She’d never thought him intelligent until that moment. She’d been running by—fully aware of the song, thank you very much, and she’d glanced at him, and he’d . . . winked. A different wink entirely.

Would he have the sense to follow her into the dark? She’d played this game once or twice in Lorica and learned not to trust boys; and to be cautious. And not to count on them being any too smart, either.

She heard him coming. She saw him silhouetted against the table lights and she knew his size and his gait instantly, and she drifted back past the hedge to the standing stones.

“Pippa?” he called very softly.

She laughed and went deeper into the stones.

He followed, but he was quick, too. He caught her about the waist . . .

His hands were good, firm and warm and clean, and she kissed him before he’d even thought to kiss her. And he didn’t move his hands to grab her breasts, like boys in Lorica; he just kissed her.

He had definitely kissed someone before.

He stumbled, off balance with the kiss, and laughed. Then he turned her slightly, and rested her back against one of the standing stones. She put both arms up over his head and pulled him down, and then she felt something like a worm wriggling against her back.

So great was her revulsion that she pushed his not inconsiderable size away and leapt clear.

“Yech!” she said.

Jamie looked as if she’d stabbed him with a sword. “Oh, Pippa,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

“There’s worms on the stone,” she said. Even as she said the words, she looked, and then the hair on her head tried to stand up straight.

The surface of the stone seemed to be writhing as if it was alive. There was almost no moon; the terrible smoke and soot rising in the west made the full moon into a dull orange ball like nothing anyone had ever seen, and by that strange light, the stones all seemed to move.

“Christ protect us,” she said.

“Archangel Michael,” Jamie said. He stepped between her and the stone and drew the short rondel dagger at his waist with practiced ease.

“Tight against my back,” he said.

She crushed herself against him.

He began to back up. One of his arms moved.

“Back up now,” he said. “Oh my God,” he moaned.

Pippa had a number of sins, but cowardice was not among them. She turned and put her back against his. She was tempted to call out; to scream. But all the stones had writhing shapes on them in the dull orange darkness, and she was damned if she, Pippa de Roen, would summon good people to their deaths.

“I’m the eyes in the back of your head, Jamie,” she said with her mother’s crisis voice exactly.