I walked up alongside Shad, who was leading. I looked at his face, worn like a weathered rock. “I thought once we were on this side of the chasm there would only be the red road.”

“What gave you that idea?” Shad asked.

“Well, I just thought everything would be clear and …”

“Easy? We’ve not yet arrived. Your heart has been changed, but you must still do battle within, and the world remains the same. All the wrong roads are still there now. On the chasm’s other side they distract travelers from coming to the King. Here they distract them from serving the King. If Shark Eyes cannot keep us from choosing the red road, he tries always to divert us from it.”

I felt a knot in my gut, wondering if I should say anything about the voice in the night and the black hole of my despair. Instead I said, “I still can hardly believe Joshua was … who he was.”

“Even his name he steals from the King,” Shad said. “The RoadGuide says he’s a liar and the father of lies.”

“But he seemed so … real.”

“The best counterfeits are the ones that look least like counterfeits. The Pretender succeeds by taking on the appearance most likely to influence his prey. For you it was one mask. For me he wears a different one. Sometimes he fools me still.”

“You?” Quon asked.

“Yes,” Shad said. I saw an awful look in his eyes and wondered what stories lay behind it. I considered how to probe, but he spoke first.

“Tell me, Nick, what do you see when you look back at who you were?”

I thought for a minute before answering. “I knew the cost of everything. I knew the value of nothing. I searched in ways I didn’t understand, but my search for truth was halfhearted, and as the years went on, I became content with too little.” I looked down at the road and kicked a rock. “Now I’m beating myself up for walking all the wrong paths, for all the lost opportunities … and especially for what I did to Marci and the kids.”

“It’s too late to relive your past,” he said. “But it’s not too late to choose your present and mark out your future. That’s why you’re here. That’s why all of us are here … at least, I think that’s why.”

“It’s like I’ve always wandered between two worlds,” I said, “with blinders on. It never dawned on me when I lived in the Shadowlands that every choice I made cast a vote for either Erebus or Charis.” I paused. “Last night something happened—”