It was night already where ink-black shadow stretched out from the foot of the mountains, but beyond it, where the ruddy light of dusk still fell, there was no feature visible between the mountains and the horizon, save the occasional dim glimmer of a pool of water.

I tried to tell myself that it looked darker and bleaker cast over with the red of the setting sun, but I knew it would look a good deal more terrible when it was dark enough for the worst tainted ground to give off its distinctive greenish glow. The thought of venturing into that black and deadly wasteland suddenly seemed the maddest and most pointless thing anyone could possibly contemplate. How had the Agyllians imagined I should take others with me? They would die and I would stagger on alone, my body slowly devouring itself for the strength to heal me until I fell too. But even if I could cross it and find Cassandra’s key, how was I then to make my way to the Red Land to deal with Sentinel?

For some reason, I found myself envisaging the words Cassy had carved, translated into Fian’s spidery script.

[That which] will [open/access/reach] the darkest door lies where the … [lies/sleeps]? Strange is the keeping place of this dreadful [sign/key] but there is no other, for all who knew it are dead save one who does not know what she knows. Seek her … past … Only through her may you go where you have never been and must someday go … danger. Beware … dragon.’

I felt as if someone had kicked me in the stomach, for I had always read the clue as pointing me to Dragon’s past, and hence to the Red Land where she had been born, and the futuretellers’ predictions about Dragon and me being there together had seemed to confirm that I was to travel to the Red Land. There had been other things, too, that had supported this belief – that Ariel had gone there, and that Swallow had seen a vision of us together in the place where the ancient promises had been made. But what if the futuretellers and Swallow had misinterpreted their visions? What if Dragon had learned what I needed to know in the Red Land, and Sentinel was on the other side of this black waste, in the very city we were seeking?

In that case, it did not matter to my quest that my companions would all die. Indeed, had not Dell foreseen that I would leave all I loved behind me? Nor would it matter if I died, so long as I lived long enough to find Sentinel and do what must be done.

I tried to think clearly, to marshal all that I had learned from my dreams and from Cassandra, but my thoughts flew like leaves of reason in a storm of fear.