The hedgewitch looked troubled. Her fingers worked behind her, twisting as if she were trying to get free of her bindings. At least Pip still had Gloaming. The third time they’d tried to take the sword from her, only to have it vanish and reappear at her hip, the soldiers had tied it down to its scabbard so that even if Pip got her hands free, she couldn’t draw it. Eleanor didn’t know what was waiting for them in the castle, but she was glad they had a weapon.

The gates opened as they approached. Fear gnawed relentlessly at Eleanor’s insides, but she forced herself to keep moving, all too aware of the wicked weapons at her back.

Beyond the gates was a courtyard of stone as colorless as all the rest. To the left was a building that looked like a stable—but the creatures within it definitely weren’t horses. Some had long bodies like greyhounds, with heads that split into writhing tendrils. Others were built like rhinoceroses, with the heads of wolves. They all stood deathly still in their stalls.

“What is this place?” Pip whispered, looking around with wide eyes. There were more men, women, and even children walking around, dressed in rough-spun clothes in shades of gray and brown, but all of them had the same blank expressions as the soldiers. None of them spoke. None of the animals made any noise. The only sound was the rasp of cloth and tramp of feet, and the metallic clanking of the soldiers’ armor.

The silence made Eleanor’s whole body shake with instinctive fear.

Come on. You’re the world-walker. Do something, she screamed silently at herself—but concentrating as hard as she could, only the faintest shimmering lines traced through the air.

“What is this?” a voice said, and Eleanor almost cried out in surprise at the sudden breaking of the silence.

A boy who looked about sixteen approached from the right. His collarbones stood out from his skin, and his cheekbones jutted up above hollow cheeks. He wore a simple gray shirt, loose on his narrow frame but belted at the waist. Unlike everything else, he wasn’t gray, but his brown hair had an ashen cast to it. A thin iron circlet sat on his head, like a crown.

One of the soldiers opened his mouth. Eleanor flinched back. It was a long, stretched O of black, no sign of anything inside but darkness—no tongue, no teeth, no throat. From that void came a sound like a cloud of flies, a soft and horrid buzzing.

The boy looked sharply at Eleanor and the others.

“In the woods? But you’re not from the village,” he said. His hands were folded behind his back as he stalked around them, looking them up and down. “Who are you?”

“Don’t tell him anything,” the hedgewitch hissed.