“Now, Catherine, as I was about to say before that unfortunate but understandable venture into the salt mine, I have a plan.”

“A plan? What plan?”

“You don’t think I’ve been sitting here with dry maw waiting to die, do you?” He laid out the carpentry apron on the ground. His tools were stowed in pockets, and he removed each one, running his hands over it as if reintroducing himself to its qualities. By the stiffness in his movements and the occasional wince, he was hurting, but I doubted he would ever mention it and I would certainly never dare say a word to him about the shadows under his eyes or the way my sire had effortlessly taken him captive. “I’ve considered many possible paths, most of which involved your help and some of which involved you being clever enough to bring my carpentry tools.”

“They didn’t all involve me being clever enough to bring your carpentry tools?”

He smiled without looking at me. “Ghouls can’t climb, but you and I can.”

“There are ghouls on this side, too? I’ve not seen any.”

“They’re all ghouls, in their way. What you see as personages in elegant robes, I see as gaunt creatures clawing for my blood. They’re not solid on this side, not like the ones we just saw in the mine. Over here they can change their aspect, just as all spirit creatures can do.”

The way he set each tool down on the ground precisely in line next to the others told me more than words. He was calming himself through orderly action, methodical, precise, just as the cacica had observed. I could not help but watch his hands, the ones that knew exactly how to do the meticulous work he wanted them to do.

He glanced up as if I had made a noise, then raised an eyebrow in that way that made him look supercilious but that was also, I realized, just a way of showing he was puzzled or concerned. “Catherine?”

My lips parted but no words came out. No words I expected or meant to say.

“I love you so much, Vai.”

Had another voice and intelligence spoken through my mouth I would not have been more surprised. His eyes widened, as if I’d blurted out an embarrassing secret he knew he ought not to have heard. Yet the weary slump of his shoulders straightened with new determination as he turned the awl through his fingers and set it down beside the claw hammer. He unrolled the last fold in the heavy leather kit to reveal a set of chisels and a two-bitted hatchet.

“Catherine, can you trust me enough to step blindly off a cliff no matter how it looks to you?”

“Always, Vai. But what is your plan?”