More words… more words…, he projected, and his multitongued voice in Wynn's head matched the movement of Li'kan's lips. She wants you to read to her.

Wynn took a deep breath and pulled from Osha's grasp. But when she echoed Chap's thoughts to the others, Magiere growled back.

"What do you think you're doing with this thing?"

Leesil held his place with one blade still raised, and Wynn jumped slightly as Sgaile appeared out of the very row she had run from. The garrote was stretched between his hands.

"Spoken words," Wynn said and quickly tried to explain how she had kept Li'kan occupied while waiting for them to come. She'd barely got out Chap's accounting of how long Li'kan might have been here alone, when Magiere cut her off.

"You… your sages… your damn Forgotten History! Or don't you remember what Chap found in Most Aged Father's memories? Undead by the hundreds-or thousands-slaughtering every living thing in their path. And where do you think they came from?"

Magiere pointed her blade at Li'kan.

"Look at this thing! One of those who brought everything to an end… and you want to read to it!"

An uneasy truce had emerged, and Magiere watched Li'kan crouch beside the passage's exit. Beyond, down the row of bookcases, Wynn sat with Osha. Sgaile stood over the pair as the sage ate sparingly from their rations. Sitting beside her, Chap snapped up a piece of dried fish.

Li'kan stayed put but never took her eyes off the sage. Wynn watched her in turn between eager glances at the shelves.

A vibrancy had grown inside Magiere, shuddering through her bones.

At the courtyard gates, when Leesil had told her to get control, she had pressed her dhampir nature down-and that shiver had emerged in her awareness. Or had it been there all along as they approached the castle, only masked by hunger, fury, and the longing that drove her to this place?

She tried to suppress the tremors, as she had within elven tree homes, with their forest's life threading into her. But here, only the castle's cold stone and the ice-capped mountains surrounded them. So what was it that… fed her?

Magiere studied Li'kan, one of Welstiel's "old ones." What fed this monster, alone for so long in this dead place?

"That circlet around her neck," Leesil whispered, "it looks like yours. What does it mean?"

"I don't know," she answered.

Magiere wanted to rend this white monster and leave nothing but ashes in its place. Sgaile approached, slowing with care as he passed wide around Li'kan.

"There is more writing on these walls," he said. "Wynn believes it was all written by this creature, who does not remember that the words are hers… and more of her kind once existed here, at least two others."

"What is she feeding on?" Magiere asked.

"Nothing could live up… " Sgaile began, then lifted his eyes angrily. "Is feeding?"

Leesil tucked in close to Magiere. "I doubt she fed on those anmaglahk we found-by the way she mangled them. But we've never encountered a physical undead that didn't need to feed, somehow, on the living."

Magiere caught Leesil's worried glance. Had he noticed her shaking again or some other sign? She wasn't about to let Sgaile know what she'd suffered in his land, so she had no way to tell Leesil what she felt now. Yes, something in this place was sustaining Li'kan.

"Perhaps the same thing Welstiel hoped to find," Magiere said.

"Are we near it?" Leesil asked.

"Maybe," she replied. "I'll take the lead with Chap. Leesil, you and Sgaile keep that creature ahead of-"

"Not yet," Sgaile cut in. "I have questions."

"You?" Leesil hissed. "You have questions!"

Sgaile's eyes stayed fixed upon Magiere. "That creature is not the only one who stalled amid bloodlust. You halted in midswing… why?"

Magiere didn't know. She had felt suddenly weak, as if her strength had drained away for an instant.

She shook her head. "I just felt heavy, tired, and then it passed."

"That was not the only response you shared with the white woman," Sgaile said.

Magiere instinctively warmed with anger. Before Leesil could snap again, Sgaile went on.

"She echoed your fury. What connection lies between you?"

"What else would you expect?" Magiere spit back. "It's undead. I was born to kill it. And it's not going to just stand there waiting for me to take its head. There's nothing between her and-"

"No," Sgaile snapped, his voice barely above a whisper. "When she stopped and slipped into delirium… even then her expression echoed yours."

Leesil lurched forward, but Sgaile raised one finger at him.

"I know what I saw," he warned; then he walked away with a last hard glance at Magiere as he called out, "Osha, prepare to move on."

Magiere didn't know what to think about Sgaile's veiled accusation. Any denial of her strange reaction to Li'kan, or the other way around, would be a lie.

"Come on," Leesil whispered. "Let's finish this and get out of here."

Li'kan curled her lips back as Magiere walked past.

"Move!" Magiere hissed back.

She headed off along the bookcases, trying to clear her head. Her hunger had waned, and it was barely enough to keep her night sight widened. But the longing was still strong, and it pulled her onward.

Magiere did not get far. They all stopped short at the chamber's far end, facing nothing but a wall of ancient stone blocks. Or that was how it seemed.

A long and rusted iron beam stretched across the wall's length, resting in stone cradles, like a door's bar. And while the stone blocks overlapped in construction, Magiere spotted one seam at the wall's center that ran straight from top to bottom.

Leesil traced the seam with his fingers, from the floor up to the beam as thick as a man's thigh. Twin doors built of mortared stone blocked their way, and Magiere couldn't imagine what hinged mechanism might possibly support them.

The pull inside Magiere told her to pass through these stone doors, to hurry beyond them. But why were they barred from the outside? And how could she and her companions lift the enormous beam, let alone open this massive portal?

Leesil slid sharply away along the wall, his hands dropping to his sheathed blades, and Magiere half-turned, reaching for her falchion.

Li'kan stepped silently up to the doors.

The undead pressed her smooth cheek to the beam's metal, as if listening for something beyond. Then her eyes rolled up. Her small mouth began working again, mumbling mutely.

Chap watched Li'kan slip into another semiconscious state. He reached out again to catch memories surfacing in the undead's mind.

He saw only darkness-but he heard the low, distant hiss again, like a whisper-or was it more like a fire's crackle? The sound sped up, buzzing furiously like leaves or insect wings. Chap lost his concentration as Magiere whispered.

"It's here… behind the wall… these doors. I can feel it."

Something shifted in the dark within Li'kan.

Chap almost missed it. Not a memory, but an awareness. Did Li'kan feel him inside her mind? He panicked and began to pull out-too late.

Something cold struck at him from the dark of Li'kan's mind. It thrashed about inside his thoughts, trying to find him and coil about him… and it took hold.

Chap's yelp echoed in his own ears.

"Stop it!" Leesil growled. "Stay out of that thing's head."

"Wynn, what's wrong?" Magiere shouted.

Chap thrashed wildly, struggling to get free.

The chamber and door walls cleared before his eyes. The only thing holding him was Leesil's hands about his shoulders. Chap settled, still shivering within.

Magiere crouched behind Wynn. The sage sat crumpled upon the floor, one hand over her mouth. She shook uncontrollably as she stared wide-eyed at Chap.

"What… was that?" Wynn whispered. "That buzz from Li'kan's thoughts?"