The narrow bridge creaked and groaned as Johnis and Silvie guided their horses down into the abyss. There was no railing, and the drop on either side fell a hundred yards down to bare slate rock. A fall would kill them.

Johnis glanced back at Silvie, who gripped her reins with white knuckles. Her face glistened with sweat despite the cool morning air.

“You okay?”

She shot him a frightened look, then glanced over his shoulder at the trees below. “Neither of us is okay,” she said.

Behind her the Shataiki had turned around and were staring at them from the top of the cliff, content to let them descend into their world.

Johnis turned back and studied the Black Forest, searching for anything that might give him a clue as to what he was meant to do. Find the missing books, but how? For that matter, what made him think he was meant to enter this forest? Even if he did survive long enough to find the books, getting out looked to be impossible.

He gripped the book in one hand and moved his horse farther down.

It took them five minutes to reach the bottom, but those few minutes felt like an hour. Charcoal gray stone led from the bridge up to lumpy black ground from which the trees grew. Tall black angular trees without leaves. Black moss hung from the bare branches, and what looked like nests made from this moss were nestled in the crooks of the branches.

The nests undoubtedly belonged to the Shataiki watching them from the bowl’s lip. A suffocating stench filled the air, so thick Johnis thought he could feel it. He shivered as they stepped off the bridge to the forest floor.

“Now what?” Silvie asked in barely more than a whisper.

“We go in,” he said, nodding at the trail that cut into the forest ahead of them.

“You’ve lost your peanuts.”

“I know. I’m following my heart, not my mind,” he said. “Isn’t that what Thomas told us to do?”

“I doubt he had suicide in mind. And why do you suppose there’s a trail on the ground? These bat-beasts fly, right?” She paused. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing, or are you just leading us into the jaws of death for the joy of it?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“That’s a problem, Johnis. This isn’t a time not to know.”

“All I know is that we were meant to go directly west, and this is directly west. And I know that I can’t pretend I wasn’t told to go directly west. I thought you agreed.”

“I did agree to go directly west. But not to enter this pit of misery when we got there.”

“Yet you’re still following me,” he said.