In that one off-balance moment, in his shock and surprise, she’d caught a glimpse behind that careful mask. A cloud of a different sort drifted over his face, casting a shadow too deep to penetrate—a false wall had slammed shut. A strange sense of unease radiated from him, a feeling that both reassured and frightened her. This was not a simple scribe, or a bumbling scholar, or a naive intellectual. All of that was the mask, and she wondered if Virgil had known who he’d paired her with. In one instant, Farilane had learned more about this man than she had in all the hours she’d previously spent with him. At the same time, she had also glimpsed the enormity of what she didn’t know. The man wasn’t an idiot, or brilliant. Kile was more than both. He was multitudes, which was why she had found it impossible to classify him. He fit no pattern, refused to slip into any preformed mold. Kile wasn’t a single mystery or a puzzle. He was many. And for the first time, she suspected that some of the answers to his true nature might be dangerous. This only made him more intriguing.

The next day began much as the last, but instead of rain, they woke to fog. A thick, white cloud enveloped the world in a dreamy state of ethereal unreality, just as frustrating as it was beautiful. Sheldon suggested waiting for the mist to burn off, but already Farilane had a strong suspicion that wasn’t going to happen. Not there. Not in the Mystic Wood. Not unless she wanted the fog to stick around—then it would disappear.

They had only been out of water for a matter of hours, but the idea they had nothing to drink created a nagging desire beyond necessity. With daylight, such as it was, they ventured back into the wood in the direction of the previous night’s adventure, careful to use Kile’s thread trick, and searched for the bog, hoping the water might be drinkable. They never found it. Instead, they came upon dense thorn bushes of the sort to shred a deer.