It was undisturbed, but this he already knew. Magiere had not found her mother's true resting place. He sniffed again, scent filling his head, as if this were the way to sense what was missing beneath the odor of damp loam, grass, and slivers of old wood caught in the earth. Even the dead carried a lingering essence of the life once held.

There was nothing.

Chap stared down at the earth. Whatever had been done here had happened so long ago, there was no trace of how or when.

But Magelia's bones were gone.

Magiere lay in the corner of her aunt's hut, curled in the unfolded bedroll. While Leesil had tried to clean them both up at the village well, she asked him to tell her aunt whatever he thought was necessary to explain this night. When they'd returned to the hut, Aunt Bieja put Wynn into her own bed, and Leesil had settled Magiere in the comer to rest.

Tomorrow, they would move on to Keonsk, though Leesil was reluctant. They would leave early, before word of what happened in the graveyard spread through the village.

She half heard Leesil's low voice as he sat at the hearth-side table talking with her aunt, but her fatigue-fogged thoughts drifted elsewhere.

She'd been so lost in rage but remembered Leesil's face.

The night had been brilliant in her sight, but his luminous hair had burned her eyes like the sun. Confusion rose as she reached out her hands, ready to tear him.

And then doubt… followed by strange longing.

He spoke, and at first she heard only one word. "Magiere."

She remembered. This was her name.

The eyes that watched her were like amber stones she wanted, would hide away, and keep to herself.

That face, those eyes… had a name. Both were framed in her sight by her own hands, blood appearing to run from his flesh down her fingers. She could taste it in her mouth. It made her choke with despair.

"No… Leesil. Not again."

Terror followed.

Until he leaned close, kissed her tainted mouth, and she looked in shock at Leesil's face to find no revulsion there. The same face that had called her back from hunger.

As Magiere lay in the bed, a scratch came at the hut door. She was vaguely aware of Leesil speaking in sharp tones as he let Chap in. The dog looked about, walked over to her, and sniffed her head. When Magiere rolled to look at him through half-open eyes, her thoughts ran in a blur, and for no reason, an odd memory surfaced.

She walked south on the coastal road of Belaski. They were just approaching Miiska for the first time. Its north-end market was filled with people out for the day buying and selling the necessities of life. In the air was the smell of baked goods and smoked fish and other simple things.

Magiere looked up again into Chap's crystal blue eyes. "No, not yet. We go on."

The dog wrinkled his jowls and trotted over to drop beside the bed where Wynn slept.

The room darkened, and only the low fire spread a red glow through the room. The blankets lifted as Leesil crawled under them. He lay close to her. Magiere slid her fingers into his hair, letting her palm come to rest against his tan cheek. "I want to remember your face," she whispered. "It keeps me from the dark."

Chapter 7

T hey awoke before dawn at Aunt Bieja's urging, and gathered their belongings to leave before anyone saw them. Magiere was quiet the whole while, and said only a few words when she bade her aunt good-bye. She watched Bieja with worry as the elder woman exchanged token packets of herbs with Wynn. Leesil lingered back by his own pony.

The night before, it had surprised Leesil how little Magiere's aunt reacted to what he'd told her of the keep and the graveyard, though he'd said nothing of why he'd gone after Magiere. Aunt Bieja wasn't blind to the changes in her niece and remained sadly silent through Leesil's tale, only nodding now and then.

As they prepared to mount up, Bieja came to him last.

"Mind yourself," Bieja told him quietly, away from the others. "Between instinct and knowledge"-she nodded toward Magiere and then Wynn-"you'll need wisdom to balance things out."

To be taken so quickly into the gruff good graces of Magiere's one and only relative brought a lump up in Leesil's throat.

"You don't have to stay here," he said. "We have our place in Miiska."

Bieja's expression darkened like the Droevinkan sky. "This is my home, for better or worse."

"Think about it, please," he said.

Placing his foot in the stirrup, he swung up into the saddle and look down at her. The elder woman's face, for all its stoutness and darker color, wasn't far different from Magiere's.

"I'll think about it," she answered.

"Think hard," he said, and handed her a folded scrap of paper. "Or we'll be back to cause you more trouble."

Bieja frowned in puzzlement and took the parchment.

While the others had slumbered that morning, Leesil had torn a spare page from the back of Wynn's journal. He wrote a brief letter of introduction to Karlin and Caleb back in Miiska-with six silver sovereigns wrapped in it for Bieja's traveling money. He hoped she would heed his wish.

"If you change your mind," he said, "travel to Miiska and ask for Karlin or Caleb, and show them this letter. Either should recognize my scrawl, and it tells them you're Magiere's aunt. They'll get you settled at the Sea Lion. And this isn't charity. Caleb could use the help."

Aunt Bieja looked once more at the letter. She tucked it into her apron pocket, and her brown eyes grew warm as she patted his leg.

'Take care of my niece," she said.

And the next part of their journey began.

Three days later, Leesil felt little relief upon reaching the Vudrask River once again. His thoughts mixed upon themselves with all that had happened in Magiere's village, from the morbid discovery in the keep's hidden chamber to the chilling realization of Magiere's loneliness as a child. She had been shunned and despised for sixteen years, yet for all the cruelty, she'd had one person in those days who truly loved her and was willing to let her go her own way. It made him wonder if his parents had loved him, and if they had ever considered letting him choose his own path.

Part of him wished he and Magiere shared such thoughts more easily. In spite of their newfound closeness, they'd spent so many years avoiding any discussion of their pasts. Habit was quite hard to break.

When they reached a village along the Vudrask, it was late in the afternoon. They bought passage on another barge, east to Ke" onsk, the capital city of Droevinka. Cloak over his arm and charcoal scarf covering his ears, Leesil stood on the bank of the river. Its wide gray water flowed under an afternoon breeze that rushed across his face.

Down by the docks, Magiere haggled with two men from a passing caravan, trying to sell the ponies. Her cheeks glowed white under the overcast sky. When the sun peeked through the clouds, red glints surfaced in her black hair. Both men slowed their heated barter to stare. Even Leesil caught his breath, but not for the same reason.

Magiere didn't look like a creature of this world. She was too beautiful, her contrasts too severe. She frowned at the men as Leesil approached.

"I paid four silver sovereigns apiece for those ponies," she said, "and they're offering five for the lot."

Leesil looked at the men with lined faces and calculating eyes and wondered if they were brothers. "We're not in the trade… just looking for a fair price."

"If she paid too much for the beasts," one of them replied, "it is not our loss to bear."

Leesil glanced at Magiere. They had money to spare from the necklace Wynn sold off in Bela, but her stingy nature would not let this go.

The price settled at seven silver sovereigns for the ponies and the mule. Magiere wasn't satisfied, but the barge was leaving. Leesil pulled her away as he took the men's final offer. Once the barge left the shore, he settled with Magiere under their blanket. She was still annoyed.