Plot Summary
Prologue
At seven years old, Ash Davison1 plays alone in his garden, stirring potions from petals and dirt in a wooden bowl. He wishes for a friend, and a gold-skinned creature with sideways-blinking green eyes and rows of sharp teeth4 appears. The creature calls itself Nua,4 teaches Ash1 about the Folk, and asks him to check whether the house has black iron on its doors and windows.
When Ash1 confirms the iron exists, Nua4 leaves for a long time. Other Folk visit Ash1 over the years: twig girls, winged green creatures, a man who calls Ash the thrice-lived king1 and shows him how to extract poison from Deathcap mushrooms. Nua4 gives him a knife carved from petrified bone.
Silent animals guard him: a black cat,2 a blackbird,2 a stag beetle.2 Then, just before his fourteenth birthday, the visits stop. Ash1 grows up, goes to university, and convinces himself the Folk were an overactive childhood imagination. On the day before his twenty-first birthday, he returns home, unaware that the Folk have been waiting.
The prologue establishes the collision between mortal innocence and fae predation through the lens of childhood wish-making. Ash conjures friendship from loneliness, and the Folk answer, but their interest is never benign. Nua's probing questions about family, iron fixtures, and Ash's mother reveal reconnaissance disguised as play. The phrase 'thrice-lived king' is seeded as a mystery that will haunt Ash's identity. The rotating animal sentinels suggest surveillance by multiple fae factions, each with its own investment in the boy. Ash's adolescent forgetting mimics the psychological defense of repression: he disbelieves his own experience to preserve a coherent mortal identity. The structural irony is that the Folk are most dangerous when they become invisible, and the prologue's return to the garden on the eve of adulthood signals that childhood debts are about to be collected.
A Midnight Kidnapping
Ash1 graduates university and returns to his childhood cottage. His father and stepmother Mags leave for a trip; police officers arrive at three in the morning to tell Ash1 both have died in a car crash. He spirals into paralyzing grief, barely able to eat or leave the garden.
A friendly black cat2 with solid black eyes tries to warn him to go inside one night, pacing frantically at the threshold but never crossing the iron-framed door. Ash1 ignores the warning. Long, icy fingers wrap around his ankle and yank him off his feet.
He wakes in a cart, bound and being wheeled through an impossible forest by unseelie Folk including a flirtatious gancanagh named Caom5 and a sour seamstress named Idony. They tell him the Carlin,3 the Unseelie Queen,3 ordered his capture. At a lake, a kelpie named Odran9 whispers that he will 'tell him' about Ash's1 arrival.
The Folk engineer maximum vulnerability before striking. Ash's parents are murdered to isolate him, not incidentally but as a calculated precondition. The car crash story is a lie the Folk cannot tell directly but can stage, exploiting mortal institutions (police officers) as unwitting accomplices to a fae abduction. The black cat is the first appearance of Lonan in animal form, already trying to warn Ash away from danger, establishing the tragic pattern: he will always protect Ash in ways Ash cannot recognize. Ash's paralysis after the deaths demonstrates how grief functions as a doorway; the Folk harvest him at his most unguarded, when the boundaries between worlds thin with sorrow.
Court of Bronze Teeth
A blue-skinned apothecary named Belial10 leads Ash1 into the Carlin's3 ice-like palace. The Unseelie Queen3 has one cobalt eye, a scarred empty socket, bronze teeth, and a staff topped with blue crystal.
Her four silent sons sit on thrones behind her: Balor6 with her matching eyes, Bres7 with her bronze teeth, blind Cethlen8 stroking a white hellhound, and the youngest, Lonan,2 with iridescent black hair and hooded black eyes that track Ash1 with cold disdain. The Carlin3 tells Ash1 his mother is fae, that he is half Folk, and that he must shed his mortal skin to become his true self.
She slices his neck with a talon, seemingly by accident, and orders Belial10 to settle him in a secluded cottage at the edge of the forest. Later, Caom5 reveals the cut was no accident: Ash1 is bound to unseelie land and cannot enter the forest without agonizing pain.
The Carlin's court is a theater of terror dressed as welcome. Every detail is performative: the bronze teeth signal predation, the single eye suggests omniscient surveillance, the four specialized sons personify her distributed power (sight, speech, hearing, violence). By wounding Ash during a gesture of maternal affection, the Carlin reenacts the original abandonment by his fae mother, simultaneously claiming him and sealing his captivity. Lonan's silent, bored performance is the first mask he wears; his intense gaze predicts the connection to come. The cottage at the forest's edge is spatial limbo, reflecting Ash's ontological state: neither mortal nor fae, welcomed nowhere, kept alive for extraction.
The Wolf and the Cat
Ash1 settles into an uneasy routine in the cottage, discovering it once belonged to a drachmsmith named Briordan who fled the Carlin.3 He reads Briordan's potioncraft books obsessively and tames the wild herb garden.
A huge black wolf2 visits him at night, leaning against him, licking away his tears, accepting nothing except companionship. By day, a black cat2 with the same solid black eyes curls up on his bed and keeps him company while he cooks and reads. Neither animal eats or drinks anything he offers.
Ash1 begins speaking to them freely, confessing loneliness, grief, and his confusion about why the Folk want him. He asks the wolf2 about meat and the cat2 about eggs; soon dead rabbits and live chickens appear at the cottage. He suspects they are the same creature, some kind of shapeshifter,2 but cannot identify them.
The wolf and cat sequences establish the central emotional paradox of Ash's captivity: the same system that entraps him also provides his deepest comfort. Both animals embody unconditional presence without demand, a form of love Ash has been starved of since his parents' deaths. Their refusal to eat or drink his food foreshadows their true nature: they are not independent creatures but extensions of a fae consciousness that cannot accept mortal hospitality. Ash's confessions to them create dramatic irony for a rereading, transforming scenes of apparent loneliness into intimate conversations with the one person he does not yet know he is addressing. The animals function as transitional objects, mediating between Ash's human past and fae future.
The Prince's Warning Visit
Lonan2 arrives at the cottage in full daylight, telling Ash1 he is invited to dine with the Carlin.3 He hands over a heavy bag of coins for clothes and, when Ash1 later shops in the village, intercepts a merchant trying to cheat him. Lonan2 asks direct questions: did Ash1 enjoy the party?
When Ash1 lies, Lonan2 calls him out immediately. Their conversation is tense and stilted, but when Lonan's2 black eyes drop to Ash's1 mouth and linger, something shifts in the air between them. Later, at the formal dinner, the Carlin3 and her sons mock and probe Ash1 while Lonan2 sits rigid and silent beside him.
Afterward, walking Ash1 home, Lonan2 explodes with frustration that Ash1 is not trying harder to shed his mortal skin. Their argument crescendos, and Lonan2 suddenly grabs Ash's1 face and kisses him fiercely, then drops to his knees.
This section marks the pivot from surveillance to seduction. Lonan's seemingly bureaucratic visit reveals layered intentions: loyalty to his mother's commands, genuine protectiveness (the merchant intervention), and sexual obsession barely contained beneath fae reserve. The dinner scene is a masterclass in coercive control through ritual: Ash must perform gratitude for captivity itself. Lonan's explosion afterward reads as frustrated impotence, a creature trained for violence with no vocabulary for care. His kiss is an act of desperation, a language his body speaks when his words are bound by fae prohibitions against lies and direct defiance of his mother. The question becomes whether Lonan is seducing Ash for the Carlin or seducing Ash despite her.
Game of Favours
The Carlin3 orders a 'game of favours' to help Ash1 integrate with the Folk. Pairs are randomly drawn; Ash1 is matched with Lonan.2 They must try to take each other's favor, a necklace with a pendant that embodies a vow. Lonan2 reveals his ability to shapeshift into a crow and taunts Ash1 for being unable to catch him.
When Ash1 grows frustrated, Lonan2 agrees to a fair physical fight with no magic. They tussle on the ground; Ash1 pins Lonan's2 biceps with his knees, a childhood wrestling trick, and fumbles the chain's clasp free. He wins Lonan's favor, the tiny black feather pendant.
But Caom5 later tells him Lonan2 is an assassin and High Fae, and Ash1 realizes Lonan2 must have let him win. He confronts Lonan2 that night, furious at the pity. The argument spirals until Lonan2 kisses him again and takes him in his mouth against a tree trunk.
The game of favours is structured as a courtship ritual disguised as combat. Lonan's initial refusal to fight fairly and subsequent capitulation maps the arc of their relationship: fae power hierarchies must be acknowledged, then voluntarily suspended, before intimacy becomes possible. Ash's victory through a 'dirty trick' (using his knees) rather than violence signals that mortal ingenuity can subvert fae strength. The favor itself, a black feather, is a fragment of Lonan's shapeshifting self, a piece of his soul bound to a promise. Ash's fury at the win reveals his core need: not to possess Lonan, but to be his equal.
Notes from the Forest
Notes pinned to trees with thorns or daggers begin appearing. Signed 'N,4' they warn Ash1 not to trust the wolf,2 the cat,2 the gancanagh,5 or 'especially the prince.2' They urge him to shed his mortal skin and enter the forest, promising someone will be waiting.
Simultaneously, Ash1 succeeds at his first potion, a growth stimulant that doubles his herbs overnight. Elated, he throws himself into drachmsmith study, copying recipes from Briordan's books and practicing in the kitchen. The wolf2 and the cat2 continue their nightly and daily visits.
Caom5 grows subtly possessive and irritated as Ash1 refuses his advances. Odran the kelpie9 delivers a book about spellsmiths, adding to the fragmented clues. Ash1 feels pulled in multiple directions, trusting no one fully but increasingly unable to resist Lonan.2
The competing messages from Nua and Lonan structure this section as an epistemological crisis. Nua's warnings have the form of protective guidance but the function of isolation: each instruction to trust no one further atomizes Ash. The potioncraft success is Ash's first authentic self-authored power in the fae world, the beginning of an identity that belongs to him alone. Caom's souring friendship demonstrates the conditional nature of fae affection: it curdles when denied the desired return. Odran's book delivery links the kelpie to Nua's network, suggesting an organized resistance to the Carlin's plans that Ash cannot yet perceive. The central irony is that Ash's growing love for Lonan, the one relationship Nua most vigorously condemns, is what will ultimately catalyze his transformation.
A Prince in His Bed
Lonan2 begins visiting the cottage every night. They are insatiable, falling into bed within moments of his arrival, learning each other's bodies with hungry urgency. Lonan2 is inexperienced but fiercely eager, trembling with desire, unable to get enough of Ash's1 skin.
Over weeks, their encounters deepen beyond sex. Lonan2 stays longer, helps Ash1 copy potion recipes, drinks aniseed tea, wears Ash's1 shorts. He brings gifts: coffee from the café whose owner later disappears, rare seeds, a blanket of white fur. They celebrate his birthday on Samhain night with stew and bread and sex so intense Ash1 nearly panics.
Ash1 tells Lonan2 he loves him; Lonan2 does not say it back but buries his face in Ash's1 neck and holds him like he is drowning. They plan a Yule celebration. Lonan2 fills the cottage with warmth against the Bitter Months' encroaching cold.
The domestic idyll inside the cottage functions as a counter-reality to the Carlin's palace. Every gesture of care between Ash and Lonan is an act of rebellion against fae power structures that demand hierarchy, transaction, and cruelty. Lonan's silence when Ash says 'I love you' is the story's central wound: he cannot lie, and the truth is too dangerous to speak. His gifts are reparations in advance, conscience payments against a debt he knows is coming due. The murdered café owner reveals Lonan's shadow side: he will kill to protect Ash, but this protectiveness is itself an assertion of fae power, not an equal partnership. The Bitter Months outside the window are both literal winter and approaching reckoning.
The Shapeshifter Revealed
Lonan2 arrives at the cottage agitated and blurts out that he was the wolf,2 the cat,2 the blackbird,2 the moth,2 every animal2 that watched Ash1 since childhood. He has been observing Ash1 since they were boys, drawn to him from the first visit.
He was the cat2 that tried to warn Ash1 on the night of the kidnapping. He was the wolf2 that comforted him through grief. He was the moth2 in Ash's1 university dormitory. He was all of them. Ash1 processes this revelation with stunned disbelief, then laughter: he recognizes the black eyes he always felt he knew.
Lonan2 shifts through multiple animal forms at Ash's1 request, a vulnerable display of his power, ending as the cat2 curled on Ash's1 chest. Ash1 tells him he is not angry, that knowing the animals2 were Lonan2 makes him love them more.
The shapeshifter revelation completes the reframing of Ash's entire life story. Lonan's confession transforms the narrative from a story about abduction and coercion into a story about lifelong devotion expressed through the only means available to a monitored assassin prince. His multiple animal forms represent different self-states: the wolf is his protective ferocity, the cat his domestic tenderness, the moth his silent yearning. The confession is not a betrayal exposed but a vulnerability offered: Lonan surrenders his most intimate secret, the private language through which he has loved Ash since childhood. Ash's immediate acceptance and humor signal that his fae nature is already emerging: fae do not recoil from strangeness; they incorporate it.
The Bitter Months' Reckoning
Lonan2 fails to appear as himself or the wolf2 on the night Ash1 brews a potion to strengthen his power under the new moon. Ash1 is knocked unconscious outside his cottage and wakes chained in the Carlin's3 throne room, stripped and freezing. The Carlin,3 flanked by her four sons, reveals her true plan.
Ash's1 fae mother is the Seelie Queen, the Brid, making Ash1 Seelie High Fae. The Carlin3 intends to scrape off his mortal skin, keep him alive as a vessel of seelie power, and literally consume him piece by piece to prevent the Mild Months from ever returning.
She casually adds that Lonan2 murdered Ash's1 human parents, not in a car crash but by slitting their throats. Balor6 reveals that Lonan2 seducing Ash1 was part of a game, a performance to make Ash's1 eventual fall more devastating. Lonan2 stands silent throughout, his face a cold mask.
The throne room scene is the narrative's dark inversion of Ash's first meeting with the Carlin, where maternal language masked predatory intent. Now the mask is off. The revelation that Ash is not unseelie but seelie royalty recontextualizes the entire plot: the Carlin's 'protection' was imprisonment of an enemy heir. Lonan's sexual relationship with Ash becomes a double violation when framed as a calculated game, an intimate betrayal that mirrors his physical murder of Ash's parents. His silence under Balor's accusations functions as compelled testimony in the fae system: he cannot lie, and denial would be a lie, so he says nothing. This is the moment Ash's love breaks, replaced by a vow of hatred and forgetting.
Broken Chains, Golden Skin
Left alone in the freezing throne room, Ash1 begins to die. His heart pounds too hard, his body shuts down from cold and shock. In his final moments, an orange-red fire blooms inside him, a voice telling him not to fight it. He accepts.
His vision returns enhanced: he can see in the dark, colors are sharper. His skin has turned golden with a faint sheen. He snaps his chains with raw strength. Lonan,2 who returned to the hall weeping, begs forgiveness at his feet.
Ash,1 remembering only that Lonan2 killed his father and betrayed him, makes a terrible vow: he will forget Lonan2 and everything they had until the day he dies. The vow takes effect immediately, a spellsmith's curse. Ash's1 memory of Lonan2 vanishes mid-sentence. He flees the palace, sees a strange fae crying at his feet, and runs past him without recognition.
His escape through the snow is harrowing: Balor6 severs Ash's1 left arm with a sword. The great black wolf2 fights Balor6 off, giving Ash1 time to reach the forest where Nua4 catches him and drags him to safety inside a hollow log.
Ash's transformation sequence subverts the passive 'shedding' the Carlin demanded. He does not lose his mortal skin; he is reborn through near-death, his seelie power catalyzed by the very cold meant to break him. The golden skin signals his true heritage: Seelie High Fae, the realm of warmth and growth, antithetical to the Carlin's ice. His immediate use of spellsmith power to craft a vow of forgetting is tragic and ironic: he is his mother's heir, able to bind with words, and his first act is to sever himself from the person who loved him most. Lonan's loss of his arm to Balor while in wolf form, and Balor's severing of Ash's arm, create a symmetry of bodily sacrifice. The memory-erasing vow introduces the central question for the sequel: can a spellsmith's binding be undone, and should it be?
Analysis
Mortal Skin is fundamentally a story about the violence required to separate love from power when they have been deliberately fused. The Carlin's3 court operates on a single principle: intimacy is always instrumental, tenderness is always a prelude to extraction. She raises her sons to be isolated weapons, then uses their loneliness as loyalty. Lonan2 is the purest product of this system, but his love for Ash1 introduces a contaminant: a feeling that serves no strategic purpose, that makes him weep and grovel and fight his own brother6 as a wolf. The tragedy is that Ash1 cannot distinguish Lonan's2 authentic love from his performative cruelty when both have worn the same mask, because the system has trained them to be indistinguishable. The final irony is Ash's1 spellsmith vow. He uses the very power the Carlin3 wanted to harvest from him to permanently scar himself, excising the one relationship2 that might have healed him. His golden skin is a visible marker of his heritage and his wound: he is Seelie, the court of warmth and growth, but his first act as full fae is to freeze his own heart. The severed arm is a body-horror externalization of this: the hand that reached for Lonan,2 that wore his ring, is cut away. And yet Lonan2 saved that arm's twin by sacrificing his own wolf-body to Balor's6 attack. The symmetry suggests that their fates remain intertwined even when memory denies it. This is a book about how love persists in the negative space created by its own erasure, a silhouette cut into the shape of forgetting.
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Characters
Ash Davison
Half-mortal seelie heir, drachmsmithAsh is twenty-one, raised by his human father and stepmother in an isolated English cottage. He saw the Folk throughout childhood but convinced himself they were imaginary. After his parents' murder, he is kidnapped to the unseelie realm and told he is half-fae. Ash's defining trait is resilience disguised as passivity: he appears to drift but is constantly observing, learning, and seeking small autonomies through potioncraft, gardening, and cooking. His love for Lonan2 develops against every survival instinct, driven by a profound need for connection in a world designed to isolate him. His transformation from mortal to golden-skinned fae is catalyzed by near-death, and his first spellsmith act is a tragic vow of forgetting that erases Lonan2 from his memory.
Lonan
Carlin's assassin son, shapeshifterThe youngest Unseelie Prince, Lonan is twenty-one but has existed for twenty-one years as his mother's3 killing blade, feared and friendless. He is a spiritsmith who can shift into any animal form, and he has used this ability to watch Ash1 since they were seven. Lonan is the novel's great contradiction: trained to murder, emotionally stunted, yet desperately craving intimacy. His love for Ash1 expressed itself through silent animal companionship long before he could speak it. His tragedy is his inability to defy the Carlin3 openly; his devotion is real but structurally impotent. When Balor6 severs Ash's1 arm, Lonan as the wolf fights his own brother. He loses Ash1 not to death but to memory erasure, the cruelest possible punishment for a creature who cannot lie.
The Carlin
Unseelie Queen, winter rulerThe Unseelie Ruler is a siansmith who controls violent winter weather. She has one cobalt eye, a scarred empty socket, and gleaming bronze teeth. Her four sons are specialized extensions of her power: Balor6 (sight), Bres7 (speech), Cethlen8 (hearing), and Lonan2 (violence). The Carlin's goal is to consume Ash's1 seelie power to prevent the Mild Months from ever returning, keeping herself at full strength permanently. She murdered Ash's1 human parents and arranged his abduction as carefully as any military campaign. Her maternal language is pure predator's camouflage; she calls him 'sweet boy' while planning to eat him piece by piece.
Nua
Childhood friend, forest guardianA golden-skinned fae with big green eyes that blink sideways and rows of sharp teeth. He befriended Ash1 at age seven and visited for years, teaching him about the Folk while probing for information about iron protections in Ash's1 house. Nua orchestrated Ash's1 escape from the unseelie realm through cryptic notes pinned to trees, and eventually catches Ash1 as he stumbles into the forest after losing his arm. He calls Ash1 'my brother' and weeps as he hides him. His loyalties and true identity remain ambiguous.
Caom
Gancanagh flirt, false friendA blond, sharp-toothed fae who secretes a seductive toxin through his skin, though it never works on Ash1 because of his fae blood. Caom brings Ash1 food and clothes, shows him around unseelie land, and pushes him to socialize, but his friendliness curdles when Ash1 repeatedly rejects his sexual advances. He was part of the troop that kidnapped Ash1, and his copper eyes gleamed with greed when presented with Ash's1 coin purse. Lonan2 despises him and threatens to kill him.
Balor
Eldest prince, the Carlin's eyesThe tallest of the four unseelie princes, with the Carlin's3 same cobalt-blue eyes and long white hair. He spies for his mother3, seeing everything and reporting back. Balor is cruel and calculating, the most openly hostile of the brothers toward Ash1. He reveals Lonan's2 'game' with Ash1 during the throne room confrontation and later severs Ash's1 left arm with a sword during the escape attempt, a wound he clearly intends to be both physical and psychological.
Bres
Second prince, silver-tongued mouthpieceThe second-eldest unseelie prince, recognizable by his bronze teeth matching his mother's3. He is the Carlin's3 mouthpiece, a master at lying with truths and manipulating conversations to confuse and trap. He taunts Ash1 at the formal dinner about snake meat and suggests Ash1 poison Belial10 in retaliation.
Cethlen
Blind prince, the Carlin's earsThe second-youngest unseelie prince, blind with filmy white eyes and always accompanied by a small white hellhound with red eyes. He hears all gossip and secrets among the Folk, serving as his mother's3 intelligence network. He never speaks at the dinner or in the throne room, silent and listening.
Odran
Kelpie of the forest lakeA water-dwelling fae with pale skin, black eyes with green sheen, and blue-tinged lips. He lives independently in a forest lake but is technically unseelie. During Ash's1 initial capture, he whispers a promise to tell someone about Ash's1 arrival. Later, he delivers a book about spellsmiths to Ash's1 cottage, acting as a courier between Nua's4 network and Ash1.
Belial
Apothecary who poisoned AshA blue-skinned fae with black hair and electric blue eyes, master apothecary who drugged Ash1 for his kidnapping. Despite this, he is calm, quiet, and surprisingly decent to Ash1 afterward, speaking to him almost as an equal. He is deeply in love with Caom5, who entirely fails to notice.
Plot Devices
The Carlin's Binding Cut
Blood-bound magical imprisonmentThe Carlin3 slices Ash's1 neck with her talon during their first meeting, claiming it was accidental. In truth, the cut binds Ash1 to unseelie land so that attempting to enter the forest causes blinding pain and violent ejection. The binding enforces Ash's1 captivity more effectively than any chains, breaking only when he sheds his mortal skin and becomes full fae. Caom5 reveals the cut's true nature early on, establishing the Carlin's3 capacity for smiling violence.
Shapeshifting
Surveillance, protection, and concealmentLonan2 is a spiritsmith who can assume any animal form. He uses this ability to watch over Ash1 from childhood (cat, bird, beetle, moth2), to spy for the Carlin3 (blackbird2), and to provide silent companionship during Ash's1 captivity (wolf at night, cat by day2). The shifting also allows Lonan2 to fight Balor6 as a wolf2 during Ash's1 escape, sacrificing himself to buy Ash1 time. His crow form enables quick travel between the palace and the cottage. The multiplicity of forms represents the fractured self of a creature forced to be a weapon while yearning to be a lover.
The Favor Necklace
Magical vow-bargain between Ash and LonanDuring the game of favours, each participant creates a pendant that embodies a vow. Lonan's2 favor is a tiny black feather on a chain, which Ash1 wins through physical combat. The favor represents a debt Lonan2 owes Ash1, within reason, that he must honor if called upon. Ash1 wears it at his throat throughout the book. The pendant is charged with fae promise-magic that calls to Ash's1 latent spellsmith powers during the game, nearly hypnotizing him. It remains at his neck even after his transformation.
Potioncraft / Drachmsmith Books
Ash's path to self-empowermentBriordan's library, particularly the Novice Drachmsmith and Advanced Drachmsmith texts, gives Ash1 a skillset that belongs to him alone in the fae world. His successful potions (plant growth stimulant, warming jar, frost protection) prove his fae blood is awakening. The brewing of a power-amplification potion on the new moon directly precedes his capture and transformation. Potioncraft represents the middle ground between mortal science and fae magic, the hybrid knowledge that is Ash's1 birthright as a half-mortal seelie heir.
The Memory-Eating Vow
Tragic erasure of Ash's love for LonanAfter learning Lonan2 killed his parents and their relationship was supposedly a 'game,' Ash1, newly transformed into full fae, speaks a spellsmith's vow: he will forget Lonan2 and everything they shared until the day he dies. The vow takes effect immediately, as evidenced by the appearance of a black X-shaped mark on his chest. Ash's1 memories of Lonan2 vanish completely mid-conversation; he sees only a strange fae2 weeping at his feet. This vow drives the sequel's central conflict: whether the binding can be broken.
Folk Series
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