The peace talks lasted several days. Vulpin was willing to agree to almost any restrictions on magic practiced outside the Faitoren lands, but he held a firmer line on magic practiced at home. “We are magical beings,” he said, clasping his stubby hands on the table. “We are willing to forswear magic for certain ends, but I cannot promise that we Faitoren will not do magic. Such restrictions would kill us.”
Aruendiel was unimpressed by the last argument, but with some reluctance he assented to the eventual compromise: The Faitoren were prohibited from casting glamours on any living thing—including themselves—in their own domain or out of it. “So there will be no more hiding people in books or camouflaging sheep as ladybugs or disguising kidnapped young women, is that clear?” he growled at Vulpin. Yes, very clear, Vulpin said mildly.
As for reparations for the livestock that the Faitoren had stolen over the years—Luklren’s main concern—there was less haggling. Vulpin agreed to a number only slightly lower than the one that Luklren first named.
The reason, Nansis Abora explained to Nora, was that both sides knew that there was small chance that the Faitoren would ever be able to pay the reparations. Almost any figure named would be essentially fictional. “Their land is very poor,” he said, shaking his head. “And none of them is a real farmer, from what I can tell.”
“But that’s just asking for trouble down the road, setting up unrealistic expectations the Faitoren can’t meet,” Nora said. She was thinking of the Treaty of Versailles.
“I’m afraid you’re right, my dear. As the dog said when he bit the serpent’s tail, this will lead to nothing good. Well, neither side really has a choice. The Faitoren are in no position to argue—but really, what leverage do we have? We can’t do much more to them, short of putting them all to the sword, and then the reparations will never be paid. At least Lord Luklren has had his claims acknowledged. But bad bargains like these,” he added, “are why I got out of politics.”
Nansis Abora was Nora’s main source of information on the negotiations—filling her in when he came down to the kitchen in the afternoons for a goblet of hot sheep’s milk and whiskey. If Aruendiel was not in the talks with Vulpin, he was closeted with Luklren or the other magicians, or taking one of the watches over the Faitoren. Nora spent almost all of her time with Lady Nurkasa, struggling with an embroidery needle. Perin came in a few times to visit, for which Nora was grateful, although under Nurkasa’s eye, he talked only about the weather and his hostess’s cousins near Semr, whom he knew slightly.
Sometimes Nora thought that she had enjoyed herself more on the frozen desert of the Ivory Marshes.
After Vulpin went back to the Faitoren to get their approval for the treaty, the magicians continued to meet by themselves—arguing about the new protection spells to install around the Faitoren domain. “Dull stuff,” Nansis Abora said, although Nora wished that she could sit in. It would be a good part of a magical education to witness this kind of debate, and she was slightly hurt that Aruendiel had not included her.
Euren the Wolf had already left. “He wants to get back to his pack,” said Nansis Abora. “He doesn’t mind the fighting, it’s the talking afterward that he can’t stand.”
Nora finally asked the question that she had been wondering about since meeting Euren. “Is he a werewolf?”
“Oh, no!” Nansis Abora seemed both horrified and amused by the question. “Not at all. No, Euren is a man—a man who prefers to live as a wolf.”
“What is the difference?”
“There’s a world of difference, my dear. For one thing, Euren won’t bite you. Well, he did bite Aruendiel once,” Nansis added vaguely, “but then he was provoked.”
At the end of the third day Nora finally heard from one of Luklren’s servants that the Lord Aruendiel would be pleased to have a word with her. With relief she put down her embroidery needle and followed the servant. Aruendiel was in the room that Luklren called a library, although there were more weapons in it than books.
As she approached, the door opened and Vulpin emerged. He bowed. “Princess Nora.”
“No one calls me that anymore.”
“I wasn’t sure who you were at first,” Vulpin said. “You know, I never saw your real face before. I was happy to see that you recovered from your injuries.”
“Really?” Nora said. “I don’t recall you showing much concern before, when I was bleeding to death.”
Vulpin’s tusked face was masklike, but she heard him sigh. “It was difficult, you know. Ilissa treated us badly, too.”
“She didn’t kidnap you or marry you to her monster son, did she?” Nora demanded. Then she sighed, too. “Well, I don’t want to stir all this up again. You were more decent to me than the others, and all of us are here to make peace, aren’t we?”
“Yes.” He paused. “There is one thing I was wondering about—whether you have any intention of asserting your claim to the Faitoren throne.”
“What? My claim? You mean, because I was married to Raclin?” Nora laughed. “Gods, no! I have no interest in your throne. Your people are more than welcome to govern yourselves. But there’s something I want to ask you, too. I still have Raclin’s horrible ring on my finger, and no one can remove it. The one time someone succeeded, I almost turned into a marble statue. How do I get it off—without dying?” She showed it to him.
Vulpin shook his head regretfully. “That is Raclin’s magic—the unitary ring. It is a sort of glamour, but not one of our usual Faitoren glamours. There appear to be only two rings.” Seeing Nora’s blank look, he went on: “Your ring and Raclin’s ring are the same ring, and only he has the right to take it off your finger. The best thing to do, I think, would be to ask Raclin.”
“He’d never do that.”
Vulpin shrugged. “Who knows what Raclin might do. It is funny”—Vulpin nodded again in Aruendiel’s direction—“he asked me the same question, about your ring. Well, good-bye and good fortune to you, Your Highness.”
“You can stop calling me that.”
With a flash of his old debonair manner, Vulpin said, “But you will always be a princess to me, no matter how long the Faitoren rule themselves.” He raised his small hand and went down the corridor.
Nora laughed a little sourly and pushed open the door of the library. Aruendiel was sitting at a table near the fire, reading a scroll. Glancing up, he gestured for her to take a seat opposite him, then returned to the scroll.
After half a minute he asked: “And how are matters with you, Mistress Nora? The head you bruised, is it healing properly?”
“It’s fine.”
“And your health otherwise, and your spirits? You are keeping yourself sufficiently occupied while these damnable negotiations drag on?”
She thought he looked at her more seachingly than usual. “I’ll be happy when we leave, but I’m fine.”
Aruendiel grunted and took up a piece of paper from the table. “I have received a letter from Lolona, the Toristels’ daughter. I had written to Mrs. Toristel to notify her that you had been found. It was Lolona who replied.”
“Lolona? Is she at the castle?” Something in Aruendiel’s tone gave Nora a feeling of disquiet. “Why didn’t Mrs. Toristel answer your letter?”
“Mrs. Toristel is dead.”
Nora stared at him, aghast.
“Yes, it seems that she suffered a constriction of the chest.” He seemed to be trying to speak crisply, but his voice dragged. “She had had one before, a few years ago, but recovered. This one was more serious.”
Nora closed her eyes and saw again Mrs. Toristel struggling in the snow, where Dorneng had flung her. A constriction of the chest? A heart attack, most likely. “What caused it? Was it because Dorneng—”
“It happened shortly after your abduction, as best I can tell from Lolona’s account. She is not much better a letter writer than her mother was. Well, they did not have a patient teacher.”
“Mrs. Toristel tried to warn me. She knew something wasn’t right about Hirizjahkinis—I mean, Ilissa pretending to be Hirizjahkinis.”
“I am not surprised. She was ever an astute judge of character.”
I had only a handful of friends in this entire world, Nora thought, and that’s the second I’ve lost. She took a deep breath. “This would not have happened if I had not—”
“If you are planning to take responsibility for Mrs. Toristel’s death, I must preempt you. She was an old woman who was not in good health, who worked too hard for an exacting master, and that same master, who might have saved her, was absent, taken captive through his own foolishness. It is maddening, Mistress Nora, that I have spent several lifetimes practicing magic and yet that is no guarantee that I use it wisely or that it brings any good to me or those around me.”
“You do a great deal of good,” Nora said, more heatedly than she meant to. “And you do use magic wisely, more wisely—” She was going to say more wisely than he’d behaved in other areas of his life, but that sounded like faint praise. “Mrs. Toristel,” she added, “admired you very much.”
“Perhaps she was not as good a judge of character as I thought.” Aruendiel sat in silence for a moment, his gaze unfocused, then glanced back at Nora. He cleared his throat. “I confess, I still do not quite grasp how you were able to free me. Algebra, you said.”
“It took me a while to work it out,” Nora said. In more detail, she told Aruendiel how she found him, figured out what sort of trap he was in, and then floundered by sheer luck into a way to enlarge his prison, even if she could not destroy it. Aruendiel nodded slowly as he listened.
She was not sure what to say about the wasted, white-haired figure in the dungeon, although she had an inkling that it was already less real and less fearsome for her than it was for Aruendiel. “I knew that once you could reach out and start doing magic again, you would be fine,” Nora said.
Aruendiel said only: “I am grateful. It was a horrific imprisonment.”
Then he remarked, more easily: “Ershnol the Silent was caught in a similar trap once. He escaped when a rat knocked over a candle and burned the building down. In my case, of course,” he added, “it would have been more difficult to burn down that dungeon.”
It felt familiar and consoling to be talking magic with Aruendiel again, after all that had happened since her last lesson back in his tower, the day they’d done the observation spell. She wished they were there now, safe among his books. How soon before we can finally leave this place and go home? she thought. There is no Mrs. Toristel to welcome us, now. That will be hard, very hard. But I’ll have Aruendiel. And he will need a friend, he’ll need me more than ever, with Mrs. Toristel dead and Hirizjahkinis dead or a prisoner or whatever has happened to her. And—Nora resolved suddenly—I will make him finish Pride and Prejudice with me, and he will see what happens with Darcy and Elizabeth.
“Now we must talk of different matters,” Aruendiel said. “We must discuss your future.”
“What is there to discuss?” she asked, surprised.
Aruendiel frowned. He looked at Nora without catching her gaze directly. “There are two things. The first concerns the young man who escorted you through the Ivory Marshes.”
“Perin Pirekenies.”
“Yes. I gather that you first made his acquaintance in Semr last summer. He has been to see me.”
“What for?” Her first, uneasy thought was that this had something to do with the challenge that Perin’s father had issued to Aruendiel. They were going to fight a duel.
“He would like to marry you. He has asked for my permission, since I have been your—guardian, in a sense. I have, of course,” Aruendiel paused, “given my consent.”
Nora wondered whether she had heard correctly. Aruendiel’s face was composed and serious, as though what he had said made perfect sense. Finally, she managed to get a single word out: “Why?”
“I have given it careful consideration, and I believe this is a very desirable offer of marriage. I have made a few inquiries about Perin Pirekenies, and from all accounts he is an honorable man and a good soldier, and he stands to inherit an estate that, while not exceptionally large, will be adequate to support you and your children.
“His bloodlines are not unblemished, of course.” A bitter rasp entered Aruendiel’s controlled tone for an instant. “You may not be aware that he is the grandson of my wife and her lover.”
“I figured that out.”
“Ah. Well, his father was legitimately adopted by another relative, and the rest of the family line is entirely respectable. Despite the scandal involving his grandparents, he is connected to some of the greatest families in the kingdom. Given my own involvement in the matter, I could rightfully refuse permission for this match, but I am not inclined to do so. On the contrary, I must recommend that you accept his offer.”
“I barely know Perin,” Nora said. “I’ve spent a few days with him. And why would he want to marry me? I’m not a noblewoman or an heiress.”
“He admits that it would be an unconventional match, but that does not seem to trouble him. He has taken a liking to you and is concerned for your welfare. He argues convincingly that the marriage will rescue you from the unfortunate situation in which I have unfairly placed you.”
The conversation was becoming more and more surreal. “Unfortunate situation? What do you mean?”
“Perin Pirekenies,” Aruendiel said impassively, “has pointed out how your name has been tarnished because of your association with me. It is commonly assumed, he tells me, that you are my mistress.
“You are young and unmarried—at least, you are absented from your husband—and I am a widower with an old reputation for being a libertine. It is no surprise that the world would jump to mistaken conclusions. I have heard such fools’ talk from time to time, but never considered it worthy of notice. I did not think about the injury that such gossip would inflict upon you.”
“Oh, please.” Nora shook her head. “It doesn’t mat—”
“It does matter, especially for you. You are in a more vulnerable position than most women. You have no family—not in this world, at least—and you are a foreigner. I have been remiss, keeping you under my roof all these months.”
“Well, where else would I go?”
“Now Perin Pirekenies offers you a place to go. And,” he went on before she could reply, “since I no longer have a housekeeper to be any kind of chaperone for you, it is all the more advisable that you marry Pirekenies.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Pirekenies is quite serious.”
“Then why didn’t he ask me himself? Why did he talk to you about it?”
“He is acting in the customary way.”
“And you agreed on my behalf?”
“Well, the final decision is yours. A woman should not marry against her will.”
“Oh, thanks for that!” Standing up, Nora put her fists on the table and stared down at him. “What is wrong with you? Don’t you know any better?” She was afraid as much as angry.
Aruendiel’s face tightened. “I am trying to do what is best for you.”
“You have no right to tell me who I should marry!”
“I am only counseling you. And if you had listened to my counsel the first time you married—”
“Oh, this is utter bullshit. You and Perin cooking up this marriage together to save my reputation—who cares about my reputation? Why would you go along with this? Why? It doesn’t make any sense! A chaperone! Mrs. Toristel wasn’t a chaperone. She didn’t even sleep in the house—we could have been screwing like rabbits every night, and she would never have known!”
“Well, that is exactly the problem,” Aruendiel said, his voice hard.
“What problem—what people think? Who cares? It doesn’t matter.”
“No, that is not true. I can tell you—I know how dangerous it is for a woman to be scorned, to be an outcast. You are a woman of independent spirit, Nora, and it is galling to consider these things. But I am not saying them to humiliate you. I am stating the reality of your situation.”
“Who cares about that? You’re a magician.” Nora sat down again, but held on to the edge of the table as though she could draw strength from it. “So what if everyone thinks I’m a whore?” she said. The wizard’s whore. “I don’t mind.”
Aruendiel’s mouth twisted unpleasantly. “If you were married to an honorable young peer like Pirekenies, you would be safe from such calumnies,” he retorted.
“I will tell you something that I did not say to Pirekenies,” he added. “My wife’s old estate, Lusul, is the subject of a legal dispute. I have a claim to it. So does Pirekenies, through his father, Lord Pireke—although their claim is inferior to mine. There are other claimants who could also trump the Pirekenies claim.
“I have never had any interest in claiming Lusul. But if you accept Pirekenies’s proposal, I will exercise my claim and then turn the estate over to you and your husband.” He pronounced those last words clearly and distinctly. “As a wedding present, since otherwise you will have no dowry.”
“A wedding present,” Nora repeated. It was hopeless. He was hopeless. “Aruendiel—” She looked at him pleadingly, but the ice in his eyes was unbreakable. How could he be so wrongheaded? No, she thought, her heart torn—it’s me, I’ve been wrong all along.
Suddenly she was resolved. “If Perin wants to marry me, he can ask me himself. You can stay out of it, it’s not your concern. And I wouldn’t take Lusul as a wedding present. It didn’t bring your wife any luck.”
Aruendiel’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps not.”
“All right, then. As long as we understand each other.”
“You have made yourself clear.”
“Fine.” Of course, this settled nothing. If she didn’t marry Perin, then what? Would Aruendiel bar her from his castle to preserve her reputation? She decided not to think about the possibility for the moment. “What was the second thing you wanted to discuss?” Nora asked roughly.
“The other matter, yes. It also bears upon your future.”
“I can’t wait,” she muttered, but he ignored her and went on: “You were telling me a few days ago about your struggle with Dorneng and how he tried to kill you.” Nora nodded impatiently. Where was he going with this?
“Dorneng was a traitor and a villain and a fool, but he was a good magician. Micher Samle taught him well. He had found a hole that led to your world—”
“Yes, I know, my ghost was supposed to hold it open. Otherwise it would close up.”
“The hole is still there,” Aruendiel said.
“How do you know?”
“I have detected it, and Nansis agrees with my observation. Either it has lasted longer than Dorneng expected, or it has re-formed in the interim. But the hole exists now.”
“So I can go home. Is that what you’re saying?” Nora looked at him half-suspiciously, as though he were offering her another affront.
“It’s possible. The gap may not be large enough, or—as Dorneng feared—it might close up yet. But it is likely that, yes, you can return home, if you choose.”
If she chose. She felt strangely flummoxed, paralyzed by the sudden opportunity to escape. On some level, she had come to accept that she would stay in this ridiculous, alien, hidebound, primitive world for the rest of her life. Otherwise she would have simply laughed at this notion of marrying Perin. And Aruendiel’s blind stupidity, his callousness, his treachery—she could not even decide what to call it—would not be so scorchingly painful.
There was nothing to decide. She had been looking for this chance for a long time. Now it was finally here.
“Of course I want to go home,” Nora said.
Aruendiel nodded. “Then we will leave immediately.”
“Today?” Not even a night to think it over.
“The gap could close at any time. We must move quickly.”
“Oh. Well, I don’t have much to pack.” There was nothing to pack, actually. At home she would have no need for the clothes she wore here. “I should say good-bye to Nansis Abora—and thank Lady Nurkasa—and I must talk to Perin. Tell him that I am leaving.” She gave Aruendiel a hard look.
“Be quick about it,” he said.
As the door closed behind Nora, Aruendiel remained seated at the table. His eyes moved over Lolona’s letter one more time, but the words did not register. Pirekenies was on duty just outside the castle. Easy enough to work an eavesdropping spell to find out what foolishness he and Nora were talking—but no, he had no desire to know.
He could still hear Pirekenies’s voice, annoyingly earnest. “Lady Nora—” Why did he insist on calling her “Lady Nora”? She had no such title, not unless someone like Pirekenies married her. “Lady Nora has told me that you have behaved honorably and respected her chastity, and I believe her.” Absurd—why shouldn’t Pirekenies believe her? Nora was as truthful as clear water. Although there was no reason for her to talk about such matters with this young idiot. She’d had a similar discussion once with Hirizjahkinis, too. Was the whole world so fascinated by what went on—or didn’t go on—in his bed?
Apparently so, Aruendiel thought angrily, remembering the lout in the courtyard the other night, taking hold of Nora. Everyone knows you’re the wizard’s whore. The girl was too clever for him—she kept her head and magicked the soup all over the man. Aruendiel had seen it all from the top of the stairs. Then, before he could teach the thug a lesson, young Pirekenies knocked the bastard down first.
“But even if you have behaved correctly, sir, you must see what an awkward position you have placed Lady Nora in. To be associated with a man of your reputation—let’s be candid—exposes her to constant ridicule and disrespect.” Insufferable presumption, but the worst of it was, Aruendiel could not deny the truth of what the boy said.
He should have just bedded the girl. What had he gained from being honorable, when everyone assumed the worst? On more than one night, watching Nora’s smile across the table, savoring her talk and the sweet chime of her voice, he’d wanted to suggest that they continue the conversation in his bed. Not that they would have done much talking. But he had held back. He would not copy that Faitoren filth, taking advantage of her helplessness. The fearful fate of a woman alone—any man’s plaything—it would never be Nora’s, if he could help it. And besides, Aruendiel thought with dry and bitter logic, what sort of lover would he make now, with his ravaged face and body? Nora deserved better. He’d been so careful, all those months of restraint, not even brushing against her. It was an evil joke that when he could finally lean against her—her strong, warm shoulder under his hand—he was barely alive, tottering out of that cursed dungeon a skeleton, a doddering wreck.
But far better for Nora to know him as he really was. And for him to know it too. It was too easy, when he was with her, to forget the burden of all his years, his broken body, the toxin of regret. He felt somehow restored in her presence, as though he’d found his true self again—but he knew it was an illusion. How swiftly all his power had disappeared once Dorneng trapped him in that chamber. And then the long slow slide into infirmity, exhaustion. He had given up, and then she was there. Holding hands with Pirekenies—he was almost sure of it, although his vision had been weak and the room full of mist.
The damnable irony of it. Kill a man and his ghost comes back fresh and young to torment you. She wasn’t going to marry Pirekenies, though. That was some petty comfort.
• • •
Perin looked honestly shocked when Nora told him she would not marry him. She had started to feel sorry for him—had been thinking of ways to try to soften the blow—but the perplexity on his face made her angry all over again. As far as he’d been concerned, she saw, their marriage was a settled matter.
“Did Lord Aruendiel not say—”
“Yes, he did,” she snapped. “Why did you have to bring him into it?”
“Well, it’s customary—”
“That’s what he said. Bullshit. This doesn’t concern him at all. Not at all.”
He seemed ready to protest, but then he said: “I’m sorry. The last thing I would want to do is offend you, Lady Nora.”
“You can just call me Nora. I don’t know who you think I am, but I’m not Lady Nora.” After that she began to feel bad again. “Listen, Perin, I like you. I really do. Somehow you made trudging through the wilderness in the middle of winter with a soul-sucking demon and a soul-sucked would-be murderer seem not so terrible.
“But then you do something as boneheaded as asking Aruendiel if you can marry me. I thought you were different from most men here. I thought you were better than that.”
Perin still looked perplexed. “You still don’t see why this bothers me, do you?” she demanded.
“No, not really,” he said. “But if you want me to ask you to marry me, instead of petitioning Lord Aruendiel, I’ll gladly dispense with etiquette. You did tell me once that you were not a well-behaved young lady. I should have remembered that better.”
“You should have! But it doesn’t matter. I’m leaving, Perin. I’m going home. Back to my own world. There’s a door that’s open right now, and if I leave tonight, I can go through it.”
“What!” Perin was skeptical, as he was about all things magical, and he tried for a while to convince her otherwise. Only when she told him that she had to return to her family did he abandon his protestations.
He even seemed ever so slightly relieved, Nora thought. Whether it was because her impending departure allowed him to save face, or whether he had had second thoughts about marrying her, she was not certain. Perin would be better off with a girl of his own kind, she thought, with a prick of regret. No doubt he would find one soon enough.
He did remark: “I think I prefer the traditional method of arranging marriages. Somehow it is less pleasant to hear you say no than it would have been to hear Lord Aruendiel say it.”
• • •
The sleigh was waiting for her at the main gate of Luklren’s castle. Nansis Abora was stroking the nose of one of the four horses, whispering something to it. He smiled at her as she approached. “I hope you don’t mind me, Mistress Nora. I would like to help see you off tonight. It should be an interesting display of magic.”
“Of course!” Nora said heartily. So there would be no chance to continue her earlier conversation with Aruendiel.
He came out a minute later, wrapped in his black cloak. “Finished your farewells?” he asked.
“Yes.” She climbed into the back of the sleigh, followed by Nansis Abora. He helped her spread a sheepskin rug across her legs. Aruendiel took up a place at the front.
“These horses are a bit spirited, so we are not bringing a coachman,” Nansis Abora said. “Aruendiel and I will take turns driving.”
There was definitely some sort of swiftness-and-endurance spell on the horses, she could tell as soon as they started. Trees and huts slipped past like ghosts, dissolving instantly in the darkness. The wind in her face made her squint. Within a few minutes they had left behind Luklren’s castle and the nearby village and were well launched into the wilder countryside. Aruendiel turned the horses east: Their route, Nora gathered, would skirt the southern border of the Ivory Marshes and take them back to the open plain where Dorneng had taken her.
Nora was not in a conversational mood, but Nansis Abora talked gently and persistently about cooking and gardening, asking her how both arts were practiced in her own world, so that eventually she found herself spending a long time trying to explain tomatoes to him. They did not exist in this world, as far as she could tell. Another reason to leave. After some time, Nansis Abora took up the reins, and Aruendiel moved back, next to Nora. They sat in silence. She thought of asking him some question about magic, just to get him talking, but what would be the point.
Now I’ll never be a magician, Nora reflected. Not even a poor one. I’ll never hear the rest of Aruendiel’s story, of how he became a magician. She fought down sudden hopelessness, the urge to tell Nansis Abora to stop the sleigh. Home, she told herself, I’m going home.
After a while the moon rose, brightening the snow around them, and Nora saw that they were in the middle of a treeless flatland. Aruendiel leaned forward from time to time to give directions to Nansis Abora. In the intervals, he bowed his head slightly as though he were listening for something.
Suddenly, he shouted: “Careful, Nansis, you’ll drive right into it!”
Nora’s first reaction, as Nansis pulled the horses to a stop, was dismay. She wasn’t ready. This notion of passing between worlds was more daunting now. How many things could go wrong? Aruendiel seemed confident enough, but even he made mistakes. Plenty of mistakes.
The magicians got out of the sleigh and walked a few steps away, talking in low voices. They seemed to be pacing something out. Slowly she unwound herself from the rugs and followed them.
“Here,” Aruendiel was saying. “You can feel it. This coarseness in the air.”
“Ah. It’s not very large, is it?” Nansis Abora said.
Nora had thought of something disturbing. “Where does it come out on the other side?” She had no interest in being dropped into the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
“That’s what you must control,” Aruendiel said. “There will be a half second when you are literally between the two worlds, and you will have to choose where you will come out.”
“How on earth do I do that?”
“The way you did when we worked the observation spell. Pick your path with intent.”
“Oh, this isn’t going to work! What if I can’t get through—if I’m stuck in the middle?”
Aruendiel reached inside his cloak and removed a small coil of rope.
“Here,” he said. “We will hold fast to you until you are through. Have courage, Nora. I would not send you into certain danger.”
Feeling shaky, she tied the rope around her waist, then looked up at Aruendiel. “All right?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Good-bye, my dear child,” said Nansis Abora, smiling at her. She would have liked to embrace him—he had been so kind to her—but he only held out his palms to her to touch. She did so, then turned to Aruendiel.
He was holding one end of the rope, so he held up only one hand. She held her own palm against his and looked up at his face. In the bright moonlight, his face was full of shadows; his eyes glinted like stars. She saw more clearly now that his grim, desert quiet was a mask.
Nora managed to get out a few words of thanks. “Aruendiel, I—” She hesitated, stalling for time, waiting to hear what would come next out of her own mouth.
“Go!” he said sharply. “Now! Remember, you must move with purpose!” Roughly, he pushed her toward the hole in the air.
With purpose. Obediently, she moved forward, groping her way into something she could not quite understand. There was a moment of pure emptiness in the middle when she almost panicked. It reminded her of her first time on a ten-speed, pumping backward to brake and feeling the pedals spin uselessly.
Solid ground again, sunlight on her face. Ahead of her was her father’s brown split-level, blissfully ordinary. Daffodils glowed under the maple tree. The front door opened, and her youngest sister came out, wearing a purple backpack, ready for school.
Nora stepped forward, but the rope around her waist held her back. She untied it as quickly as she could, then let it slip away into the air as she ran across the yard to her sister.