Promise of Shadows (10 page)

trustworthy and lay out several prime examples where she saved my life down in the Pits, Nanda relents. She grudgingly shows Cass and me to a spare bedroom, giving Cass a suspicious look as she walks by. I sigh. Nanda may have dropped the matter for the moment, but I know it will come up again.

But before that, I need to find out from Cass what the hells is going on. All this distrust is getting old.
After we’re in the spare bedroom, Nanda disappears for a moment before returning with towels and some clothing. “If you put these on, I’ll be happy to wash your clothes for you.” Her expression doesn’t show the least bit of her distaste, and I have to admire her restraint. Even after the dip in the pond, Cass and I still smell faintly like an outhouse.
“Thanks,” I say.
Nanda sets the clothes on the bed and pauses a moment. Her eyes are sad, and the scent of roses decaying floods the room.“They took your wings,” she says in a low voice.
I swallow past the lump in my throat and nod. “It was the price I paid for passage to Tartarus.” A Harpy’s wings are her most prized possession, so losing them was a big deal. It still is. There are days when I wake up from a dream of soaring over treetops only to realize that I will never fly again. It’s like losing them all over again.
Nanda nods, and gives Cass a pointed look. I know she’s wondering what Cass lost for her passage to the Underworld, but even though she’s in a mood, she’s still polite enough not to ask. “It’s good to see you again, dear,” Nanda says before leaving the room.
Once the door has closed, I let out a sigh. “Wow, so that was intense, huh?”
When I turn around, Cass stands in the middle of the room, examining the furniture like it might grow horns and attack her. She looks at me, and her expression is as blank as always. “It was to be expected.”
“Ummm, maybe you could tell me why?” I don’t want to pry, but I’ve never seen Nanda act like that. All this talk of Cass being the great “Betrayer” is kind of making me nervous.
Cass sighs, and crosses her arms. “Pellacis isn’t just my family name, it’s what I am. The Pellacis were once a great line of vættir, known for our beauty and power.”
“Gee, that’s kind of vain.”
Cass gives me a sidelong glance. “We earned that reputation. Some of the greatest heroes were Pellacis. Circe, Heracles,Theseus, Pereseus. Humans and vættir alike revered and feared us.”
“So you’re from a long line of heroes, then?” It makes sense. As powerful as she is, it only seems right that her family would’ve done extraordinary things.
“No, I’m from a long line of liars and cheats. It’s just a coincidence that the most dishonest vættir tend to make the best heroes.”
I laugh, because I don’t know what else to do. “Yeah, tell me about it.”
Cass watches me. “Do you know why the Pellacis were so good at exploiting others?”
I shake my head. I have a feeling she’s going to tell me.
Cass stares at the ground, her shoulders slumped. “Like you, we Pellacis have a secret ability that we don’t usually share.” She looks up at me and shrugs. “But since you’ve shared your greatest secrets with me I feel like I should do the same.”
I take a deep breath and let it out. “Okay.”
Cass walks over to me, so that only a few inches separate us. “We Pellacis have the ability to read the heart’s desire. We can see down to the essence of any human or vættir and see what it is that they want more than anything else.” Cass pokes me in the chest a few times to emphasize her point. “Our ability to easily trick others has given my kind a bad reputation, one I’m afraid we’ve earned. It’s surprisingly easy to manipulate people when you can see what motivates them.”
I want to ask her what she sees in me, but I know what the answer is. I have a desperate need to succeed, to atone for my past failures. It’s why I have to find Whisper, and make sure she gets to the afterlife.
So instead of asking Cass what her ability shows her, I incline my head and smile. “Thank you for sharing that with me.”
She shrugs. “It’s the least I could do.” She pauses, as though she’s carefully choosing her next words. “Do you mind sharing why you lost your temper with Tallon?”
I study my nails, because I’m not sure how to answer. I finally sigh.“I’m not quite sure what happened.”In the Aerie we’re taught to suppress our emotions. Harpies are vicious and deadly because we don’t get mad, or scared, or really feel anything. We just act.
But I get scared all the time, and the anger I felt when I hit Tallon was so strong that I couldn’t even think. When we were kids, Tallon used to make me so mad because he always treated me like I wasn’t tough enough to hang out with him and Whisper. They were both older, and they always tried to get me to stay with Alora, Nanda’s daughter. She was more likely to play with dolls than go on an adventure. I hated getting stuck with her. Maybe some of that childhood resentment was what was fueling my temper.
Or maybe it was something else. Was my anger a by-product of using the erebos?
Cass glances away, and I wonder if she’s thinking the same thing. I decide it’s a good time for a change of topic. “You know, you’re taking this being in the future thing pretty well.”
Cass tilts her head to the side as she examines me. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I would totally be freaking out right about now. I did freak out when I got to Tartarus, remember? And I’m more than a little freaked out by the idea that I have some big prophecy to fulfill. Yet here you are, thousands of years from when you left the Mortal Realm, and you haven’t even batted an eyelash.”
Cass sighs and settles down on the floor, cross-legged. “Zeph, I think it’s time I told you something.”
There’s a weightiness to her words that gives me pause. “Oh. Okay.” I lean against the doorframe. I stay silent, letting her take her time. Even though I can sense from her tone that she’s about to tell me something very important, I don’t smell the burning-coffee smell of anxiety. It should bother me, but it doesn’t. Mostly because it’s Cass. I trust her with my life.
“I have not been completely honest with you since I met you. My personal history was only a little piece of that. But since we are now in the Mortal Realm, I think it’s time I shared something that I could not share while we were in the Underworld.” She pauses, as though she’s carefully choosing her next words. “I’ve spent all of this time protecting you because the Messenger asked me to keep you alive.”
I blink stupidly a few times before her words sink in. “What?”
“Before you arrived, the Messenger asked me to return to the Pits and keep an eye on you. He knew who I was, since he was at my trial so long ago. I was living in the Du’at, searching for a way into the Elysian Fields, when he appeared and offered to take me to Elias if I could keep you alive until it was time. Once I saw you, everything made sense.” She looks at me, her metallic-green eyes flat. “I’ve escaped to the Mortal Realm before now. The last time I was here, I heard the Prophecy of the Promise, which is why I believed you were the Nyx. I suspected you were the one referred to in the texts the first time I met you, but it wasn’t until you survived Hades’s dark wave that I was certain.”
“I . . . oh. So you escaped the Pits before.” My brain is trying to make sense of her words, to put what she’s telling me into the context of our friendship.
All of a sudden I’m feeling less like Cass’s friend and more like a charity case.
“Of course. But the Elysian Fields were where I wanted to be. I thought going there, seeing Elias, that it would fix me. That’s why I accepted the Messenger’s offer.”
Embarrassment heats my face. Of course someone as badass as Cass wouldn’t really want to be my friend. “Okay. Well, thanks for keeping me alive,” I joke, but my hurt makes my voice crack.
Cass shakes her head. “That wasn’t it at all. I had to get into the Elysian Fields, and this was before I met you. I had no idea what kind of vættir you even were.” She pauses and sighs. “Remember when I asked you what you smelled from me, and how I wondered why you never told me about your ability to smell emotions?”
The conversation is too fresh for me to do anything but nod.
“Well, everyone pays for their passage to the Underworld. You paid with your wings, and that satyr that came in a little after you paid with his horns, and so on.”
I nod, because I remember when the satyr arrived. A couple of Cyclopes took him out during sleep time. The sounds of his screams still haunt my memories.
I watch Cass, waiting. I always wondered what they took from her, but I never dared to ask. There was something about her that never invited much in the way of conversation, and I was so happy to have a friend, especially one as strong as Cass, that I didn’t bother prying.
Now I wish I hadn’t trusted her so easily. Because Cass’s confession that she kept me alive because of a deal with Hermes makes me feel like I’m an idiot for thinking she could’ve wanted to be my friend.
It’s not a good feeling.
Cass looks down at her hands. She manifests a ball of fire and begins tossing it back and forth. “I thought at first maybe they’d taken my magic, but æther and the mortal elements can’t be used in Tartarus, and when I returned to the Mortal Realm, so did my abilities, so I didn’t think it was that. It wasn’t anything physical that I could tell. I felt perfectly fine. It wasn’t until the night a Mer tried to rape me that I understood what I was missing.”
I swallow, because I didn’t know that Cass had gone through something that bad. Sure, she’d warned me that we needed to sleep in shifts, and the nights we were lucky enough to have some sort of shelter we barricaded the doorway. I never stopped to consider why she was so cautious.
Cass continues. Her words reveal nothing of her feelings. “I managed to fight him off by hitting him with a rock until he didn’t move. And then, because his dead body was in the way of my sleeping spot near the dark fire, I dragged him into the tree line. Later that night when the basilisks came to feed, I threw a rock in the direction of his corpse to scare them off. Not out of some respect for the dead, but because they were loud and I was trying to sleep.”
Horror makes my chest tight, and I take a deep breath. “Gods, Cass. That’s . . . I don’t even know what to say. I’m so sorry you had to go through that.” Emotion clogs my throat, and if Cass’s spine wasn’t so rigid I would give her a sympathetic hug. Instead she looks like she’s bored.
“That’s the problem, Zephyr. You feel bad about what happened, and you weren’t even there. I knew it was bad, but I didn’t feel anything. I wasn’t angry that someone had tried to assault me, I wasn’t upset that I’d just killed a man, I wasn’t even disgusted that basilisks were feeding on a dead body a few feet away.”
Something clicks in the back of my mind, and I finally get what Cass is trying to tell me. At least now I understand why I’ve never smelled her emotions. She doesn’t have any.
Cass watches me expectantly, so I drop the last piece of the puzzle in for her. “They took your ability to feel when they sent you to Tartarus.”
“Yes. I have no emotions, Zeph. I know that I like you, my brain can register the fondness that should be there, but the feeling is absent. I can’t feel anger, or guilt, or any of the other emotions that make us vættir.”
I nod. So much suddenly makes sense. Her matter-of-fact responses to death in the Pits, her lack of frustration or any kind of judgment when I mess up, her flat green eyes. It all ties back to her inability to feel anything.
Now that I know her secret, I feel like an idiot. I’ve never gotten the slightest whiff of scent from her. I always thought that maybe she was just able to control her emotions, the way good Harpies can. Or maybe she was just barely human, one of those vættir who are closer to the gods than to humans. But she’s neither.
Cass stands.“My point isn’t to make you feel sorry for me,Zephyr. It’s to show you that you’re my friend, even though I might not be very good at telling you or showing it. I wanted to go to the Elysian Fields to find Elias, because I loved him. I thought maybe seeing him would fix me.” Her flat green gaze meets mine. “Emotions are very important to us as vættir. It’s what makes us better than the gods. It’s why we’re adaptable, and they aren’t. Not having emotions . . . I know it’s turned me into a terrible person. I did things while we were in the Pits that I never would’ve done when I could still feel.”
I say nothing, and Cass continues.
My reasons for seeking you out were selfish, but I want you to know that I would never betray you. You’re my friend, and the Nyx. Your success is all that matters now, and I will do anything to make sure you fulfill the Prophecy of the Promise. I hope you will think of that before you decide to cast me out.”
There’s a long moment of silence while I mull over her speech. I shake my head and snort. “Oh, Cass. You’re the best friend I have, and you know the old saying about beggars being choosy, right?” I force a smile, even though in the back of my mind I know that things will never be the same again. Still, I have to try to move past this. Cass is the only friend I have.
I sigh in frustration and push off the doorjamb and head into the bathroom, gesturing for Cass to follow. “Come on,” I say. “I’ll show you the shower.”
I give Cass a quick rundown of how everything works in the bathroom. Her eyes widen and she almost smiles a little when I show her the commode. “That is amazing,” she says, running her hand across the furry toilet-seat cover. If she could feel emotions, I’m pretty sure she’d be jumping up and down like the big winner on a game show.
“They didn’t have indoor plumbing the last time you were here?”
She shakes her head.“Time passes strangely in the Underworld.”
I think of my lost year and nod. “I know.”
I run a shower for Cass and then retreat back to the bedroom to give her some privacy. I think about lying down on the bed for a hot minute before I remember the perma-stink that clings to me. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to wash the stink of Tartarus off me. Ugh, I hope so.
Because my mother taught me that it’s rude to stink up someone else’s house, I opt for the floor instead of the lovely looking bed. Neither the hard floor nor my burgeoning doubts about Cass keep me from falling asleep.

me. “I like showers,” she says, and I laugh.
“Yeah, they’re okay.” I climb to my feet and enter the bathroom,
my muscles aching from my few minutes on the floor. By tomorrow I’ll feel good as new, but right now I feel every inch of my time
sprinting through Tartarus. Weeks? Days? I don’t think we were
on the run for more than a couple days, but who knows. I make my way to the mirror over the sink. I avoided it when
I was in here showing Cass how to use everything, but now that
I’m alone, I let myself study my reflection. I haven’t seen a mirror
since the day Whisper was killed, and looking at my image feels
like I’m breaking some ancient taboo. I’m surprised by what I see
in the mirror.
I look exactly the same.
I’m expecting to appear as different as I feel. Time may not
truly exist in Tartarus, but every minute I was there felt like a
year. After the things I’ve seen I expect my face to be as lined and
wrinkled as one of the seasoned warriors back in the Aerie. Instead
it’s as smooth and brown as it was before Whisper died. My silver eyes are still wide and surprised looking, the light color startling in my dark face. The only difference is my hair. The blue, ropy locks are slightly longer than before I was sent down to Tartarus, frizzy near my head where the new growth hasn’t been properly twisted.
Everything else about me looks exactly the same.
Except I have no wings.
I peel off the basilisk-leather shirt and twist around to look
at my back. Nanda’s soft, pitying words come back to me.
They
took your wings.
Dusky lines crisscross my back, scars from my fall
into Tartarus when the razor-sharp edges from my feathers cut
me as they swirled around, ripped free from my shredding wings.
Two large black lines run parallel to my shoulder blades. Once
my wings would’ve been there. Now there are just a few tiny blue
pinfeathers, pathetic reminders of what I’ve lost.
Not that I’m keeping track.
The black scars from where my wings aren’t wind over my
shoulders and down my arms a little, stopping halfway between
my shoulder and my elbow. I do a double take and trace the black,
scrolling lines. There’s no way it was caused by the loss of my
wings; the placement is all wrong. They look like inky vines. What
in the realms could cause such a marking?
What if I got some kind of Underworld disease? What if it’s
from the waters of the Styx? Or maybe it’s some side effect from
eating that funky fruit. For a single panicked moment I imagine
the black markings spreading across my body, eating away my vital
organs and turning me into some kind of gelatinous blob. I poke at the lines, which don’t feel any different from the rest
of my skin. Overall I feel fine, just a little tired and hungry. I try
to push the worry away. I don’t know what the black marks are,
but maybe Cass will. I make a mental note to ask her about them,
shuck off the rest of my Underworld clothes, and jump into the
steaming shower.
I crank the hot water as high as it will go, sighing as the heat
penetrates the hundred and one achy spots on my body. I would
bet money that the Elysian Fields aren’t half as good as a hot
shower after months of getting beat to the hells and back. While I’m showering, I can’t help but think about Whisper. I’m
feeling relaxed from the heat of the spray, and my mind wanders to
one of the last moments we spent together. It was a few days before
the start of my Trials, and I was so nervous that Whisper finally
decided she’d had enough. I was in the middle of running through
the One Hundred Ways for the fourth time when Whisper threw
down her magazine and stood. “You need a break.”
I paused in the middle of pretending to break an unseen adversary’s neck and stared at her. “Should I practice my sword work?” “No. You should get dressed. We’re going out.”
I stared at her blankly, not understanding what she was saying.
“Out to the training area? I think I’m okay on land navigation.” Whisper sighed. “No, out of the Aerie. Come on, we’re going
to town.”
As soon as she said the word “town” I was up the stairs and
getting dressed in what I called my norm clothes. A pair of jeans, a T-shirt cut to fit around my wings, and sneakers that were a little too small.They were relics from the last time we’d snuck out. None of the clothes were new, but they were better than the tight-fitting
leathers that were the standard Harpy uniform.
Once I was dressed, we climbed to the roof and flew off. Neither
of the sentries challenged us, but that was probably because they
recognized Whisper’s wings. As an assassin in the Omega Corps
she was always coming and going. As soon as we were over the
fence and into the countryside, the weight that pressed down on
me disappeared, and I felt freer than I had in months. I followed Whisper as she landed on a loading dock behind an
ugly glass-and-steel building. “What is this place?”
She grinned.“The mall. I have some extra cash from my last job.
We’re going to get you some clothes that don’t look like they came
from the thrift store.”
I flushed, because my jeans
had
come from the thrift store. I
never had any money, mostly because I hadn’t been assigned to a
line yet. But once I passed my Trials and had regular work, I would
have a little money to spend.
First we made sure our glamours were in place, mine courtesy
of the æther stone in my pocket. Then we walked inside. For the
first few seconds I couldn’t breathe.The scent of all those emotions
made me dizzy. Whisper gently guided me to a bench so that I
could sit down.
“You need to learn to breathe past it. After a while, you won’t
notice the smell so much. At least here the emotions are mostly happy. Try heading into somewhere like one of their prisons. It’s
terrible.”
While I waited for my nose to adjust, I took in the view. It
looked just like all the shows on TV. Boys and girls traveled in
flocks, their bags swinging happily. Tired-eyed mothers pushed
their children along in giant strollers weighed down with purchases, while distracted dads stared at their phones. It was beautifully normal. Average. It was everything I’d ever wanted. And it was nothing I’d ever get to have.
Whisper and I went from store to store, trying on pants and
eyeballing shirts that would have to be altered if we were ever going
to wear them. A boy held my gaze for too long in a store plastered
with posters of shirtless guys on a beach, but when he headed over
to talk to me, Whisper grabbed me by the hand and dragged me off. “I want you to have some fun, but that is a distraction you don’t
need. Trust me.”
The rest of the day flew by in a blur, so when Whisper recommended getting a pretzel and heading home I’d been crushed. “I can’t believe it’s time to go already.” My anxiety returned,
the fear of my upcoming Trials almost crippling. The scent of my
emotions must have been overwhelming, because Whisper wrinkled her nose.
“You’ll do fine, Peep. There’s no sense in freaking yourself out
about it.”
“But what if I don’t?” I asked Whisper as we adjusted our purchases in preparation for flight. We walked to the edge of the parking lot. Our glamours would hide our take off, but that was the least of my problems. I knew I wasn’t going to pass my Trials. My heart wasn’t in it. I hated the Aerie, despised the way it controlled our lives and kept us from the real world. The last thing I wanted was to spend the rest of my years rotting away inside of
those strictly regimented walls. But I couldn’t tell Whisper that. She loved the routine, the safety. She was just like our mom in
that way.
My sister looked down at me, and her expression softened. She
laid a protective hand on my shoulder. “Zeph, you’ll pass or you
won’t. And if you don’t,” she began, halting my interruption, “we’ll
figure it out. There are lots of things you can do in the Aerie that
don’t require fighting. We’ll find a position for you.”
“Maybe I should leave the Aerie.”
Whisper laughed. It sounded like my hopes crashing to the
ground. “Leave the Aerie? Don’t be silly. Life is too dangerous to
go it alone. No, if you fail your Trials, we’ll just find something else
for you to do. But it doesn’t matter anyway, because you’re going
to pass your Trials. Now let’s get home while there’s still daylight.” We took off then, flying back to the Aerie in silence. And I
knew that if I failed my Trials, Whisper would be disappointed. I
vowed that I would do everything I could to pass.
But it didn’t matter. I still failed. I let down the only person who
ever had any sort of faith in me.
I won’t do that again. I will find Whisper’s shade and send it to
the Underworld. Or I’ll die trying.
The water turns cool, pulling me from the memory. I hurry to
wash up before it goes icy. I don’t move fast enough, and I end up
washing my ropy snarls of hair under a frigid spray. But I can’t
complain. It’s my first shower in more than a year.
I turn off the water and wrap myself in a towel. When I walk
out to the bedroom, Cass is still wrapped in her towel. She holds
a pair of the shorts Nanda left for us. Cass’s expression is a bit
forlorn.
“I don’t think I can wear these,” she says, holding up the running shorts. “They’re . . . indecent.”
I look around the room, and the bed gives me an idea. I pull off
the bedspread and tug at the sheets, handing the top one to Cass.
It has wide green and blue stripes, but it’s not running shorts.“Can
you make this work?”
She nods before looking down at the shorts again. “Does everyone wear such tiny clothes?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. In the Aerie we wore leathers. We
switched them out for jeans, which are these canvas kind of pants,
when we went to town. But the people on TV wear stuff like this
all the time.”
Cass stares at the clothes, like she can’t believe people would
willingly give up wearing togas. “Can you help me cut this down
to size?” I nod and extend one of my talons. Nanda’s going to be
pissed that we’re destroying her bedsheets. But I can’t let Cass run
around in the dirty toga. It’s a pungent reminder of hell, and I’d
like to forget Tartarus as soon as possible.
I help Cass cut down the sheet, then quickly pull on the
clothes Nanda left for me, a shirt advertising a 5K and a similar
pair of running shorts to what Cass held. I feel strange walking
around someone else’s house barefoot, but my boots smell like ass.
Hopefully once the leather dries out, the stink of the Styx won’t
be so noticeable.
There’s not much I can do with the snarled locks of my hair,
so I bind it in a high ponytail with a leftover length from Nanda’s
sheet. Once Cass has finished securing her bed sheet toga with a
couple of creative knots, we gather up our towels and dirty clothes
and follow our noses to the kitchen.
Blue sits at the kitchen, table scraping the remainders of something that smells amazing from his plate into his mouth. Tallon is
nowhere to be found. My mouth waters, and I think I recognize
the smell, but I’m not sure. The combination of everyone’s emotions and the cooking food make for an interesting scent. Birthday
cake and bacon. Coffee and too-ripe strawberries. I don’t bother
trying to parse them out. I just hope at least one of the smells is
on the menu.
Nanda stands at the stove, overseeing several skillets at once.
She sees Cass and me and gives us a wide, welcoming smile. “Laundry room’s over there, Peep. Just toss those dirty clothes
on the floor. I’m making bacon and eggs, so do you want scrambled or fried?”
Nanda speaks English, so I translate for Cass. She’s still confused, and I realize that she’s probably used to much different food. Has Cass ever had bacon? What the hells did people eat in
the olden days? Porridge?
I answer for both of us. “We’ll have our eggs scrambled, thanks.
Oh, and Nanda, don’t forget Cass doesn’t speak English. You’ll
have to speak in Æthereal.” I respond to Nanda in Æthereal, so
that Cass will know what I’m saying.
Nanda smacks her forehead with her hand. “That’s right. Sorry,
completely forgot.” But her words are flat and insincere. She’s
obviously not as over Cass’s dubious history as she’s pretending
to be.
I’m also having a little trouble trusting Cass right now. I force a grin and shrug. “It’s okay. Hanging out with Cass has
really improved my Æthereal.”
Nanda watches Cass with a dark, assessing gaze. “So I guess
Blondie doesn’t know what bacon is then, huh?”
Cass watches Nanda with her usual blank expression. “No. I’ve
never heard of bacon.”
Nanda gives her a feral grin. “Honey, you are in for a treat.” I toss the dirty towels and clothes on the floor of the laundry
room, praying that I’m not going to have to referee a cat fight.
When I return, Cass has already taken a chair at the kitchen
table. A heaping plate of scrambled eggs and bacon sits in front
of her, and she’s shoveling it in like a champ. I take the other
empty chair, Nanda sets a full plate in front of me, and then I get
to work as well.
No one says anything for a few long minutes, and when I look up, everyone is watching me. “What?” I say around a mouthful of
food.
Blue’s lips twitch, and his sapphire eyes sparkle. “Are you hungry?”
I look down at my plate and realize I’ve eaten everything but a
forkful of eggs. I swallow the food in my mouth. “Yes, but I always
eat like this. You snooze you lose in the Aerie,” I say. Cass frowns
in my direction and I shrug. “It sounds much better in English
than it does in Æthereal.” I tell her.
We finish eating, and when I’m done, my belly is painfully full,
stretching out the T-shirt. I feel amazing. I can’t keep the blissful
smile from my face. “Nanda, you are awesome.”
She laughs and picks up my plate.“That’s just the bacon talking.” Nanda loads the dishwasher, and Cass watches with her head
tilted to the side, like an inquisitive dog. I reach across the table
and tap her. “Dishwasher. It washes dishes.”
Cass nods, but the perplexed look doesn’t really leave her face.
Nanda notices and frowns.
“Cass, how are you with wards?” Nanda asks, remembering to
speak in Æthereal this time.
“Fairly good. What are you looking for?”
“Well, I had a decent ‘don’t see me’ ward set up to protect me
from Hera’s Acolytes, but I think one of their seeker spells may
have damaged it.” Nanda gestures to Blue, and he stands without