“Let us talk and make truce, as the day’s eye bids me do,” a chill, sharp voice said directly into Nick’s mind, or so it felt. His ears heard nothing but the wind flutes and the jangle of cans tied to the wire. “We have no quarrel, you and I.”

“We do,” said Nick. “You have slain many of my people. You would slay more.”

The creature did not move, but Nick felt the mental equivalent of a snort of disbelief.

“These pale, insipid things? The blood of a great one moves in you, more than in any of the inheritors that I have drunk from before. Come, shed your transient flesh and travel with me back to our own land, beyond this prison wall.”

Nick didn’t answer, for he was suddenly confused. Part of him felt that he could leave his body and go with this creature, which had somehow suddenly become beautiful and alluring in his eyes. He felt he had the power to shuck his skin and become something else, something fierce and powerful and strange. He could fly over the Wall and go wherever he wanted, do whatever he wanted.

Against that yearning to be untrammeled and free was another set of sensations and desires. He did want to change, that was true, but he also wanted to continue to be himself. To be a man, to find out where he fitted in among people, specifically the people of the Old Kingdom, for he knew he no longer could be content in Ancelstierre. He wanted to see his friend Sam again, and he wanted to talk to Lirael. . . .

“Come,” said the creature again. “We must be away before any of Astarael’s get come upon us. Share with me a little of your blood, so that I may cross this cursed Wall without scathe.”

“Astarael’s get?” asked Nick. “The Abhorsens?”

“Call them what you will,” said the creature. “One comes, but not soon. I feel it, through the bones of the earth beneath my feet. Let me drink, just a little.”

“Just a little . . .” mused Nick. “Do you fear to drink more?”

“I fear,” said the creature, bowing its head still lower. “Who would not fear the power of the Nine Bright Shiners, highest of the high?”

“What if I do not let you drink, and I do not choose to leave this flesh?”

“Your will is yours alone,” said the creature. “I shall go back and reap a harvest among those who bear the Charter, weak and prisoned remnant of my kin of long ago.”

“Drink then,” said Nick. He cut the bandage at his wrist and, wincing at the pain, sliced open the wound Dorrance had made. Blood welled up immediately.

The creature leaned forward, and Nick turned his wrist so the blood fell into its open mouth, each drop sizzling as it met the thing’s internal fires. A dozen drops fell; then Nick took his dagger again and cut more deeply. Blood flowed more freely, splashing over the creature’s mouth.