He stepped into view, the gun in one hand, the torch in the other. He had collected Christian’s drawing pad and carried it under one arm. He did not look at Christian but instead sat on the edge of the stone, beside the sleeper. He gazed upon her like one inspired.

Fallows set down the sketchbook. From inside his camouflage coat, he produced a small glass bottle, and another, and a third. There were five in all. He unscrewed the black top of the first and held it to the little girl’s lips, although it was empty, or seemed empty.

“This world’s been holding its breath for a long time, Christian,” Fallows said. “But now it can breathe again.” He unscrewed the next and raised it to her mouth.

“Breath?” the boy whispered.

“The breath of kings,” Fallows agreed, with a mild nod. “Their dying breaths. Breath of the lion and the elephant, the leopard and the buffalo, and the great rhino. It will counteract the work of the poisoner, General Gorm, and wake her and wake the world with it.”

When he had emptied all the empty bottles, he sighed and stretched his legs. “How I hate shoes. God save my kind from shoes. And those awful prosthetic feet!”

Christian dropped his gaze to the black, shining, bony hooves at the end of Fallows’s ankles. He tried to scream again but was all screamed out.

Fallows saw him recoil, and the faintest smile twitched at his lips. “I had to shatter my own ankles—smash and reset them, you know. When I first came to your world. Later I had them broken and rebuilt again, by a doctor who was offered a million dollars to keep my secret and was paid in lead to confirm his silence.” Fallows brushed back his curly hair and touched the tip of one pink ear. “Thank goodness I am not a Mountain Faun but only a mere faun of the plains! The Mountain Faun have ears just like the deer of your world, whereas we simple country faun have the ears of men. Though I would have gladly cut my ears off for her if it had been necessary. I would have cut my heart out and offered it to her slippery and red and beating in my own hands.”

Fallows rose and took a step toward him. The torch, which he had never set aside, shifted from blue to a lurid, polluted emerald. Sparks began to fall from the flames.

“I don’t need my torch,” Fallows said, “to know what you are. And I didn’t need to see your sketches to know your heart.”

He tossed the sketchbook at Christian’s feet.