“It’s a statue,” she said at last, almost disappointed. It was about the size of one of the privy garden’s red squirrels sitting up on its hind legs, but there the resemblance to anything ordinary ended: the hooded figure, face almost entirely hidden, was made of cloudchip crystal, gray-white and murky as frost in some places, clear and bright as cathedral glass in others, with colors ranging from the palest blue to pinks like flesh or watered blood. The squat, powerful figure held a shepherd’s crook; an owl crouched on its shoulder like a second head. “It’s Kernios.” She had seen it somewhere before, and reached out her hand to touch it.

“Don’t!” Barrick pulled it back, wrapped the cloth around it again. “It’s…it’s bad.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. I just…I hate it.”

She looked at him curiously for a moment, then suddenly remembered. “Oh, no! Barrick, is that…is that the statue from the Erivor Chapel? The one Father Timoid was so angry about when it went missing?”

“When someone stole it. That’s what he said, over and over.” Barrick flushed, a bold burst of red on his pale cheeks. “He was right.”

“Zoria’s mercy, did you…?” He did not speak, but that was an answer in itself. “Oh, Barrick, why?”

“I don’t know. I told you, I hate it. I hate the way it looks, so blind and quiet, just…thinking. Waiting. And I can feel it all the time, but it’s even worse when I’m in the chapel. Can’t you feel it?”

“Feel what?”

“It…I don’t know. It’s hot. It makes a hot feeling in my head. No, that’s not right. I can’t say. But I hate it.” His little face was determined again, pale and stern. “I’m going to throw it into the moat.”

“You can’t! It’s valuable! It’s been in the family for…for a long time.”

“I don’t care. It’s not going to be in the family any longer. I can’t even bear to look at it.” He stared at her. “Remember, you promised, so you can’t tell anyone. You swore an oath—we shared blood.”

“Of course I won’t tell. But I still don’t think you should do it.”

He shook his head. “I don’t care. And you can’t stop me.”

She sighed. “I know. No one can stop you doing anything, redling, no matter how foolish. I was just going to tell you not to throw it in the moat.”

He stared at her from beneath a furious brow. “Why?”

“Because they drain it. Don’t you remember when they did it the summer before last and they found those bones of that woman who drowned?”

He nodded slowly. “Merolanna wouldn’t let us go see—like we were babies! I was so angry.” He seemed to regard her for the first time as a true collaborator rather than an antagonist. “So if I throw it in the moat, someone will find it someday. And put it back in the chapel.”

“That’s right.” She considered. “It should go into the ocean. Off the outwall behind the East Lagoon. The water comes up right under the wall there.”