“The coburn need me to…preserve the body,” Deglan finally said. “They wish to see the boy cremated at their stronghold, in their fashion. And it has been a long while since I’ve been to Albain.”

“I think the child is in the best hands,” Curdle told him.

“And what is this thing going to do?” Deglan said, changing the subject and pointing at Coltrane.

“Wait,” Coltrane’s deep voice answered. “And watch. Ensure that no more of my brothers awake.”

“And once you are sure?” Deglan pressed.

Coltrane continued to face the castle. “I will find another purpose.”

Deglan turned back to Curdle and regarded him for a long time. The hobgoblin looked back comfortably.

“Do not give up on them,” Deglan said at last. “Not like I did. Our people are not beyond hope.”

“Our people?”

“Stay out of my head!”

“Pardon me,” Curdle said. “It slipped out.”

Deglan stuck out his hand. Curdle took it, and they nodded their farewells.

Padric had not slept. Torcan was dead. Rosheen was alive, and he was finally free. None of it brought his mind peace. He had passed the night in solitude, pacing the edge of the camp, trying not to look at the castle. It stood empty and condemning, and he fought the insane urge to return to it, to be swallowed by its walls. He wanted to walk within without fear, see the failure of the goblins and somehow convince himself that the place and the events he survived no longer ruled him. Grimly, he imagined Slouch Hat’s lifeless shell still lying below the keep, nothing now but tattered clothes and straw to be slowly separated by rats and wind. He wanted to see that and not be afraid.

He had gone back for Svala. And Kederic. Led them out of their mutual prison, but Padric still felt confined, trapped by the things he knew and the lie he had used to survive.

Dawn was slow in coming, but when the first servant stirred in the camp, Padric went searching. He found Kederic Winetongue at the camp paddock, watching the horses with eyes that, like his, had not closed during the night. Padric stood next to him, looking at him, waiting. The man did not acknowledge him.

“Beladore,” Padric said through clenched teeth. “Your wife, Kederic, where is she?”

He saw the man swallow hard, the hatred in his eyes wet and brimming.

“It wore my face,” Kederic choked out. “The…thing that lay with her. She said she never knew. How could…how could she have not? The creature that came out of her,” he gave a snarl of bitter disgust, “it was unnatural, covered in fur. Hideous.”