“And what would we have to pay for it?” Flicker waved again at the dead world. “My spark told me that it was the Readers who caused all of this in the first place! That the Heartfire began to weaken when they locked away the portals in their books and their libraries.”

“Do you believe that?”

“I have no idea. But I know what happened to my spark. Your precious master wrote him into a prison-book, and traded him to some other Reader like a pretty stone.”

Oh. Alice fell into silence. Pyros had said that Flicker’s spark was gone, and she’d wondered if he’d been killed by the bluechill or another monster. But Geryon took him. In spite of the sprite’s vicious tone, she felt a sudden kinship with Flicker. Does Geryon haunt his nightmares too?

Flicker was clearly fuming, his hair brighter than normal and laced with yellow and white. Alice waited a few minutes, trudging carefully across the monotonous landscape, before she spoke again.

“Not every Reader is like Geryon.”

“Oh no?” Flicker turned on his heel, eyes blazing like twin stars. “And I suppose you’re going to tell me that you’re one of the good ones?”

“I . . .” The image of her father’s sad, disappointed face flashed through her mind, and she willed it away. “I try to be. I’ve never trapped anyone in a prison-book.”

“You’ve used prison-books, though. You’ve bound creatures.”

“Only animals. Beasts. Not people.” Except the tree-sprite. But I refused to kill it! And the Dragon. But that’s different!

“That makes it better? You’d take someone like Ishi and trap him in a prison forever, just for your own power, and it’s better because he doesn’t understand?” Flicker squared off against her, as though about to throw a punch, and his eyes were so bright, Alice couldn’t look directly at them. “I helped you, Reader, because we’re better than you. And I’m helping you now because Pyros says I have to. But none of that means I have to like you or forget what you are. You’re the one who chose to pursue power at the cost of other people’s lives, so stop making excuses.”

Flicker shook his head, a wave of blue-white sliding through his hair. “I’m wasting my time, aren’t I?” he said, turning away. “Come on. We’ve still got a ways to go.”