Eventually, they left what path there was and started laboring up a steep slope. Alex dug into the wet earth with his makeshift crutch and dragged himself forward, reluctantly using his weak foot. Each step still sent pain flashing through him, though it wasn’t as sharp as before.

As they neared the brow of the hill, the trees thinned and suddenly he had his first sight of the ruined castle that lay hidden in the forest, stark and alone on the ridge above.

Perhaps it was the darkness he had emerged from, but the moonlight seemed stronger. The pale, crumbling stone almost glowed. A sign cautioning against going any nearer stood planted beside a fence blocking the way.

Really, though, Alex felt there was little need to ward people away from this place. For one thing, its hazardous condition was plain to see. The ancient ruin had been corroded by the centuries. The decomposing relic of a once-strong tower poked up like a blunted old fang, riddled with rot. Alongside, the high remaining walls were like unsupported curtains of stone that might collapse any moment.

But that wasn’t it. Something about the ruin itself, the very way it sat there, seemed to generate its own forbidding atmosphere. The place lay shrouded in a thick, silent sense of time and decay best left undisturbed. Mottled by moss, the cracked gray facade had a strange, organic look. The empty black windows made Alex think of skulls that had been petrified in wide-eyed, openmouthed grimaces, crying out frozen warnings. Everything sent the same ominous message: stay away.

Zia moved aside to let the life-sizer kick down the fence, then hurried on, passing beneath a high archway, flashlight beam bouncing.

“Mind your paws on the way down, bunny,” the disappearing shadow called. “We don’t want you snapping your neck.”

It was not an unlikely prospect. Beyond the arch, the ground fell away steeply. As they went lumbering down, Alex found himself sliding helplessly, caught in a mini-landslide as loose rubble gave way. Beckman’s loop of wire bit into his arm, saving him.

Finally, they stood down in a desolate space strewn with strangely shaped rocks that Alex realized weren’t rocks at all but fragments of long-destroyed walls. The area must once have been the castle vaults but now lay open to the elements. The broken tower loomed above at the top of the slope they had come down. The full moon hung almost directly over it.

“Towers and moons,” Zia said, catching his glance. “And everyone forgot but us.” She turned to Beckman. “Quickly now.”

As Beckman and the life-sizer lowered the coffin, Alex noticed a new detail. There was a small glass panel in the lid, about where the face would be on a body.

The glass was misted from inside.