And then there was Kosar, a branded thief. He seemed strange. Though not as old as her, he was experienced and well traveled, yet almost naïve in the company of herself and A’Meer. It was as if he shunned the knowledge that he must have been witness to over his years of wandering the lands, excluding it for want of a simpler life. His fingers bled, he tore strips of cloth to cover them and he hadn’t once asked whether Hope knew of ways to cure him. There were means—Willmott’s Nemesis, administered correctly, would ease his pain and let the wounds heal and close at last—and although Hope had none with her, it would be relatively easy to find. But if he did not ask, she would not offer. She liked him the way he was. Because although thievery was no reason for her to mistrust him, his relationship with the Shantasi was.

Hope’s trust was least for this Shantasi woman who knew so much. The witch liked to believe that it was not jealousy, though there was a glimmer of that: Hope had found Rafe, yet it was A’Meer who had fought and almost died for him. And it was the warrior woman who also seemed to know more about the Mages and their ways than any of them. That did not surprise Hope, but deep inside, in the animal part of her brain where reason gave way to instinct, it angered her. It drew her closer than ever to Rafe, and if in her head there was a crude sense of ownership, then so be it.

She knew little of the Shantasi. Some claimed to know them, to have an understanding of their origins and history, but these were almost always proved wrong. Hope had heard many wild rumors, the stuff of storytime, so exaggerated and unbelievable so as to be dismissed without a second thought. Other tales were frightened whispers from men in her bed—traders, farmers, militia and mercenaries—who claimed to have learned the secrets of the Shantasi. One man she remembered well had come close to tears as he related his tale to her, his claim that he had traveled almost as far as New Shanti but then been turned back, hounded out by wraiths and spirits too violent, too real to be dead. The chase had supposedly lasted for days, and however fast or slow he had been running, the spirits had always been just behind him, lashing out, not letting him rest for a minute until he entered the Mol’Steria Desert. There the chase had ended, but he had kept on running. He had run so far, he said, that the bones in his toes had begun to crumble, and he lifted his feet to show her.