“She sure is pretty, though,” he went on. “In an elf sort of way, I mean. And she seems to like me too, though I’m not sure. She keeps making fun of me, but in a sort of friendly way, you know? Sort of how we do all the time?”

“Do we?” Evin stopped and met Jorick’s eyes.

“What do you mean?” Jorick said. “Of course we do.”

Evin looked at Bet, who was slowly hiking through the tall grass. The sun made her sleek copper hair glow like a mane of fire. Beyond Bet, across the empty, quiet plain, the hills loomed large.

“I just mean …,” Evin struggled to find the words. He turned to look back at Jorick. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I don’t have any clear memories of us before the other day, the day the village burned. All I can remember is … this idea that we were good friends.”

Jorick stepped back. “I’m sorry, you lost me,” he said. “What do you mean you have an ‘idea’?”

Evin bit his lip and looked to his left. He saw the great white wall in the distance. It had apparently curved somewhere near the ruins they’d left that day, for it was now heading to the north instead of the west.

Strange, dangerous ideas flitted through Evin’s mind, ideas that, combined with his burgeoning memories and the chimera’s words, made an unusual sort of sense.

“I mean,” Evin whispered as he leaned in close to Jorick, “that I don’t think everything is what it seems.”

Jorick laughed. “Is this a joke?”

Evin looked into Jorick’s eyes, his expression solemn.

“You’re not joking.”

Evin shook his head. “I think something happened to me when I was attacked by the gnolls,” he said, the words rushing out of his mouth quickly, as though if he didn’t voice all of these ideas right away, they’d be lost to him forever. “Bet cast some huge spell and it killed dozens of those gnolls at once, even though she told us she was barely powerful enough to light a simple fire. And Marten, his arm was cut off. He didn’t have blood inside, he had gears, and I think I said something to Bet and she cast a spell on me to make me forget. And then I had a dream about living somewhere else, somewhere without a family and where I didn’t know you, and there was this man with yellow eyes—”

“Whoa!” Jorick held his hands up. “Evin, I know it must have been hard watching your brother … you know. But what you’re saying doesn’t make any sense.”

“What are you two doing way back there?” Bet called back. She was standing beneath a cluster of wild apple trees. She held her hands on her hips and began to walk back to them.