They never came.

The sun rose and bathed the stall in light and warmth, but it remained quiet outside. No sounds of guards changing duty. No horse clops in the distance.

No one brought them breakfast.

“Fen’de Stone must have gotten distracted by something important,” Lucas said. “We should try to get some sleep while we can.”

Kara nodded, but she had trouble believing that Fen’de Stone had simply found something more important to do. You didn’t hear him. He aims to find the grimoire and restore the honor of his people. Nothing could be more important than that.

Despite her swirling thoughts, Kara managed to fall asleep. When she awoke again, it was early evening and Lucas was standing by the window.

“Still quiet,” he said.

It remained that way the entire night.

The next morning they combed the stall for possible weaknesses. At first they had no luck, but then Lucas saw a hoof file that had slipped between the cracks of the floorboards.

“I might be able to use that to pick the lock,” he said. “If I knew how to pick a lock.”

“Maybe we could use it to pry under the nails,” Kara suggested. “Pull a piece of the wall away. Sort of dig our way out.”

They tried everything to get the file: stomping on the floorboards, using their fingernails to dig beneath the wood, tying strands of hay together to lasso it up. Nothing worked.

Three days passed. The hunger was bad but nothing compared to the thirst. To conserve what little moisture remained in their cracked lips, they began to use hand signals. Mostly, though, they just lay on the floor and waited for something to happen.

“Why doesn’t anyone come?” Lucas whispered when it had grown dark.

“He’s trying to make us weak,” Kara said. “This way he knows we’ll do what he wants us to do.”

“What if he changed his mind?”

“No. He wants the grimoire too much.”

“He could have found it on his own. Caught Grace with it.”

Kara shivered. She had not considered that possibility. “You’re right,” she said. “If he has what he wants, he might just leave us here to die. That’s something he would do.”

Lucas laid his hand on her arm.

“Forget what I said. You were right. He’s just doing this to make us weak. We can’t let him win.”

“Can we talk about something else?” Kara asked. “Just pretend things are normal for a little while?”

“Sure,” Lucas said. The stable grew silent as Kara tried to think of something to say—something normal. . . .

Lucas spoke first.

“Hanson Blair lied. He has no idea where my family is. I caught him laughing at me with a group of his friends. I feel like such a fool.”

“You’re not a fool, Lucas. You just wanted to believe. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

An uncustomary desperation crept into his voice. “And now I’m never going to know who they are. I’ll never be able to ask them why they left me here.”

Kara longed to comfort him, but his wounds cut deeper than words could mend. Instead she put an arm around his shoulders.

“Well, I’m glad they did,” Kara said. “You’re my best friend.”

In the darkness she saw Lucas smile. “You’re glad my parents left me to a life of servitude working in a field of deadly plants? Some friend.”

Kara pinched his arm.

“We’re going to get out of here,” she said. “Watch. We’re due a little luck.”

She was awoken by the jingle of keys.

Through sleep-hazed eyes she saw a large figure, his face concealed beneath the folds of a hooded cloak, struggling to open the lock to their cell. The man’s hands shook badly.

“Lucas,” Kara said. “Lucas! Get up!”

Lucas mumbled something incoherent and turned over.

The man dropped a large ring of iron keys. Bent down to pick them up. Fumbled with the lock some more.

Kara shoved Lucas. Hard.

“What?” he asked. He was still groggy, but his eyes were open.

Kara pointed at the figure just as the door swung open. The man stepped inside and removed his hood.

It was Fen’de Stone.

Although he did not appear to be wounded, there was blood everywhere. His face. His clothes.

His eyes found Kara.

“You,” he said.

The fen’de withdrew a long dagger from a sheath inside his cloak. The jeweled weapon seemed more ornamental than functional, though judging from its gore-encrusted blade, it could still serve its natural purpose.

Lucas stepped in front of Kara.

“Fen’de Stone?” he asked.

If the man heard Lucas, he made no indication. He continued to approach Kara, step by lumbering step, his mad eyes never leaving hers.

“You,” he repeated. “You.”

When he was only a few feet away, Kara felt Lucas tense, ready to pounce. But there was no need. The fen’de collapsed to his knees and laid his dagger at Kara’s feet.

“You need to save us,” he said, the words nearly incomprehensible through his blubbering tears. “I tried, but I can’t do it. I’m not strong enough. You need to make her stop hurting my people!”

“Who?” Lucas asked.

Fen’de Stone looked at Kara with pleading eyes, and for a moment she almost pitied him.

“My daughter,” he said.

Kara would never take freedom for granted again. She luxuriated in the warmth of the sun, the playful caress of the morning breeze. After the initial flush of pleasure, however, she realized that it was all wrong. The air should have been fragrant with the whistlebuds and landrils that bloomed this time of year, but instead it was as stale as a tomb. Eerie silence, bereft of the usual buzzing and fluttering, accentuated every footstep they made.

She felt like a stranger in someone else’s dream.

“It started four days ago,” Fen’de Stone said, moving with surprising speed along the crooked path. “Little things at first. Milk spoiling for no reason. Plants sprouting out of the ground, roots up. The Elders were convinced it was your evil presence leaking into our community. They promised that everything would go back to normal once you were executed.”

Fen’de Stone stopped so suddenly that Kara nearly ran into him. He regarded her with bloodshot, bulging eyes.

“They wanted to kill you right away. It was me who saved you. I told them that they were wrong. I protected you, Kara! Remember that. Remember that I’m your friend.”

He stood close, waiting for her to respond, his body rank with dirt and sweat.

You hurt me. You killed my mother and made me watch.

“I’ll remember everything,” Kara said quietly.

With a short grunt of satisfaction, Fen’de Stone spun on one heel and continued walking, his pace even more frantic than before. Kara assumed that they were headed toward the village, but although it would have been shorter to cut through the wooded area to their left, Fen’de Stone refused to leave the main path.

“It was the cattle that changed everything. Rancher Samuelson called on me—pulled me out of bed in the middle of the night. I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t believe him at first. Thought maybe he had been tipping the moondrink again, as he was wont to do in his younger years. But he’s been a good member of the Fold, so I donned my cloak and followed him out just the same. I noticed that Grace’s room was empty as I left, but I didn’t think much of it at the time. That girl always had some odd ways about her, and sometimes she just went walking. I punished her as a righteous father should, but it never did any good.”

He’s speaking about her in the past tense, Kara thought, as though she were never his daughter at all.

“What happened?” Kara asked.

The fen’de scratched a dried spot of blood on his scalp. “Samuelson’s property, as you know, borders the Clearer land on one side. That’s nothing he’s happy about, but his family was one of the last to settle here, and someone has to live close to those . . .” The fen’de hesitated, his eyes shifting in Lucas’s direction. “. . . people. But Samuelson can be a stubborn sort, and he got it in his mind that if he built a stone wall along the northern edge of his ranch, he might keep away any unwanted guests. It’s ridiculous, really—the wall is barely taller than I am. Any Stench with a mind for trouble could just—”

“The cattle,” Lucas said.

“Dead, or well along the way. I am a great lover of animals—as our blessed Timoth Clen was before me—and this was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen. Flanks torn apart, legs shattered. My soul twisted in sorrow for those pitiable creatures. I helped Samuelson put them out of their misery afterward.”

“Something attacked them?” Lucas asked. He inadvertently touched his ruined hand. “Maybe something from the Thickety?”

“No. There were no bite marks. No unusual paw prints. As far as we could tell, the entire herd of cattle just kept battering the wall, over and over again, until they killed themselves.”

“It was Grace,” Kara said. “Isn’t that right?”

The pained expression on Fen’de Stone’s face was answer enough.

Kara pictured Grace standing on a hill overlooking the cattle, watching them graze peacefully for a time before opening the grimoire. And then, after she spoke the words, a sly smile lifting her lips as the first cow charged the wall.

Did she hesitate? For even a moment?

“But why?” asked Lucas.

“She was testing her powers,” Kara said. “Just like I did at the beginning.” She didn’t like admitting this connection between them, but it deserved to be spoken. “Grace killed all those poor creatures just to see if she could.”

They journeyed in silence for a long time after that. Although Kara still had questions, the burst of energy that came with escaping the stable had faded, and exhaustion and thirst now made it difficult to concentrate on anything beyond simple movement. Glancing over at Lucas, she could see the same struggle in his eyes.

By midafternoon the ground had grown hazy, and her legs threatened to buckle beneath her.

“We need water,” she finally said. “And food.”

Fen’de Stone nodded. “Almost there.”

A simple campsite waited around the next bend: one bedroll, a ring of stones where a fire had once burned, and, most importantly, two glorious water skins. Lucas snatched up the first one and handed it to Kara. She raised it to her cracked lips and drank deeply, limiting herself to three swallows. Vomiting would be very self-defeating.

Fen’de Stone produced a stick of dried beef from beneath the bedroll. He was about to slice off a considerable portion for himself when Lucas yanked it out of his hands.

“Give that back, boy!” the fen’de exclaimed.

Lucas ignored him completely and sliced the meat in two, giving the larger portion to Kara. It was fresh and moist, and although Kara couldn’t help but wonder if it came from Samuelson’s cows, she was too hungry to care.

After she had taken a few bites and another swallow of water, Kara turned to face Fen’de Stone.

“The cows were just the beginning, weren’t they?”

Fen’de Stone kicked at the dirt. “Are you going to make me tell it all, witch?”

“Yes. If you want my help, I need to know everything.”

“None of this is my fault!”

Kara broke off a piece of meat and handed it to the fen’de. “Just tell me what happened.”

The fen’de nibbled the meat absentmindedly as he spoke but never swallowed a piece. “I haven’t been a perfect father. I’ve often looked upon my daughter with shame. How could anyone blame me? I am the leader of the Fold, chosen to spread the Clen’s message! And yet one look at Grace and all my Children see is her ruined body.”

“You’re wrong,” Kara said. “They loved Grace. All of them.”

“No! They snicker about how she’s been touched by pagan magic. I know they do! They laugh at me, and it’s all your mother’s doing!” The fen’de leaped to his feet, eyes flaming with hatred, but his anger flared out as quickly as it had begun. He continued his story. “When I got back to the house after my visit to the Samuelson place, she was waiting for me. She opened that damned book of hers and patched the hole in our ceiling with a single word and then showed me my dead wife in a cupful of tea. ‘Isn’t magic wonderful?’ she asked. ‘I can bring Mama back to us for good, if you’d like me to.’ When I shrieked at her to stop, she grew hurt and angry. She said that there were such good sheep on this island, but they were wasting their time on a . . .” He paused here, as though unwilling to say the words out loud. “. . . dead god. She said the real world mocked the Fold, a bunch of loons living—by choice—on a cursed island. ‘Poor Father,’ she said. ‘I am going to give you all a gift: A god worthy of such noble devotion.’”

Fen’de Stone turned to Lucas, his voice suddenly calm and conversational. “Did you know that her hair didn’t turn white until she was two years old? The mangled leg was there from the start—her mother screamed when she saw it, the last sound she ever made—but Grace’s hair . . . it was extraordinary. Golden yellow, like saffron. Like she was touched by the sun.”

They ate the rest of their meal in silence.

It was early evening when they found the graycloaks.

They waited over the next rise, as still as statues, ball-staffs held across their bodies. Six of them in total. Their heads were bowed down, concealing their faces beneath the shadows of their hoods.

“Maybe they can help us,” Kara said. She started forward, but Fen’de Stone snatched her arm.

“Those men belong to Grace now,” he said.

Kara lay flat against the ground. The three of them were concealed by a tangle of overgrown weeds and several medium-size boulders. To the east Kara heard ocean waves crashing against the shore. The salty air teased freedom.

“They haven’t seen us yet,” Lucas whispered. “We can circle around. We won’t reach the house till tomorrow, but—”

“That’s too long,” said Kara. “Taff needs me.”

“Taff needs you alive.”

“This is the only way,” said Fen’de Stone. “The other path takes you too close to the village.”

Kara replied with what she hoped was more confidence than she felt. “Fine. Then I’ll face Grace now.”

“You’re not ready.”

“I’ll never be ready. Now is as good a time as any.”

“No. You’re exhausted and starving. You need to rest. Strategize. You’re only going to get one shot to save my village.”

“I don’t care about them. I only care about my brother!”

“Just a thought,” whispered Lucas, “but maybe you two should lower your voices. . . .”

“Your duty is to De’Noran.”

“Duty?” she asked. “Why should I help any of you? I’ve spent my entire life being tormented and humiliated, and I haven’t deserved any of it!”

“Kara,” Lucas said. He placed a hand on the back of her neck, but she shook it away. These were things that needed to be said.

“Did anyone try to help me after my mother was killed? Did anybody have a word of kindness to say? No. But now things are different, because now you need me. Even if I could save this place, give me one good reason why I should!”

Fen’de Stone’s red-rimmed eyes gazed back at her with shocking desperation. He loves them, she thought, and the sudden realization that a man who could torture and murder was also capable of love shifted something in her irrevocably. The old man wiped a trail of snot from beneath his nose. “If there is any good in that heathen heart of yours, hear this: You are the only one who can help them. If you do not, they will die. Now get ready to run.”

With more quickness than he had shown in two decades, Fen’de Stone leaped to his feet. The graycloaks, as one, turned in his direction.

“Men!” Fen’de Stone shouted. Kara kept her head pressed against the earth but heard his footsteps as he made his way down the hill. “Timoth Clen requires your skills one final time! To me, to me!”

Kara heard a whisper of grass as the graycloaks glided closer. “What’s he doing?” she asked.

Lucas held a finger to his lips.

“You are lost, my friends,” Fen’de Stone said. “But I am here to guide you back into the light. Take my hand. Join me. Let us fight this demon together.”

Kara lifted her head just enough to see over the weeds. There hadn’t been nearly enough time for the graycloaks to walk so far up the hill, and yet there they were, surrounding the fen’de in an eerily perfect circle.

“We have to go,” Lucas said.

Kara shook her head.

“We can’t just leave him here—” she started, but then a flash of motion caught her eye as Fen’de Stone was struck across the knee with the ball end of a staff. A whistling noise filled the air, like steam from a kettle. Kara suspected it might have been laughter.

From his knees Fen’de Stone extended his hand out to his attacker. “Come back, my friend.” For just a moment his eyes met Kara’s, and while she might have expected to see terror there, all she saw was joy. “Come back to the Fold. Do not listen to her lies! Have faith! Timoth Clen will return to us. He will never allow such evil to continue!”

As one the graycloaks raised their ball-staffs high into the air. Their cloaks dipped far enough for Kara to see that they were not holding the staffs at all; rather, the wood had become an extension of their left arms, a weapon of flesh and bone.

Fen’de Stone bowed his head.

“Work hard, want nothing,” he whispered.

“Don’t look,” said Lucas.

He pulled Kara to her feet, and the two of them ran away as fast as they could, trying not to think about the sounds behind them.