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Your friends have made you weak. Did they teach you how to cry like a babe at her mammy's side? Stranders don't cry, Maraly."
"I'm not a Strander," she said, looking him in the eye.
"Then I'll have to MAKE you one," Claxton barked. "You've got my blood in yer veins, girl, and nothin' can change that. You've got MY name written in yer bones, Maraly Weaver. You can go take yer bath and eat yer fancy food and giggle with yer friend, but you'll always know deep down that you were born in the mud of the Strand, along with the mud of the Blapp, and once that mud gets on you, NOTHIN' ever gets it off."
Claxton seemed to know Maraly's deepest fear and was speaking it aloud. She had lain awake at night, fighting to believe that Gammon's fatherly love was real, that the change she had been feeling--the lightening of heart and the almost painful flashes of joy--was more than a silly girlish notion. She thought back to the day of the Battle of Kimera, when Gammon had looked her in the eye and held out his hand and asked if she would let him care for her. Even then something had bubbled up in the dry well of her soul, and over these last months she had felt that spring slowly fill her. With the coming of the warmer sun she had finally allowed herself to believe that the water was pure enough to drink--but every word Claxton spewed poisoned the water, darkened it, muddied it like the Mighty Blapp, and now she felt herself drowning in it.
"I'm going to give you one last chance, girl. Either Claxton is yer father or Gammon is. Only one of those names is true to your nature. Answer carefully now. Who's your father?"
Maraly shook her head and wept. She wished the Fangs would appear, or more Stranders--she had given up on wishing for Gammon. That sort of thing only happened in storybooks.
"WHO'S YOUR FATHER?" Claxton bellowed. He struck her in the mouth. "You're a Strander down to the bone, girl! Who's your father? What do you think runs thicker than blood in your veins?"
Maraly mumbled.
"What?" Claxton shouted, clenching her throat tighter.
She blinked through her tears and took a trembling breath, then looked him in the eye as fiercely as she could manage. "Love."
"Love," Claxton sputtered. He snorted with laughter.
Maraly sniffled and said, "Love runs stronger than blood. Deeper than any name you could give me."
"You worthless dog," Claxton spat. He balled his fingers into a fist and reared back to strike.
Maraly smiled through her tears. She knew she had chosen well, because she had BEEN chosen. She believed in her heart that Gammon was even now fighting to find her, that his affection was more real than the hand that gripped her throat and the first that was about to pound her. She closed her eyes and waited for the pain.
But Claxton's blow never fell. He gasped and made a choking sound, and his grip on her neck loosened. Maraly crumpled to the ground, looking up at Claxton in confusion. He staggered backward and spun around, and she saw a knife in his back, buried to the hilt.
"Maker help you, boy," said [Nurgabog's] thin, quavering voice. "Maker help me too.
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