“Never. While the courts are busy with their feast, we can go back the way I came, across the bridges and balconies to the ledge, and then back through the jade gate.”

“We can’t escape by their own paths. Some will scent me and come after me. They are faster than I am. The only reason I’m alive is that they can’t climb, and I got up here before they caught me.”

“They weren’t saving you for Hallows’ Night? Maybe after the feast they won’t be hungry for a while.”

He wiped a hand across his brow, smearing a fine white dust across his skin. “I am scarcely likely to take that chance. It’s safer for me to assume they will kill me the moment they get hold of me. But what do you mean by bridges and balconies?” Bands of exhaustion shadowed his eyes, yet he studied me with a look of concern, as if my situation worried him far more than his own dire straits. “Are your eyes veiled by their illusions?”

I rested a hand against his cheek. His skin seemed dry and warm. I hoped he wasn’t getting feverish. “Don’t you see the city? It’s beautiful, just as I thought it would be. All the ribbons and rainbows and bridges and fine white spires and the huge ziggurat with the feasting personages in their elegant robes… however horrible their meal…”

He gathered me against him. “You’re seeing an illusion, love. Close your eyes.”

I shut my eyes. At first I could not think past the sensation of his arms around me and the whisper of his lips against my hair. There was an odd pressure, like a dense jacket of air tucked tightly against his body, that reminded me of the way air felt just before a storm swept in. I swallowed, and my ears popped. My sword tingled.

I was feeling Vai’s cold magic.

“I thought you had no magic in the spirit world,” I whispered.

“I thought so, too. But in the spirit world it just lies so tightly against my body that I can’t reach with it and thus can’t weave magic here. Now keep your eyes shut, love. Here in the pit, your eyes lie to you. See with your heart and your body. They’ll never lie to you.” His voice was a coaxing murmur. He could have talked me into anything.

He had, hadn’t he? In Expedition he had known I was attracted to his handsome face and inviting body, so he had used words and food to persuade me that what I felt for him was love.

“Catherine, you’re not paying attention. We’re not standing in a city. It’s a pit.”