“It would be a reasonable fear,” Adante mused. “Life and death are inextricably linked for humans, part of the same cycle, each defined by the other and unable to exist without its counterpart.”

I dragged my gaze beyond the white picket fence. We’d lived so many places in the last hundred years—mansions, penthouses, beach bungalows, and even, in the best of times, castles. I thought we had lived everywhere and every way one could live. But we’d never lived in a—

“What is this?” I whispered.

“Don’t be dense, Charlie,” Reg said. “It’s obviously a cottage.”

“It looks as old as we are,” I complained.

“Older, in fact,” Adante said. “This cottage has been here since before you were born . . . the first time.”

Reg forced a thin smile onto his face. “It’s . . . quaint.”

I wasn’t sure why he was bothering to be polite at this point. Why show respect to the Elders when they hadn’t shown any to us—constantly treating us like children, no matter how long we lived.

“And what is this supposed to be?” I swept an arm to indicate the fence that stretched out before us. It circled the cottage yard and was made entirely of wooden posts—each one thicker and narrower than your typical fence slats and sharpened to a severe point at the top. “Is this some kind of joke?”

Reg eyed the fence and forced a wry smile. “Ah, yes. A fence made of wooden stakes. Very clever,” he congratulated the Elders.

Elder Adante sounded ever so slightly exasperated. “It is a fence, nothing more. Well . . . not quite nothing more.”

I turned, finally. “What is it?”

“It is your punishment.”

Reg gulped. “So it is for— You do mean to— We are to perish, then?”

“Die.” I crossed my arms. “Not perish. Really, Reg, watch some TV, why don’t you.”

“Hardly the time to correct me,” he huffed, “when we’re about to be staked.”

“I doubt we’re going to be staked.”

“I tire of this,” the second Elder said to Adante. I couldn’t remember her name. Mary or Madelaine or something. Until today, Adante was the only Elder we’d really spent any time with, since he was assigned to House Drake. Each house—dozens of them within the four clans—had an Elder representative, a diplomat of sorts. But if Adante was a politician, then this other Elder was the muscle. Power radiated off her in a way that would have chilled me if my body wasn’t already ice-cold.

“You are not to fall upon the posts,” Adante said.

Reg let out a loud sigh of relief.

“But the fence is your end, nonetheless,” Adante continued. “It is the end of this life and the beginning of, well, life. We wish you well.”

It sounded so final, I half expected the Elders to turn and leave, but they stood there as if waiting for us to do something.