“How are we meant to get across that?” Simo demanded. “Fly?”

“Perhaps the Worthy Interlocutor could aid with that,” remarked the haunt with a dour side-eye.

“Your Exalted Highness,” replied Luviara with a tartness that surprised Elen, “this humble theurgist holds not enough in strength to convey even one person across that distance, nor enough in numbers to convey all.”

“So, fewer than nine air spirits left who are bound to you, and weak ones at that.”

At this, Luviara lost her temper. “If you knew, then why did you ask before, Your Highness?”

Simo snapped, “Interlocutor! You speak out of turn!”

The haunt raised a hand to silence the captain. “It is a fair question. And I have a fair answer. I like to know exactly what tools I have at my disposal. But I believe the deputy courier has a plan.”

“Yes, I do,” said Elen briskly, thinking it best to smooth over the little confrontation. “But we are too visible out here, so let’s keep moving. A league south, there’s a turning where the rims run closer together. That’s where the rope bridge is. This way.”

They proceeded in silence. Perhaps Luviara was fuming, but the woman seemed more thoughtful than anything. The wardens stayed alert, gazes often turned back the way they’d come.

At a gnarled juniper tree, Elen led everyone over the rim and through a notch between two jutting promontories. They made their way along a track that hugged the side of the upper slope, slowly descending like a very long ramp. On one side, her shoulder scraped the rock face and, on the other side, her hand dangled over the drop-off. It was dizzying, if you looked down.

She had worried for Fulmo. He was so large that he appeared ungainly, incongruous, ready to topple over the side, yet he was so sure-footed that she wondered if gagast had something of a goat’s balance and spatial acuity. The haunt managed easily as well, but the wardens had a harder time, tentative when the track narrowed and gaining speed where it widened. Still, they followed gamely enough. They were tough, and they would never leave their prince.

For once, Luviara seemed unsure, lagging farther behind, until Kem came forward from his place in the rearguard to give her what assistance he could. He had a good head for heights, and he and Joef really had practiced slack rope obsessively back when they’d decided they were going to join a traveling theatrical troupe. Elen wasn’t worried about him except for all the ways she was worried about him.

Their group made slow progress, however. As the sun sank toward the west, the shadows got longer, covering the bottom of the canyon. Down there, the pale thread of the Pall gleamed as if woven with threads of moonlight or with the writhing souls of the living creatures it had captured and absorbed.