In fact, for a while the most clear-thinking part of him had been certain he was dead, that the giant’s club had fallen, that the spiky porcupine woman and her fierce, all-knowing gaze had been nothing but a last momentary glimpse of the living world before it was torn from him, a glimpse which had expanded into an entire, shadowy imitation of life, another bubble to observe, another loose pearl.

Now he knew better—now he could think again. But even though he could feel the wind and rain on his face once more, even though he again had a sense of life unrolling moment by moment instead of surrounding him in a disordered whirl, it was all still very strange.

For one thing, although he could no longer remember the important thing the fairy-woman had told him, he knew that he could no more go against her wishes than he could sprout wings and fly away, just as he had known that her servant, the faceless one they had discovered, must be saved.

But how could it be that someone could command him and he could not say the reason or remember the command?

Even the few things in his life that had once given Barrick comfort now seemed distant—his home, his family, his pastimes, the things he had clung to throughout his youth, when he had often feared he would go mad. But at this moment, of all of it, only Briony still seemed entirely real—she was in his heart and it seemed now that not even his own death would dislodge her. He felt he would carry her memory even into the darkest house, right to the foot of Kernios’ throne, but all, the other things that he had been taught were so important had been were revealed to be only beads on a fraying string.

Ferras Vansen did not notice the wounded fairy wake. For hours the creature had lain deathlike and limp, eyes shut, then he suddenly discovered the red stare burning out at him from that awful, freakish face.

Something pressed behind his eyes, a painful intrusion that buzzed in his head like a trapped hornet. He took a step back, wondering what magic this shadow-thing was using to attack him, but the scarlet eyes widened and the buzzing abruptly faded, leaving only a trace of confused inquiry like a voice heard in the last moments of sleep.

“I cannot really tell him,” Prince Barrick said. “Can you?”

“Tell…? What do you mean?” Vansen eyed the fairy, who still lay with his head propped on a saddlebag, looking weak and listless. If he was preparing to spring he was hiding it well.

“Didn’t you hear him?” But now Barrick seemed confused, rubbing his head and grimacing as though it hurt. “He said he wants to know why we saved him, our enemy. But I don’t know why we did it—I can hardly remember.”

“You told me we had to, Highness—don’t you remember?” Vansen paused. Somehow, he was being pulled into the madness as well, just when he could not afford to lose his grip on sanity—not here behind the Shadowline. “But what do you mean, ‘said’? He said nothing, Prince Barrick. He has only just woken and he said nothing.”