They walked through that night, and the following days, sleeping and waking with the movements of the sun, snacking on vapor berries and whatever fruits and roots the Flickers could forage (though none, Sami thought, tasted as wonderful as vapor plant berries). The bat easily flapped and glided over their heads and roosted in the trees, and neither of the Flickers looked any worse for sleeping outside on the sandy ground all night. In fact, even though she was hungry, Sami was surprised at how good and rested she felt. It was like Silverworld somehow didn’t make the same physical demands on its inhabitants—everything was softer, lighter, easier.
She also felt the vigilance of her companions, their gaze continually sweeping and scanning the landscape as they walked. Occasionally, they passed other Flickers—usually traveling alone, wrapped head to toe, only their hands and faces showing. The women wore heavy black bangles on their wrists and jingling chains across their foreheads. The men had covered all but their eyes, which glimmered, surrounded by golden tattoos. Sometimes Sami felt their thoughts and curiosity bend toward her, and she became increasingly adept at closing her own mind and staying silent.
On their fourth day of travel, they encountered a small caravan: a woman led the way, trailed by two men and four children. The men both had babies wrapped against their chests in soft slings. They were leading a row of grunting burgundy camels, who peered at Sami, their sides glistening as if rubbed with oils.
The woman’s head was uncovered, except for a chain of silver coins draped across her forehead, down behind her ears, then curved forward to lie flat on her chest. Her skin was a deep woodlands green and her long hair was a sheet of darker green silk. She wore a cutlass strapped to her hip and a dagger bound to her ankle. As the caravan approached, Dorsom and Natala drew closer to Sami, and the bat veered off into the trees. Better not to mix with such as these, the small creature thought. I have an instinct. Sami noticed what looked like a collection of small animal skulls—of sheep or goats possibly—tied in a clicking bundle to one of the camel saddles.
“Flesh-eaters,” Natala murmured to Sami, eyes averted. “Let’s keep walking.”
But the group slowed as the woman studied them—Sami in particular—and there was no way to avoid conversation. “Flickers,” she said, “need thee water or provision? Art thou lost?”
“We are well. We are grateful for your concern,” Dorsom said quietly.
“Then know thou that this is the approach to the Dominion of the Bare Isles and Castle Shadow of the Bleak Fairy Nixie?”
“Aware we are,” Dorsom said. “That is our course.”
Once again, Sami felt the woman’s scrutiny. “And how is it,” she said at last, “that I hear not this young one’s thoughts?”
Dorsom placed one hand on Sami’s shoulder and the woman lifted her eyebrows. “She is unused to strangers,” he murmured.
“Strange, though. Thy thoughts I perceive well enough. But this one…” She squinted, moving closer to Sami, who instinctively dropped her eyes. “Stunted is she?”
“In no way is she stunted,” Natala said indignantly. “She is restrained.”
The woman began to circle her and Sami felt sweat break out on her temples and palms. “Or is she a captive? Another prisoner to be delivered to the Bleak Fairy?” Sami noticed the woman’s hand move toward her knife as one man shuffled backward with the children. “Mean thou to sell or enslave her?” she asked evenly.
“Rebalancers we are!” Dorsom retorted.
The woman’s head lifted sharply. “Thy laws of balancement mean nothing to me,” she uttered. “Such beings as you care only for your World of colors and regulation. You leave all others at the mercy of the Nixie forces, to dwindle away in her cages.”
Sami noticed the other man pass his sleeping infant to the first man. In a single movement, he turned, seizing and unsheathing a sword that had been lashed to the side of a camel. Instantly, Dorsom pulled a cutlass from his satchel. “Wait, no!” Sami cried, too late. The woman sprang at Dorsom, swinging her large blade. Dorsom parried it, pushing her away, but she leapt back easily. The man at her side clumsily slashed out with his sword. Natala pulled Sami out of the fray, then grabbed the man’s arm.
The woman clashed knives with Dorsom and they fell on their sides, rolling in the sand. She had remarkable strength and agility and she fought intensely, striking blade against blade, until at last Dorsom fell back. She pinned him on the ground with one hand and held the blade of her knife at his throat with the other. But suddenly his eyes widened and he blurted, “But you are not Flicker?”
Sami jumped up and backhanded the sword out of the man’s grip. Natala pushed him to the ground and jumped onto his chest, restraining him with her hands and knees—a small dagger in one of her hands.
“No!” cried the woman. “Thou mustn’t hurt him!”
Sami turned to see the woman’s green skin briefly flash dark and transparent, and she had a sudden understanding. “She’s—a Shadow?”
The woman looked at Sami. Like that, the color drained from her skin and hair, and she flattened into the silhouette of a woman, a perfect paper cutout. “Thou art Actual,” she breathed, rising and letting Dorsom get to his feet. Natala backed off the man slowly. “Such dreams as never I dreamed,” the Shadow marveled, walking to Sami. “I thought I was imagining such.” She lifted Sami’s wrist in her cutout palm, turning it. “Heavy, dense,” she said approvingly. “Strong. How many times I’ve wondered how ’twould be to meet an Actual One.”
Sami pulled away. “I’m not a captive. No more than you are a Flicker!”
She saw a ripple go through the murky form. “Much of our World thou dost not understand, child. I travel in Flicker guise to remain with my family.”
Sami frowned in confusion and Natala said gently, “She shape-shifts. It takes a lot of skill and energy for a Shadow to imitate a Flicker, but it can be done.”
“But why do it?” Sami asked.
“Rules of Balancement state that Flicker and Shadow must not cohabit,” Dorsom explained. “Eons ago it was written, long before our time.”
The woman’s shape nodded. “ ’Twas my double misfortune—first, to fall for a charming man-Flicker at the marketplace.” She gestured to the glowering man holding the sword. “And second, to succumb to another handsome face at the baths.” She gestured to the Flicker with the children. “My offspring are half-Flick, half-Shade—unacceptable to all society. Eternally in movement and in hiding are we.” Her shape twisted toward the bundled forms hiding behind the camels, then turned back. Sami could make out a sort of glint on her silhouette that might have been a smile. “But please, let us speak not of grief. We invite all to take coffee and such things as an Actual might wish to eat. Guests of the caravan thou shalt be.”