“What did I tell you?” snapped their teacher, Runa Rasgar, behind them. She’d stopped at the edge of the cliffside road. “Put Root back in his Mark.”

Runa was not the sort of person anyone might like snapping at them. She wore the leather coat and chainmail of a warrior, and a gruesome scar was etched across the right side of her face, leaving a rippled trail of white and pink across her fair skin. She was a famous Guardian Keeper, a six-time Dooling champion, and fearsome enough to have earned the nickname the Fang of Dusk.

Per usual, Viola Dumont, Barclay and Tadg’s fellow apprentice, hovered in Runa’s shadow. She tsked with mirrored disapproval.

Root whined. Because most of their journey had cut through the Elsewheres, they’d each kept their Beasts confined to their golden tattoolike Marks, where they rested in stasis and out of sight. Barclay had learned the hard way how even the whiff of Lore Keepers could send Elsies scrambling for their torches and pitchforks.

“But we haven’t seen anyone on this road all morning,” Barclay protested. “Root just wants to run. Can’t he—”

“I’m afraid not.” Runa pointed farther ahead. “Get up and you’ll see why.”

Barclay stood and peered down the hill. A village of cobbly gray stone huddled along the shore below, smoke billowing from its crooked chimneys.

Excitement swelled in Barclay’s chest. Their travels were over at last.

“Sorry, boy,” Barclay told Root, then returned him to his Mark on Barclay’s shoulder. The Mark prowled across his pale skin, as though annoyed. But then Root padded a few times in a circle and curled up to take a nap.

The group started down the winding dirt road to the village.

Beside Barclay, Viola clicked and clacked as she walked. Her coat was so covered in gold pins, buttons, and baubles that Barclay could scarcely see the wool beneath. She claimed they distracted her pesky dragon, Mitzi, from nipping at her ears or poofy hair buns of tight curls. Even so, she had a tiny welt on her cheek where her light brown was skin swollen from when Mitzi had last nicked her.

“How do you always get yourself so dirty?” Viola asked him.

Dried mud was crusted all over Barclay’s clothes and hands. When he lived in Dullshire, he would’ve panicked at breaking one of their many ridiculous rules, which forbade everything from uncleanliness to hiccups.

But now Barclay only shrugged. “How come you always agree with everything Runa says?”

Viola fiddled with her pins, looking embarrassed. “I do not.”

“Yes you do,” Tadg muttered.

“Don’t you have some flowers to stomp on?” Viola shot at Tadg. “Or sunshine to complain about?”

Tadg gave them a very Tadg-like frown and stormed ahead.