Okay, it could have been anywhere near Walla Walla if there had been beer cans on the ground and a sun in the bright blue sky. There was no sun in the sky. There were shadows, and, from how the shadows lay, we were approximately the same time as it was back on the reservation. I just couldn’t see any reason for the shadows.
From what Zee told me, time in Underhill could be capricious—but not as badly as in the Elphame of the fairy queen I’d encountered. We might lose or gain a few days or possibly a week. But we were unlikely to lose years or decades.
I turned slowly. We had a clear field of vision, but I couldn’t see anything that looked out of place. At the thought, I turned to look for the small building we’d exited from—but there was no sign of any building anywhere.
“Do you know which way to go?” I asked. “Have you been here before?”
“I don’t think that I’ve been here, precisely,” he said. “But I know which way to go. Mostly I find my way around by the way it feels here.” He thumped himself on the chest.
I tried, but I couldn’t feel any kind of pull or push in the magic.
“It took me a while,” he said. “This way.”
And he set off, straight up the hill. We walked for hours. Aiden’s terror subsided, though it never quite left him. Adam ranged a little, his nose to the ground and his ears alert, but he never traveled out of sight. He didn’t chase the white bunny that first appeared in glimpses, then ran across our path. Twice.
“He’s not a dog,” I commented loudly, spinning in a slow circle to look for something, I don’t know what it was. “He’s not going to chase a rabbit and leave us behind.”
I could feel the urge to chase that rabbit, and I seldom felt the need to hunt when I was on two feet. Adam didn’t even lunge at the rabbit when it emerged from a hollow just beyond his nose.
He did growl, though.
“It’s not a real rabbit,” said Aiden unnecesssarily. “After a while, even before I had magic, I learned to tell the difference. I survived a long time without magic—but I had friends then.”
“What happened?” I asked.