Her hands looped around his neck; her lips answered his as he kissed and kissed her. The hunger inside him was desperate. It was as if he were at a faerie feast, where the more mortals consumed, the more intense their hunger became, until they starved to death among the plenty.

When he abruptly released her and staggered backward, she looked as stunned as he felt. A vast emptiness ached inside him. He was drowning in it: it was a physical, almost violent pain.

“I should go,” she said. Her cheeks were flushed. “I can see—perhaps I should not have come here. I will not—I shan’t come again.”

“Grace—”

Halfway to the door, she whirled to look at him, an accusation in her eyes. “I do not know who you were kissing just now, James Herondale,” she said. “But it certainly wasn’t me.”

Before long the little village of Uffington came into view, the hill rising sharply behind it, and Matthew and Cordelia could see the white horse—like a clumsy child’s drawing splayed across the mountainside. Nearby, a flock of sheep grazed placidly, apparently unimpressed at being in the presence of a famous historical artifact.

Matthew took the road up as far as it went, leaving the Ford next to a path that took a jagged route to the top. They walked the rest of the way, Cordelia glad that she had brought her thickest woolen coat; the wind over the downs was sharp as a knife. Matthew’s cheeks were scarlet by the time they reached the top of the scarp, a few feet from the chalk-filled trenches that formed the horse—up close, they were startlingly white.

“Look.” Cordelia pointed. She felt an odd surety, an instinctive sense that she was right deep in her bones. “The horse is facing that way, almost pointing with its nose. Down to that copse, you see, there’s a path—an old road, I think.”

Matthew seemed a little startled, but he joined her on the descent to the path, occasionally stopping to help her when her skirts made walking tricky. Cordelia half wished she’d worn her gear, though it likely wouldn’t have kept her as warm.

“Look,” Matthew said as they reached the path, and indicated a wooden post sunk deep into the earth. A rectangular sign had been nailed to it, proclaiming the path to be THE RIDGEWAY. “So this is the Ridgeway,” Matthew said, sounding subdued. “The oldest road in Britain. Not a Roman road—older than that.”

“I suppose it would be.” Cordelia’s excitement had faded; something more serious gripped her now. As if she were going to the Silent City, or the Hall of Accords. As if this were not a journey but a pilgrimage.