The next time he opened his eyes, there was a servingwoman dressed in a long gray robe standing over him. From out of her hood, she looked down at him with fair, hazy eyes. Such strange eyes. Was he in fact dead, and this a spirit come to lead him forth into the afterlife?

  The robed woman nudged his boot with her own. “You Vetch?” she asked. When he only looked up at her in confusion, she nodded to herself and muttered, “Yeah.” Bending down, she unceremoniously peeled his shirt up, exposing the festering wound in his chest. At the sight of it, she wrinkled her nose. “That’s bad. Prob’ly a lost cause. Well, come on now, get up. We don’t have much time.”

  Putting herself at Vetch’s side, the woman pulled his arm over her shoulder and helped him rise. As he came to his feet, he cried out at the burst of pain that exploded from his many wounds. The sound reverberated around the large hall.

  “Try not to do that again,” the woman warned. “There’s people running all around this place wondering what the hells has happened.”

  Vetch could feel how wiry the woman was underneath her billowy robe, yet she exhibited surprising strength as she helped him across the chamber. What was happening, he wondered. For the second time in his life, he had somehow awoken after having been certain he was closing his eyes for the last time. His body was even more stubborn than old Ennric.

  Glancing back, Vetch saw that Lady Iris was now sprawled on her back on the floor. In the time he’d been unconscious, Lily’s Barriers had expired and dropped the woman. Regrettably, Iris’s shielding Barrier was still in place. While invisible now, Vetch had felt it still against his back upon waking. Slumbering on the floor, The Lady of Black Crux was even further out of reach now, protected still by her own persisting magic. Would this good Samaritan be cross with him if he asked to wait around until it faded?

  “Stop draggin’ your heels, time’s wasting,” she grumbled, answering his unspoken question.

  Vetch let go of his chance at completing his town’s revenge and allowed himself to be guided by his benefactor. Stepping around the scattered bodies of dead soldiers, they made for the same corridor that Marigold had chosen as an escape route for herself and Lily. Through a short maze of hallways and rooms, the robed woman took them. As they went, she kept her free hand out to the side, trailing her fingers along the walls. Each time they passed a door, she counted it under her breath. When they went through a door, or chose a new hallway to follow, she would begin counting anew. From that, he surmised she was unfamiliar with the manor. So, not a servingwoman. Who, then?

  They soon came to a large, open door that let them out into daylight. Vetch recognized the stretch of land behind Black Crux Manor whereupon he had arrived the night before. The robed woman impatiently goaded him forward across the open ground to the edge of the natural fissure that sliced through the earth behind the manor. It was somewhere around here that he’d been carried by Siegert across Lily’s bridge. There was no sign of any such Barrier bridge now, though Vetch was heartened to see large hoofprints in the dirt, leading directly off the edge.

  The robed woman let go of him and he was surprised at how much effort it required to remain standing without her support.

  Seeing him wobbling, she asked, “Can you walk by yourself?”

  He stared at her dumbly. “Are you a Barrier-Caster?”

  She made a derisive sound in her throat. “Here. It’s right here.” She tapped her foot on the open expanse, showing where a new, invisible bridge existed. “And here,” she added, with another tap of her foot about a pace away. “Two of ‘em. Nothin’ in between. Got it?”

  “Who are you?”

  “Walk, you oaf!”

  Vetch stepped up to the edge of the fissure and cast about with his boot until his toes met resistance. He then swept his foot sideways and found the other translucent track. Delicately, he placed one foot down on what appeared to be thin air. Then, satisfied that the magic would support him, he balanced shakily on that foot until he could find the second strip of Barrier with the other. He felt like a baby taking its first steps as he inched forward on weak legs, hesitant to lift his feet in normal steps, lest he lose track of where to place them down again.

  “Hurry up,” the robed woman cajoled him. “Mari said they’ll disappear soon.”

  Vetch sensed the anxiety radiating off of his abrasive savior, and now he understood why. His heart pounded in his throat as he willed his aching legs to move faster, step by cautious step. The prospect of traversing a Barrier that was still visible had been daunting enough the night before. Walking on Barriers whose golden luster had disappeared was near paralyzing. Each thin strip of magic was only about as wide as the sole of his boot. Looking down into the dizzying chasm below, he imagined Fae’s massive hooves treading these same tracks, with Lily draped over her back, and was thankful for the panthegrunn’s cat-like poise.

  Only when he reached the other side, and had stepped onto solid ground, did the robed woman follow. As soon as she was across, she took his arm again and together they navigated the hillside path, following the panthegrunn tracks down the slope. Vetch felt relief when they had gone far enough to be out of sight of the castle’s walls and windows. He sensed that the robed woman felt the same, for she mercifully slowed their pace, albeit not enough for him to catch his breath. She did not allow him to stop until they finally reached the bottom of the hill.

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  Leaving Vetch doubled over and puffing for breath beside the trail, the woman retrieved a small pack from behind an uprooted tree stump.

  “Here,” she said, pressing a water canteen into Vetch’s hands.

  He drank greedily and then poured some of the water over his head. The cool drops that fell from his chin to patter in the dirt were pinkish from the dried blood that caked his face. It did little to soothe his fever in the late afternoon sun.

  She allowed him a second sip and then took the canteen away. From her pack, she pulled a bundle of clothing that she shook out and offered to Vetch. It was a long, loose robe of the same gray material as her own.

  “Put this on.”

  “This is a woman’s robe,” Vetch said.

  “Sharp one, ain’t ya? Put it on.”

  Too fatigued to see the sense of it—but not caring at this point—he followed instructions and pulled the robe on. It was soft and billowy and reached down to his boots. She helped him pull the hood down low over his face. After a second of appraisal, she nodded.

  “Good enough. Come on.”

  Again they walked, the woman helping to support Vetch while he staggered along. A reddish sunset was peeking between buildings as they reached the streets of Black Crux. The woman scanned their surroundings alertly as they navigated through town, but nobody seemed to pay them any mind.

  “I’m Vetch,” he said, after a time of walking in silence.

  “I already knew that,” the woman said brusquely.

  “Will you give me your name?”

  “No.”

  “Did Marigold send you? Are she and Lily safe?”

  “Quit talking.”

  The woman’s manner was vexing, but Vetch was too preoccupied with the pain of his infection to challenge her. She was helping; that was good enough for the time being. Besides, it was taking all of his strength and focus simply to keep moving. A couple times, they had to pause to allow for coughing fits that gripped him with indescribable pain. Each time, the woman barely waited for them to subside before relentlessly prodding him on again. The route the woman chose was disorienting, and Vetch quickly lost track of where they were in the unfamiliar city. He suspected that they doubled back more than once, but he was so delirious, he could not be certain.

  Daylight had faded by the time she turned him down a long alleyway. Halfway along it, the woman stopped to open a little gate leading into a fragrant herb garden. She urged him through it and then stood looking both ways up and down the alley before following. Grabbing his arm, she hurried him through the garden to the back door of a nondescript dwelling and directed him inside.

  Vetch found himself in a small, well-appointed home. The room was dim, the only light a low fire burning in the grate. The windows all had their shutters drawn closed. In his addled state, Vetch stared around him, seeking for Lily or Marigold. All he saw were the accoutrements of a comfortable but unoccupied sitting room. A narrow staircase led up to a second floor. The home smelled of aromatic herbs that were unfamiliar to him.

  “Lie down,” the woman said, as if she were commanding a dog. Vetch stared at her uncomprehendingly. She pointed to a low couch near the hearth and repeated herself.

  “Why have you brought me here?” he asked. He was thirsty again. His entire body felt like it was on fire. The last thing he wanted to do was lie down next to a warm hearth.

  The woman voiced a sound of impatience. Without so much as a ‘by your leave’, she began pulling the robe off of him, like she was undressing an obstinate child for the bath. Discarding the garment, she pointed again to the couch. “And your shirt. Unless you need me to do that for you, too.”

  “No,” Vetch said, and coughed. “I don’t.”

  He peeled his shredded shirt off. The fabric clung to his skin and chest hair in places where blood had dried, so that he had to tear it free. When he sat down on the low couch, a wave of nausea assaulted him. He sat with his head bowed forward and waited for it to pass, before leaning to untie his boots.

  “Don’t worry about those,” the woman said, going up the stairs and leaving him alone in the room.

  Vetch levered his legs, boots and all, up onto the couch, and lay back. In a short time, the woman returned back down the stairs. She had shed the loose robe and now wore a dark dress and white apron. Without the heavy hood obscuring her features, Vetch could finally observe his terse savior. She looked to be in her middle years, about of an age with his mother. Subtle lines creased her face in the firelight, like traces of fissures in stone. Her fair eyes were a striking contrast to her olive skin. From under her head kerchief, a few stray strands of graying hair escaped.

  She dragged a short table close to the couch and set upon it some little jars and a tall bottle that she’d had bundled in her apron. Kneeling before Vetch, she placed a hand on his festering, open chest wound and pressed down. Vetch gasped and hissed through his teeth as blood and foul-smelling liquid oozed from the inflamed sword puncture.

  “Spirits and demons,” the woman uttered. “Another half a day and this would’ve done you in. Mari said only that you’d been roughed up. This is much more than roughed up. Y’look like you fought an army. Humph. I guess you did.”

  “Marigold,” Vetch sputtered. “Where is she? Where is Lily?”

  “Slumbering, of course. Upstairs.” The woman uncorked the tall bottle and offered it to him. “Drink until you pass out. Y’won’t want to be awake for this.”

  “For what? Can I see Lily?”

  “No.”

  Frustration upon frustration. There were too many other questions he needed to ask, not the least of which was whether they were safe here. Before he could form the words, the woman tipped the bottle to his lips.

  “Drink. You’ll regret it if you don’t.”

  Vetch relented and swigged from the bottle. It was the kind of throat-scouring rot-gut some of his garrison mates had liked to drink while playing dice. He took a second swig before he could regret the first and soon felt the powerful liquor going to his head. Before long, the room was spinning around him.

  The woman placed both her hands upon his wound and closed her eyes. He felt a sensation like something was squirming inside of him. It began as discomfort, then became pain, pain that grew exponentially. Vetch suddenly understood why she’d furnished him the bottle. He tipped it up and gulped down the rest of its contents. Then, he lay back and clenched his eyes hard shut, gritting his teeth against the agony.

  Mercifully, he passed out before he was forced to scream.