By the sixth circuit, the Nameless Girl’s head had begun to swim. Her orbit had been tight, and she’d kept her eyes fixed on the grave. Soon she was downright dizzy, and she stumbled as she completed her seventh circle, stepping sideways to catch herself, treading over the grave.

She stopped, shut her eyes, pressed her fingers to her forehead, and when she blinked her eyes open again, she was somewhere else, the forest dark and snowy, the boughs of its trees reaching out for one another overhead as if eager to blot out what passed below from the eyes of Heaven.

“Where are we?” she said softly.

“Close,” said her alte-bubbe. “Look.”

There was a wide clearing before them, its snow well trodden and slick, and on the far side of it, the Nameless Girl could see an old woman, hunched, walking, her broken-hipped gait unmistakable.

Bubbe.

Instinctively, the Nameless Girl’s body tightened, as if preparing to run to her, but her alte-bubbe laid a heavy hand on her shoulder.

“No,” she said. “Don’t you see where she’s going?”

The Nameless Girl squinted into the gloom. Beyond the trees on the far side of the clearing, a tall tower of many sides rose high into the sky.

“We mustn’t stop her,” said her alte-bubbe. “Not if she’s decided.”

Slowly, they set off to follow from a distance.

By the time they made it to the trees at the far edge of the clearing, the Nameless Girl’s bubbe was halfway down the slope, her huddled silhouette growing smaller, smaller, smaller against the mottled stone of the tower. Only now did the Nameless Girl begin to understand how truly huge it was.

She felt uneasy—terribly uneasy.

At first she tried to push this feeling away, thinking that it was only the same churning dread she’d felt at her first sight of Death’s house.

But this was not a feeling in her gut. This feeling crept across the back of her neck.

The Nameless Girl pulled up short.

Slowly, she turned back into the clearing.

She didn’t see them at first—a thick cloak of darkness hung between the trees—but then they emerged: a woman all in white, neither old nor young, short nor tall, plain nor beautiful, her thick curls hanging loose and free, cheeks rosy with the cold. And behind her, beside her, all around her: a stalking Sisterhood of great gray panthers, their muscles rippling, eyes glowing weirdly in the dim.

“The War Cats,” said the Nameless Girl’s alte-bubbe, and she gave a deep sigh.

“Hello,” said Lilith from across the clearing. “Good of you to stop running.”

Neither the Nameless Girl nor her alte-bubbe moved.

“There is no reason for this to be unpleasant,” said Lilith. “You have something I desire, a bauble near to my heart. Give it to me, and you shall go on your way without any trouble.”