“I don’t want to go back to Ancelstierre,” Nick burst out. He tried to sit up and this time succeeded, Lirael reaching out to help him and then letting go as if he were red-hot. “I want to come to the Old Kingdom.”

“But you didn’t come before,” said Lirael. “When we left and Sabriel said you should because of what . . . because of what had happened to you. I wondered . . . that is, Sam thought later, perhaps you didn’t want to . . . that is, you needed to stay in Ancelstierre for some person, I mean reason—”

“No,” said Nick. “There is nothing for me in Ancelstierre. I was afraid, that’s all.”

“Afraid?” asked Lirael. “Afraid of what?”

“I don’t know,” said Nick. He smiled again. “Can you give me a hand to get up? Oh, your hand! Sam really did make a new one for you!”

Lirael flexed her golden, Charter-spelled hand, opening and closing the fingers to show Nick that it was just as good as one of flesh and bone, before she gingerly offered both her hands to him.

“I’ve had it for only a week,” she said shyly, looking down as Nick stood not very steadily beside her. “And I don’t think it will work very far south of here. Sam really is a most useful nephew. Do you think you can walk?”

“If you help me,” said Nick.

AN EXCERPT FROM GOLDENHAND

Read on for a peek at Garth Nix’s Goldenhand

Prologue

In the Sixth Precinct, the inexorable current of the river that flowed through Death slowed almost to a stop. It was a natural gathering place for the Dead who hoped to go no farther, and for those who strived to claw their way back through five gates and precincts and out into the living world again.

Amid the myriad Dead who waited, and hungered, and fought against the compulsion to go deeper into Death, there were two living people. Necromancers, of course, for no others could be here while still alive. At least alive for the moment, for unwary necromancers going deeper into Death than their knowledge and their strength allowed were the particular prey of the Greater Dead who prowled the precinct, ever eager to consume any scrap of Life that would aid them in their desperate desire to live again.

But in this case the Greater Dead stayed well away, knowing the two women were most uncommon necromancers. Both wore bandoliers containing the seven bells, necromantic tools of power infused with Free Magic, but their bells had mahogany handles rather than ebony, and the silver bell-metal crawled with bright Charter marks.

That alone declared their identity, but it was confirmed by their apparel: armored coats made from many overlapping plates of a material called gethre, with surcoats over the armor. One wore deep blue, sprinkled with many silver keys, the other a coat also with silver keys upon the blue, but quartered with golden stars on a field of green.