, his human body coming to him straight from vapor, making every muscle and bone and last bit of his spirit scream in pain. He still clung to Keko, though, managing to roll himself under her, so when they hit the shelf of serrated black lava rock strewn with chunks of loose white coral, it was he who took the brunt.

The jagged points of the rock dug into his skin but he barely felt them, for the drain of his energy stole all sensation as it pulled away his consciousness. He would feel it later. He would feel it all.

Vaguely, he was aware of Keko sliding off his body in a tangle of brown, limp limbs. With his last bit of effort, he blindly reached out and found the pulse on her neck, which was thready but present. His last thought before passing out was that she was warm.

Wonderfully, frighteningly warm.

TWENTY

Keko awoke on a bed of nails, a thousand sharp points gouging into her skin, the pain both extreme and welcome. It forced her back into awareness when she knew she couldn’t afford to be in the black any longer.

The sun was setting, and she awoke a different person. Only she didn’t know why. Or how.

Rolling her head, she winced at the scrape against her scalp. Her fingers flew to the back of her skull and brushed what she knew to be the rough and blocky ‘a’a kind of lava rock. The stuff had been borne of fire, deep within the earth, but it was wicked on the body, Chimeran or not.

The sound of waves filled her ears. Easy, insistent waves.

The earth was still, free of smoke and fire.

How did she get here? And where was here? The last thing she remembered was the island rumbling beneath her feet, the anger of the Source bubbling up from below, throwing her down. The force and shock of the quake had jarred loose her control over her magic. She’d watched Nem’s fire cage collapse, then witnessed him clawing his way back into the enraged earth. Then . . .

Keko gasped as panic consumed her.

Griffin. Griffin had turned to vapor and disappeared into the fissure, and then a long time later the world had exploded around her.

“Keko.”

Maybe she was only hearing her name in his voice because she wanted to so badly. And maybe, after she turned her head on the spiky rock and found the Ofarian stretched out beside her, his normally olive skin gone pale, his lips colorless, it was only a vision her desperate mind had created.

But then the vision struggled to sit up, and she knew he was real. Griffin was real and alive. And he was weak.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice as torn up as his body.

She peeled herself off the rock, grimacing at the way it had punched divots and cuts into her skin. Glancing around, she knew immediately that they were back on the Big Island, on the remote coast south of Hilo, close to the Chimeran valley.

She could not answer Griffin. She could only look at him, take him all in. And wonder.

Then she sensed it again, that clear difference in her body and being. Her skin felt the same, familiar, but everything inside—from the darkest reaches of her brain to the smallest, most insignificant muscle—pulsed to a tune she’d never heard before. Her inner fire burned with a permanent light, a never-ending source of energy.

Like she’d never have to take a Chimeran breath ever again.

“What happened?” she said.

Her voice sounded odd. Deeper and more resonant. She put a palm to her chest, where it felt strange.

Griffin’s stare dropped to where her hand lay and his eyes widened. Then she looked down and saw what he did. She still wore his black T-shirt, and through the fibers glowed a light, outlining her fingers and beating in time with her heart.

Keko scrambled to her feet, her hands slipping into the neckline of the T-shirt and ripping it down the center, exposing the skin just above her breasts, now possessed of a soft, blue-white light.

“What is it?” she cried, even though she knew. “What is it?”

Griffin stood and lifted a hand toward the glow, but did not touch her. “The Source,” he said, meeting her eyes. “A tiny part of it anyway.”

Each pulse of the muted light sent a new bit of magic into her system. Its purity was undeniable, its beauty almost able to be tasted. Sweet like the smoke she loved, but a sweetness no one before had ever had the pleasure of rolling on her tongue. Unlike Chimeran blood that had been diluted by history or mixed breeding with Primaries, this magic was uncontaminated and whole. And even though that tiny part was now inside her, it was still the Source, and it would never die.

It was the Queen’s mana, her spiritual power incarnate.

Griffin had done it. But . . . how?

Another bit of memory came back to her. Him, in mist form, feeding her the little blue-white spark he’d brought up from below. Her swallowing the fire magic, how it had burned going down. How it had felt like death.

Turning, she looked toward the setting sun, the lowering light calling out the thick plume of smoke far, far on the horizon.

“Brave, mighty Queen,” she murmured, the name scratching at her throat. She swallowed, gathering strength and moisture, and faced Griffin, who watched her with overwhelming intensity. “What happened?”

“You wouldn’t’ve survived,” he said, shaking his head, “if you’d gone down there.”

And then he told her the most incredible story that ended with a volcanic eruption out in the middle of the ocean, and a piece of the Fire Source inside Keko Kalani.

Griffin had succeeded. In the end, he’d told her the truth. And he’d helped her.

She honestly did not know what to do in the face of that remarkable sacrifice—him giving up his dreams of the Senatus and risking his life to hand her the resolution to her own goals. Her very first thought was one of shame, that even though she’d found the Source and now carried a bit of it inside her, Griffin had been the one to retrieve it. She was Chimeran through and through, and her blood told her that Griffin’s actions on her behalf called out a weakness.

She did not know if she’d ever be able to erase or appease that feeling. Or even if she wanted to.

“Do you think you can cure them?” he asked.

She looked deep into his eyes and drew a Chimeran breath. With the inrush of air, the burgeoning new power inside accelerated and bloomed with a force she could barely control. It wanted to scream out of her throat and dance all over everything. She just barely yanked it back before it loosed itself upon Griffin.

“Keko.” He still didn’t touch her, his hand hovering between them. “What is it?”

For the first time in her life, she feared her own fire.

“It’s so . . . different. Scary.”

She opened her palm to the sky and pursed her lips, intending to blow flame into the cup of her hand. It was the very first trick a Chimeran child learned when they came into their power, something any fire elemental knew and could control with barely a thought.

Keko had meant to create a tiny flame, a flicker of the red and orange and gold she knew so well.

What came out was a fireball as large as her head. Beautiful and wondrous and deadly in a whole new sense of the word. And it shimmered in a sparkling, searing blue-white.

“Yes,” she murmured, transfixed by the color and power that had come from her body. “Yes, I believe I can cure them.”

 • • •

They stood in the misting rain, far enough inland that she’d lost sight of the ocean. Far enough away that she could not watch the sun setting behind the massive smear of smoke and lava she’d created. At first she did not recognize the sentiments that tangled in her gut, because regret and doubt had never kept space in the limited emotional arsenal the Chimeran culture allowed, but as she and Griffin stared at each other, what she felt now became all too clear.

The Keko who’d hiked out of the Chimeran valley, intent on taking the Source at any cost, would have simply turned her back on the damage she’d done to the B and B, and the chaos she’d caused out in the ocean. But the Keko who now held pure fire magic within her body worried about who and what she’d affected, and how badly.

She had Griffin to thank for that, and she did not hate him for it. In fact, she found that she did not hate him at all.

He stood close but did not touch her, eyeing her carefully. Lovingly. That’s how it had been the whole time as they’d stumbled off the coastal lava rock and hiked inland. Bloodied, weary, dirty, they’d stopped only when they’d found a phone and she’d made her call to the stronghold.

Now they waited for a specific Chimeran to bring the car.

The rain cleansed her, rinsing her skin, trickling into her mouth. She licked at it gratefully. Griffin had to cup his hands to drink from a puddle. That alone told her that his magic was depleted.

Her black T-shirt was thoroughly soaked, enabling her to fold the ripped section over her gently glowing chest and hide what made her eternally different. She would have to do this, she realized, for the rest of her days.

She gripped a fistful of the fabric, feeling the pulse of new magic through her skin, and looked deep into Griffin’s eyes. “Why?” she whispered.

He reached for her, hands peeling off his wet torso where he’d tucked them underneath his arms, but she quickly stepped back with a warning look. If she felt this different inside, she had no idea what her skin might do to him. That distance—the idea that she might never be able to touch him again—hurt more than the gashes on her back or the bruises dotting her arms.

Griffin didn’t look worried, but he let his arms drop without argument. “I’ve never told you about my brother,” he said.

She looked at him quizzically. “No. I don’t know anything about your family. Other than what you told me in the hotel, about being born a soldier.”

“I have this brother—well, I have five of them, but I’m talking about the youngest, Henry. He’s twelve and he’s . . .” Griffin finally looked away from her, off toward the great slopes of the old, dead volcanoes rising in the distance, long since gone green. He turned his face up to the rain and ran a hand through his wet hair, making it gleam black. “Henry’s mine. My heart. My reason. I didn’t know it before the Board fell, but since then . . .”

It suddenly made sense. Everything he’d done—it all made sense. “You see yourself in him.”

He still didn’t look at her, his focus somewhere distant. “I saw myself in him. I saw chances for him—and all Ofarian kids, really—that I never had. And it frustrated the hell out of me that he didn’t see what I did, that he wasn’t chasing down this new life. But the thing is, he’s not me. He’s Henry.” At last his eyes trailed back to hers and she saw in them a love and devotion that existed on a plane she’d never personally known. “I can give him what I can,” Griffin said with a shrug, “but the rest is up to him. All I can do is help him along his own way.”

And Keko thought, with a bloom in her heart that had nothing to do with fire magic, You will make an amazing father someday.

“The Senatus,” she said, “and all the stuff with the Primaries—”

“To me, my kid brother wore every Ofarian child’s face, and I stopped seeing what Henry truly looked like. I pushed the Primaries and my dreams on him and everyone else, because of what my birthright made me do. Because of what the old Chairman made me do. All I want is something better for Henry and the other kids, and I want to give them those chances. I thought the Senatus was the way. Now? I don’t know.”

She released the clutch on her shirt, suddenly feeling hollow. “I have only ever lived for me.”

Then Griffin was there, as close as he could get without touching her. “That’s not true.”

She shook her head. “It is. I went for the Source to get the cure, yeah, but in my heart I wanted to be bigger than I was. To lead, to be the Queen. I’ve never known how to be selfless.”

“Stop it. It’s not the same thing as being selfish. Which you aren’t.”

Long moments of silence passed. “I admire you,” she finally said. The admission surprised her. “So much. I need to figure out what to do now, what I can do . . . after I go back.”

He rubbed at his jaw, and she was starting to figure out that he did that when there were many things he wanted to say but couldn’t. Or wouldn’t. Like he was massaging the words on his tongue to keep them calm, to keep them from escaping on their own. Finally, very slowly, he said, “You will figure it out. I can help you. If you’ll have me.”

She had to close her eyes, because the tenderness and understanding on his face was simply overwhelming. “You’ve already done so much. This”—her hand hovered over her chest—“is difficult for me to accept. That you got to the Source and I did not.”

“I know.”

And when she opened her eyes, she saw that he really did know.

“I’m sorry it went down like that,” he said. “If I could erase my presence here and let you have that, I would. If you wanted, I would take away all that happened between us in the waterfall and the B and B and . . . in here”—he touched his heart—“to give that to you.”

Is that what she wanted? Could she ever do that? Trade this precious, exciting, beautiful connection with him for the ability to walk into the Chimeran valley and say she’d succeeded where the Queen had not?

Griffin was too good. Too sacrificial. She’d grown up believing she was deserving of the best, that she was worthy of fighting for what she wanted, but this man had been touched by the stars and the Queen alike, and his light was so very bright. It chased away her shadows, and she’d always relied on those shadows to guide her. To remind her of her bad decisions and past experiences.

“Griffin—”

The whine and grind of an approaching Jeep cut her off, and she turned to watch the familiar yellow vehicle jouncing over the dirt road. It stopped between two white flowering trees and the driver got out.

Bane slid from behind the wheel. He just stood there holding the door open, staring over the top of it, his gaze bouncing between Keko and Griffin. At last he slammed shut the door and stalked toward them, his bare feet pounding through puddles.

As he drew closer, Keko could barely believe what she was seeing. Bane, the Chimeran general, looked like he was on the verge of tears. He pulled up ten feet away and repressed his emotion in a most Chimeran way.

“You’re alive,” he said, and she heard the unmistakable relief in his voice. “The sky went dark . . . we knew there was an eruption somewhere . . . I thought . . .”

“You knew about Aya’s warning,” Keko interrupted, “about the danger to the Earth and myself if I touched the Source?”

Bane nodded once, thin rivers of rainwater swooping down his neck and bare chest.

“And yet,” she went on, “you still asked Griffin to help me.”

Bane looked to Griffin, but the Ofarian was standing slightly behind her so she couldn’t see Griffin’s reaction.