“This isn’t my world,” Lilia said. “What do I care?” It sounded more certain than she felt. She was not a monster, not yet. Was she? She had grabbed this child, a child not her own, without permission. She was threatening harm, she was…

“Dorinah!” Lilia said. The little girl’s blood trickled down the length of the karoi beak, onto Lilia’s hand.

Nirata raised her arms. The air grew heavy. Lilia tightened her grip again, fearing betrayal. Nirata would try and rip the girl away with some tornado of air or seething plant.

The world wavered. Lilia’s stomach dropped.

Gian’s body jerked. A great gout of blood poured from her torso. The little girl squealed and squeezed her eyes shut. Blood rushed up into the air, coalesced. A black shimmer wet the sky. And then…

The air tore open.

Lilia saw a thunderous white plain of snow surrounded by vast mountain peaks. The sky was dark. Purple lightning seized the clouds. Was the sky different? She couldn’t tell through the cloud cover.

“If you’ve tricked me–” Lilia said, inching her way toward the portal.

“I have not,” Nirata said. “Give me my granddaughter. Hush, Esao. You’ll be all right.”

Lilia limped to the edge of the gate. Peered through. Cold air buffeted her. “Where is this?”

“The center of Dorinah,” Nirata said. “The only soft space in that vile country.”

“Why is there snow?”

“It’s Dorinah,” Nirata said. “You think all the world is as temperate as Dhai? Hurry.” She looked over her shoulder. Lilia wondered if there were more people in the house. “I can only keep it open a few moments.”

Lilia took a deep breath. She clung to the girl and stepped through.

“No!” Nirata said, and reached for her.

Lilia stumbled into the other side, into ankle-deep snow.

Nirata grabbed the little girl’s arm.

Lilia released her.

The gate shut.

Nirata screamed.

Blackness.

Burnt meat.

What remained of the little girl’s body fell into the snow at Lilia’s feet. Lilia heard a terrible cracking sound. The girl’s head and half her torso – including the arm Nirata had taken her by – were missing. Her remaining limbs jerked limply in the snow. Lilia vomited.

She stepped back – one step, two. She heard the groaning again, beneath her. She looked up. A great forest ringed the snowy plain. Cold bit her.

And then she realized where she was. She had been delivered onto a frozen lake.

The ice beneath her gave way.

Lilia plunged into bitter cold blackness.

I chose wrong, she thought.

Chapter 29

29

Roh got along with most people. He considered himself very friendly. But the stately old Saiduan dancing teacher, Ghakar, pretended he could not understand Roh’s accent, and the Patron’s dancers ignored Roh entirely for the first half hour he watched them from the archway every morning.