She did not know what the pattern meant. Still she recognized it.

It could not have been caused by her struggle to crawl over the fanged frame of the window. Beneath the darker script of blood, she saw hints of green. Her eyes were scalded; nearly blind. Nevertheless the green looked as essential as grass.

The pattern—if it existed—was a map.

And there, on her shirt, surrounded by smoldering and blackness: a small round hole as precise as the passage of a bullet.

—her like again.

From somewhere beyond the flames, voices shouted her name. They had been shouting for a long time. Too long. Friends whom she had never met because they did not exist, imagined friends, pleaded for her in voices as loud as the conflagration and collapse of the farmhouse.

If she could not trust herself, she might be able to trust them.

Or the map.

It showed the way out.

Out of what? Into what? She had no idea. She could not read the map. She could only follow it.

She knew how. Do something they don’t expect. Everything else will take care of itself.

Because she had only one real weapon, one defense, and had failed to save herself, she hurled her medical bag straight into the teeth of the fire.

Everything is simpler than you make it sound.

Simpler, hell!

In that instant, a bolt of lightning struck through the blazing house into her chest. The concussion knocked her flat, expelled the anguish from her lungs, stunned every muscle. But the shock was brief. Night swallowed the flames, effaced fire from the world. Before her heart knew that it had died, it beat again. She lay on damp grass while realities wheeled around her, spinning too fast to be understood. When she gasped for breath, the air had become cool bliss.

At once, the shouting changed. Crying, “Linden Giantfriend!” Frostheart Grueburn scooped Linden into her arms. The Swordmain’s muscles strained with urgency.

“Is she harmed?” demanded Stormpast Galesend. Her voice was so loud that it covered Mahrtiir’s tense query.

Like a blaring horn, Rime Coldspray roared, “No! This I will not permit!

“Stave! The Staff!”

Vaguely Linden realized that she was no longer holding the Staff of Law. Her nerves remembered throwing it—Her medical bag: every drug, every instrument. The darkness held a greenish tinge, wan and frail, so faint that it scarcely dimmed the unregarded stars.

The muffled thud of a Giant’s strides receded. They became splashing, a rush into water: shallow water that grew deeper at every step.

Other feet sprinted in pursuit. Smaller splashes: a smaller body. Stave? Linden’s heart clenched again, and a clamor of water arose. Something greater than a Giant reared and thrashed.

In the distance, aghast children wailed in little voices that sounded like mud.