But none of these senses propelled her forward now. She saw no tracks, smelled no scent, heard no sound. As on the fishing boat, there was nothing. No blood, no stink. And still something kept her moving and guided her right or left when the narrow passage began to fork, then fork again. It was a sense she had learned not to speak of, for words failed her and she’d grown tired of the blank stares.

It was an awareness of a force that pulsed beneath the skin of the world, unseen and unknowable but as real to her as the blood under the white skin of her own wrists. Her parents didn’t feel it, or her grandmother. No one did. She was alone in it. And sometimes, sometimes . . . the pulse caught her up in its flow and carried her along, and when that happened, the way ahead felt as clear as a path paved with light.

It carried her now and she went forth on her wings, the crows hurrying behind her until the passage spilled them all into a chamber. The echoes of their wing beats fluttered like living creatures in the high-vaulted space, and they all fell still. Magpie was the first to see what lay in the center of the room.

Skeletons. Faerie skeletons, many, and so old everything had disintegrated but the white bones themselves. The bones, and the knife that protruded from the nearest one’s spine.

Magpie didn’t linger long over this sight, however, for something else caught her notice—a door in the far wall, engraved with a symbol—and her eyes widened in shocked recognition. “Neh . . . ,” she whispered, and her wings lifted her toward it, right over the skeletons, her eyes never leaving the symbol. “Can it really be . . . ?”

“ ’Pie!” squawked Calypso suddenly, and at that moment her senses throbbed a warning and she felt something coming at her, plummeting from the shadowed reaches above. She thrust herself backward, twisting in air and reaching in one fluid motion for the knife handle she’d seen, wrenching it free of its sheath of bone and spilling the skeleton asunder. As she spun toward her attacker all sound was lost in the ruckus of crow squalls and their echoes, and she came face-to-face with . . . the oldest faerie she had ever seen.

Quickly she stayed the knife and hung in the air before him, staring. She had never beheld so ancient a member of her race. The skin of his face sagged like melted wax and his long white beard was woven round him into a cloak that fell to the floor. He wore a crested helm and brandished a sword, and he snarled the word “Devil!” as he lunged at her. She easily dodged him, seeing as she did that his eyes were clouded—probably blind—and sunk deep in bruise-colored sockets, staring and wild. Never had she seen a soul so blighted by terror.