Wincing now at the rain that leaked through their pathetic shelter of woven branches and ran down the neck of his cloak, Ferras Vansen wondered if Kelty had seen the same thing in his younger brother’s eyes that Vansen was seeing in Prince Barrick’s, the same inexplicable remoteness. Was Briony’s brother about to die, too? Was he about to surrender himself and drown in the shadowlands?

And if he does? What becomes of me? He had only barely made his way out of the shadowlands the first time, led by the touched girl, Willow. No one, he felt sure, least of all Ferras Vansen, could be that fortunate twice.

They had found an open track through the forest, a bit of clear path. Vansen jogged out ahead of the prince, trying to spy out a place where they might stop and spend a few hours of rest in the endless gray twilight. After what must have been several days’ riding, the supplies in his pack had dwindled to almost nothing; if they had to hunt for food, he wanted to do it here, where the dim ghosts of the sun and moon still haunted the sky behind the mists. He could not be certain that whatever animal he caught here would be more ordinary than prey taken deeper behind the Shadowline, but it was one small thing he was determined to do.

Vansen’s horse abruptly shrilled and reared, almost throwing him from the saddle. At first he thought they were being attacked, but the forest was still. His heart slowed a little. As he brought the horse under control he called back to the prince to hold up, then, as he leaned forward to stroke his mount’s neck, trying to soothe the still-frightened animal, he saw the dead thing on the ground.

At first disgust and alarm were mingled with relief, because the creature was no bigger than a child of four or five years and was obviously in no state to do any harm: its head was mostly off, and black blood gleamed all over its chest and belly and on the wet grass where it lay, thinning and running away under the remorseless rain. The more Vansen looked at the corpse, though, the more disturbing he found it. It was like an ape, but with abnormally long fingers and skin like a lizard’s, rough and netted with scales. Knobs of gray bone stuck out through the scaly hide at the joints and along the spine, not injuries but as much a part of it as a cow’s horns or a man’s fingernails. As Vansen examined the dead thing further, he saw that its face was disturbingly manlike, as brown as the rest of its studded hide but covered with smooth, leathery skin. The dark eyes were wide open in a net of wrinkled flesh, and if he had seen only them he would have been sure it was some little old man lying here, though the fanged mouth gave things a different flavor.