Drawn by invisible cords, Imogen approached the statue for a closer look. A man by the look of the sculpture, slim but powerful. She smiled at such vanity. “More like a gut from too much roast chicken and good wine. But who would want to be remembered that way, eh?” She winked at the faceless statue.

He loomed above her, raised on a square pedestal like his compatriots. Chiseled inscriptions decorated the base, ancient runes and symbols she couldn’t read. She reached out to trace them and just as quickly yanked her hand back as sharp pinpoints of pain penetrated her gloves and snapped against her fingers. Whatever sorcery cloaked this bridge, it didn’t want anyone touching the statues.

Still feeling as if she were being watched and afraid she’d committed a major offense, Imogen bowed to the statue. “My apologies,” she said and backed away. Niamh’s childhood reprimand of “keep your hands to yourself,” had far more layers of wisdom to it than safeguarding others from Imogen’s curse.

She resumed her journey across the bridge, picking up the pace until she reached the other side. Her relief at stepping on natural earth was short-lived. The luminescent path guiding her way dimmed beneath the fog she’d seen from the other side of the gorge. White tendrils hugged her ankles and slipped over her knees like ghostly hands of a crowd of children. The notion made her shiver, and she pushed the miasma away with Niamh’s walking stick.

“Stop that,” she admonished, and to her astonishment, the mist obeyed, rolling far enough away so that she could once more see open ground and the brightness of the enchanted road.

Imogen glanced behind her and forgot to breathe. The bridge faded, losing solidity until it was no more substantial than the fog before disappearing altogether. Fear threatened to overwhelm her hard-won calm. She crushed it down. Too late to turn back now. She gripped the walking stick, put her back to the gorge and followed the lit path, traveling deeper into vegetation that was more jungle than forest. The vines smothering the bridge grew here as well, carpeting the understory in a damp mat of tangled strands and leaves turned black with rot.

The trees themselves were far different and infinitely stranger than those across the gorge. Massive trunks and exposed root systems created crevasses the size of small caves, and they dripped a constant stream of moisture in air suddenly warm and saturated with water. Imogen’s cloak hung on her in a sodden shroud.

The exhaustion that had kept her fear at bay vanished, and she gritted her teeth to keep them from chattering as she struggled through the dense undergrowth to reach the silhouettes of buildings in the closing distance. The wood’s unnatural silence unnerved her. Even at night, forests came alive with evening predators. Those she was familiar with kept away, their instincts naturally warning them away from a human who carried Death under her skin, but she didn’t detect even the distant hooting of an owl or see the glow of small eyes from burrowing rodents in the shelter of the great trees.