“Does it matter, what Ned said about the cemetery?” Kim asked.

“Of course it does. A place she’s been?”

“You’ll go there now?”

Cadell nodded. “I may even meet him there. Which would be amusing.” He glanced at Ned. “I’ll tell him he’s disappointed you.”

“You can’t fight each other,” Ned said quickly.

Cadell smiled. “I know. She forbade that, didn’t she?”

He turned to go down the slope that would take him towards the city. He stopped and looked back. Phelan hadn’t done that.

“Move away from us,” Cadell said. “Let it go. You’ll hurt yourself. It doesn’t have to happen.”

Then he went from them, disappearing down the path.

NED’S MOTHER PACKED her kit. When she was done, they started back the way they’d come. Ned didn’t use the flashlight, the moon seemed bright enough. He walked ahead, could hear his mother and aunt behind him.

“You understand all this, I guess?” his mother said.

Aunt Kim walked a few steps without answering. “Some. Not the details, but I know things like this can happen.”

“You know, because of before?”

“Of course.”

“And Ned’s…like you?” His mother’s voice was tentative.

“Not quite the same, but yes. You know the family stories, Meg. You grew up with them.”

“I know. I don’t like them.”

“I know.”

Stars overhead and the wind. Ned put up his jacket hood. He was still trying to deal with anger, this new feeling of having been abused by Phelan that first morning. A con job, a guy doing the shell game on a sidewalk table. Drawing him in with that underground deception. Then telling him to go away, in the cloister—just another way of luring him?

He remembered the man’s fury, coming down off the roof. Surely that had been real? Maybe…maybe Ned had moved faster, ended up closer, known more than Phelan had expected?

Right. Like he was going to figure this out, however hard he worked at it.

He put his hands in his pockets. Tried to see it from the other man’s point of view. Outnumbered by Cadell, who had the spirits with him, Beltaine coming, far less power than them, needing to know where the summoning would be, and then this kid with a link to their world shows up…

Ned sighed. He could see it.

He just couldn’t get past the anger. This version of the story made him feel so naive, so stupidly young. He forced himself to remember Phelan at Entremont, telling them how to leave, and when, to save their lives. Cadell wouldn’t have killed them there, but Brys would have. And he could have, that night.

It was hard to stay angry, and as hard to let go of it.

He heard his mother again. “Kim, do you have any idea how difficult this is for me?”

“Of course I do.”

“I wonder. I can’t lose Ned the way I lost you.”

That got his attention.

After a few more steps, his aunt said, carefully, “Meg, I was changed, I wasn’t lost. Maybe it was my fault, but I didn’t have enough in me to make it easier for you. By the time I did…”

“It was too late. Old story?”

“Old story,” his aunt agreed.

He heard only their footsteps on the path for a while. Then his mother said, quietly, “Did they die? Your friends?”

Ned strained to hear. This was all new to him.

Aunt Kim murmured, “One did. A darling man. Saved everything, really. One stayed there. One…found what she was, and joy in the end. Dave and I came home.”

“And were punished?”

“Oh, Meg. Don’t let’s go there. I did something important. You pay a price, sometimes. Like you, when you go to war zones.”

“It’s not the same thing. Nothing near.”

“Near enough.”

He heard his mother make a sound that could have been laughter, or not. “You’re being a big sister. Trying to make me feel better.”

“Haven’t had much chance.”

The same sound again.

“I made it worse for you, when you came back, didn’t I?”

Aunt Kim said nothing. She couldn’t, Ned realized: she’d either have to lie, or admit that it was true, and she wouldn’t want to do either. He felt like an intruder again, listening. He quickened his pace, moved farther ahead. He took out his cellphone and dialed his uncle. It was picked up, first ring.

“Where are you?”

“On our way back. It’s okay.”

“Everyone?”

“We’re fine. It was pretty intense.”

His uncle said nothing.

“Honestly,” Ned said. “We’re fine.”

“Where are Kim and your mom?”

“Just behind me. They’re talking.”

“Oh.”

“We’ll be there in a few.”

“I’m here,” his uncle said.

He hadn’t been, for all Ned’s life. It was a nice thing to hear. He said, “We won’t have a lot of time. We have to focus now, to get her back.” His math teacher talked about focusing all the time.

His uncle cleared his throat. “Ned, I was going to say this before we went to bed. You need to think about the possibility that we won’t. We’ll do what we can, but it isn’t always poss—”

“Nope,” Ned Marriner said. “Uh-uh. We’re getting her back, Uncle Dave. I’m getting her back.” He hung up.

He found himself walking faster, the urgency inside him strong suddenly, anger and fear. He needed to run, burn some of it off.

He heard a sound ahead of him.

Same snuffling, grunting as when they’d come this way. He stopped dead, breathing quietly. His mother and aunt were well behind him now.

He was about to turn on the flashlight when he saw the boar in the moonlight.

It was as he remembered it. Huge, pale-coloured, nearly white, though that was partly the moon. It was alone, standing stock-still in his path—as it had the last time, in the laneway below.

The animal returned his gaze. He knew by now this wasn’t a simple sanglier like those that had rooted up the field beside the villa.

There was an ache in his chest, as if too many things were wanting release. He said, “Cadell’s gone. He went down the other way. So’s Brys. The druid? He’s really gone. I’m sorry. There’s just me.”

He had no idea what he expected. What happened was that, after a moment, the boar turned its back on him.

It turned and faced east as Ned was—as if rejecting him and all he’d said. As if saying just me meant nothing to this creature, or worse than nothing. As if he didn’t mean anything at all, wasn’t worth looking at.

It did look back once, though, then trotted away—surprisingly agile—into the brush beside the path and was swallowed by the night.

“And what the hell did that mean?” Ned Marriner said.

They came up beside him. “What is it?” his mother asked.

“That boar, same as before.”

His aunt looked around. “It’s gone?”

He nodded.

Kimberly sighed. “Let’s go, dear. Don’t make yourself crazy trying to understand all this.”

“Can’t help it,” he said.

But he walked on with them, and at the end of the path they turned right and came to the barrier and went around it. Dave was on the other side, leaning against his car. Kim went forward and put her arms around him, her head against his chest.

They heard her say, “I told him you could have taken him apart.”

Dave Martyniuk chuckled. “You did? Good thing I stayed behind then, isn’t it? You tired of me? Ready for widowhood?”

“He was trivializing you, honey. I didn’t like it.”

Dave kissed the top of her head. “Trivializing? Kim, I’m a middle-aged lawyer who plays Sunday rugby for the district team and can’t move for two days after.”

Ned heard his aunt laugh softly. “Yeah, so?” she said. “What’s your point?”

“That does remind me,” Ned’s mother said brightly. “I really need to review the quality of security being sent out with me. What good’s a gimpy rugby player in Darfur anyhow?”

Dave Martyniuk looked at her, over top of Kim’s head, which was still against his chest. He grinned. “Fair question.”

Meghan shook her head. “No, it isn’t. And you know it.”