“How little?” I squeaked. But then I saw that Mal was climbing out of the cockpit, his face furious. “Mal, sit down!”

“You lying, thieving—”

“I’d stay where you are. I don’t think you want to be jostling around when we enter the Fold.”

Mal froze. Sturmhond began to whistle that same off-key little tune. It was snatched away by the wind.

“You can’t be serious,” I said.

“Not on a regular basis, no,” said Sturmhond. “There’s a rifle secured beneath your seat, Oretsev. You may want to grab it. Just in case.”

“You can’t take this thing into the Fold!” Mal bellowed.

“Why not? From what I understand, I’m traveling with the one person who can guarantee safe passage.”

I clenched my fists, rage suddenly driving fear from my mind. “Maybe I’ll just let the volcra have you and your crew for a late-night snack!”

Sturmhond kept one hand on the wheel and consulted his timepiece. “More of an early breakfast. We really are behind schedule. Besides,” he said, “it’s a long way down. Even for a Sun Summoner.”

I glanced at Mal and knew his fury must be mirrored on my own face.

The landscape was unrolling beneath us at a terrifying pace. I stood up, trying to get a sense for where we were.

“Saints,” I swore.

Behind us lay stars, moonlight, the living world. Ahead of us, there was nothing. He was really going to do it. He was taking us into the Fold.

“Gunners, at your stations,” Sturmhond called. “Squallers, hold steady.”

“Sturmhond, I’m going to kill you!” I shouted. “Turn this thing around right now!”

“Wish I could oblige. I’m afraid if you want to kill me, you’ll just have to wait until we land. Ready?”

“No!” I shrieked.

But the next moment, we were in darkness. It was like no night ever known—a perfect, deep, unnatural blackness that seemed to close around us in a suffocating grip. We were in the Fold.

CHAPTER 8

THE MOMENT WE entered the Unsea, I knew something had changed.

Hurriedly, I braced my feet against the deck and threw up my hands, casting a wide golden swath of sunlight around the Hummingbird. As angry as I was with Sturmhond, I wasn’t going to let a flock of volcra bring us down only to prove a point.

With the power of both amplifiers, I barely had to think to summon the light. I tested its edges carefully, sensing none of the wild disruption that had overcome me the first time I’d used the fetter. But something was very wrong. The Fold felt different. I told myself it was just imagination, but it seemed like the darkness had a texture. I could almost feel it moving over my skin. The edges of the wound at my shoulder began to itch and pull, as if the flesh were restless.

I’d been on the Unsea twice before, and both times I’d felt like a stranger, like a vulnerable interloper in a dangerous, unnatural world that did not want me there. But now it was as if the Fold was reaching out to me, welcoming me. I knew it made no sense. The Fold was a dead and empty place, not a living thing.