A creature glided toward me. She had the seeming of a woman whose coiled hair was laden with gold coins. I thrust. My sword pierced her. Pain shivered up my arm, but I pushed, leaning my full weight into her.

She shattered, coming apart like a pouch of sand when it is ripped open.

Where the grains soaked into the ground, the veil of illusion cleared. As if through glass, I saw the dusty surface of salt. I smelled the sun of the mortal world, and heard the shrill whistle of wind blowing beneath an empty sky.

“Catherine!”

The exhalation of their breath iced my neck. To climb I had to sheathe my sword. Fear propelled me. I swarmed up the face of the cliff as he hoarsely called directions so I need not pause and look, for if I had hesitated, they would have grabbed me.

“Up three hands, now right, another hand farther, so you see it? There! Your foot to where your knee is. In a half step. There, that’s right. Push up, it’s wide enough to hold you. See my left foot? Let go with your left hand. You grab where my foot was…”

So we climbed, me sweating from the pain that flamed in my arms and hands. I was so exhausted I was shaking, but I was not going to lose him.

He disappeared over the rim, then reappeared to haul me up beside him. I shrugged out of the pack. We lay panting side by side. The length of my blade was pressed into me by the weight of his leg alongside mine. I rested on my back, staring at the pewter bowl of the sky and what appeared to me now as the high white wall of the palace rising behind my head exactly as I had seen it before I had entered. Vai lay on his stomach, and he appeared to be looking over the edge of an escarpment as he stared into the pit we had escaped. I had to shut my eyes because I could not tell which direction was up. I felt dizzy. His ragged breathing was all the sign I needed to know that he, too, was fighting the toll taken by our exertions.

“We’ve got to keep moving,” I said. “We’ve got to reach the jade doors and retrieve Queen Anacaona’s head. Someone is sure to come after us.”

“We need to retrieve what?” Vai sat up as if he had finally woken out of a bad dream.

I opened my eyes. “I’ll explain later. There’s a jade door with warded ground somewhere along this exterior. We can cross there.”

We stumbled to our feet as I hoisted the pack. Vai stowed the tools and slung on the carpenter’s apron. His face was gray with exhaustion, but he trudged forward stubbornly. My entire body hurt as we staggered along the rim of the palace.