“It’s a big valley. Green, lush, a river, some cliffs, meadows and forests. There are insects and birds and animals there, but mostly small ones. And there are Kin.”

“Ones like me,” Sammi said.

“Yeah, humans with Kin blood. Mallian calls them mongrels.”

“Charming,” Angela said.

“There’s so much to tell you, show you,” Vince said. “It might be the only place we stand a chance against him, and maybe some of the Kin will help us. None of them have any love for Grace, and if they know what she is now, who she’s serving...” He shrugged, wincing at the pain it caused.

“What about that?” she asked, nodding at his arm.

“What about it?”

“Okay. So, what happens here?”

“Here? Now? I don’t know. Nothing we can control. All we can do here is run, but in the Fold, maybe we can make a difference.”

“For Lilou,” Angela whispered, and as Vince’s eyes grew moist, her own vision blurred.

“This way,” Sammi said. “Across the valley side, then we’ll approach the doorway thing from the other side, behind Mallian.”

“What about Bone and those things he released?” Vince asked.

“I don’t know how dangerous they are, but we can’t do anything about them, either, not right now. As for Bone, he knew we were running,” Angela said. “He’s on his own.”

Every step of the way she expected Mallian to appear from somewhere and stop them, stomp them into the mud, crush them to pieces. Maybe Sammi might be able to fight back for a short time, but she was only just sensing the strange powers she carried, accepting the blood in her veins and allowing it to feed her magic as it gave her life. Grace had been a fairy since the moment she was born. Any confrontation could only end one way, so they had to shift the balance.

Mallian did not stop them. Grace did not appear. As they headed back down into the valley, Angela was assaulted with doubts about what they were doing, and they all came from the fact that Lilou was dead. With the nymph alive she had felt insulation against the strange world of the Kin. Lilou had been a barrier between Angela’s real world—the life she had left behind, with all its lost hopes and dreams—and the more fantastical place she now knew existed. Even when Lilou spent long periods absent, Angela knew she was out there, a friend with a foot in both worlds. Now she was gone, Angela felt naked and exposed.