And so, funneled forward by the high stone walls, he advanced until he came to the first forking of the way.

He gazed for a long while down one path and then the other.

He found them much the same.

How was he to make the choice?

Clenching his jaw, he sighed again and thrust his hands into his pockets.

And what was this in his pocket?

Cold, hard metal.

Yehuda Leib drew it up in his fingers.

An odd coin, heavy, battered, gray. On one face it bore the figure of an open eye, and on the obverse the same eye firmly shut.

He thought back to the moment when, ages ago and no time at all, he had stood across the road from a strange, dark Messenger in Tupik.

He had taken the coin with his own fingers.

If he had only known then what he knew now, would he still have done so? Would he have conducted the stranger into the town? Would he have let him go on in peace?

Almost angrily, he shut his fist around the coin.

And then, in his tight-sealed palm: movement. Drawing his fingers back, he saw the coin begin to dance, twirling, spinning like a top on its edge.

Now the coin seemed to show the figure of an eye both open and closed at the same time.

And suddenly, with iron certainty, Yehuda Leib knew what he must do.

It had been terrible, giving his eye to Dumah, painful and strange, and he had kept the empty socket hidden away ever since, as much for his comfort as for the comfort of others. When he drew the patch back now, though, the sunlight flooded into his empty eye, filling it with warm, almost fragrant brightness.

Leaning his head back, he dropped the spinning coin into the empty socket, and everything changed.

With his living eye, he saw the branching choices before him, infinite in their variety, opening out further and further, each fork leading to its successor, choice after choice after choice: a maze in which one false turn could steer you wrong.

But with his Death’s Eye, he saw in a calmer manner:

It was not a maze, but a labyrinth. One path masqueraded as many. No matter which fork he chose, the destination was the same.

The choice was never false—only the choosing.

The direction matters less than you think.

With a deep breath, Yehuda Leib strode forward.

—

With a deep breath, the Nameless Girl strode forward.

She was sure she didn’t know where she was going, but there was no use in standing still.

Choices had to be made.

Soon the forking paths seemed to come with every second step, choice after choice after choice. The Nameless Girl tried to keep herself moving toward the center of the maze, but the stony ways bent and curved, and, panic growing in her heart, she quickly lost her sense of direction.