With the afternoon sun on their backs, they crossed the meadow, plodding through knee-high timothy, clover, buttercups, cowslips, and dandelions. Farilane didn’t think she’d ever appreciated a wildflower meadow quite as much. Even the springing grasshoppers that she was never a fan of, nor the little clouds of tiny gnats that gathered in moist gullies, could sully the trip. For the first time in days, she could breathe. Each breath was flavored with the comfort of baking grass and perfumed with blossoms that, for once, didn’t leave her depressed. Roses, orchids, lilies, and carnations—those were funeral flowers. These innocent yellow buttercups and purple meadow sage blossoms were victory flags celebrating life, the prize for avoiding death.

Farilane still didn’t know What had happened. Nor the How or Why, either. All of it, the entire journey through the forest and the escape, had been exiled to that hazy corner of her mind where she banished bad dreams. The form the memory took was one of evaporated residue, murky and indistinct. Her mind—unhappy with the possibilities—swept the experience under her mental rug, and declared, Out of sight, out of mind, out of unpleasant new realities. Kile might find a world without magic less charming, but Farilane had discovered an enchanted world to be anarchy. If you take away the rules, nothing is certain, and everything flies apart. How Kile and Sheldon continued to act as if nothing world-changing had occurred both baffled and intrigued her. But that wasn’t new. Those weren’t the least bit alike, but they shared a common strangeness, an odd acceptance of the bizarre as routine. She’d never met any one individual so extraordinary, and here there were two. She had found a five-leaf clover, and beside it, another.

As the three neared the opposite side of the meadow, it became clear there was more than one building, and each of them shared the same style, but none of them were as large as the central structure. The hill was reached by way of a long earthen ramp with a slope so modest a man could easily push a laden cart up the incline. This seemed to be a pointless advantage, for she saw no evidence of cart use, only a single trodden line of trampled grass that hadn’t had enough traffic to find dirt. Smoke rose in plumes, distant doors clapped, hammers echoed, and goats bleated, but she saw no people until they reached the top of the ramp. Once on level ground, Farilane spotted the monastery’s inhabitants. They came in all sizes: tall, short, plump, stout, lean, and various versions in between. All of them were dressed alike in simple, undyed wool tunics belted with flaxen twine, overlaid with plain scapulars topped by cowls. So crude and loose-fitting were the frocks that, with their hoods up, Farilane was unable to tell the difference between men and women.