Sgaile weakly waved him into silence.

Magiere barely noted their shock and grief. She was too focused on keeping her dhampir half from rising. If she went near Sgaile, she'd try to force answers from him. Why were other anmaglahk in these mountains, so close to her destination?

Leesil joined Sgaile, and his expression was hard to read. "You knew them?"

"Yes," Sgaile whispered. "Kurhkage spoke for Osha when he first requested acceptance to our caste."

Osha stared at the corpse's one eye and didn't blink until his own eyes began to water.

"What were they doing up here?" Leesil demanded.

The low threat in his voice made Magiere's own anger quicken. Shock faded from Sgaile's face, replaced by wariness.

"I do not know."

"Then guess!" Leesil snapped. "How is this connected to us?"

Sgaile turned on him. "What are you suggesting?"

Leesil didn't answer. He just stood there, glancing back at the head lying in the snow.

The scent of blood sharpened in Magiere's nostrils.

"I swear, I do not know," Sgaile insisted and looked away. "I know nothing of this. Kurhkage's hands… he did not even pull a weapon."

Leesil pushed past Osha and crouched before the dead anmaglahk.

Magiere's eyes fixed on the head. Its face, half-covered in clinging snow, still held a frozen hint of outrage.

"Could there be more?" Leesil asked, though he sounded far away in Magiere's ears.

"No," Osha answered in Belaskian. "Our caste not leave them… perform rites for dead. We do it now."

Leesil's voice grew louder. "Not until we find Wynn and Chap!"

Magiere scanned the snow-filled gully. Not far back she spotted a long oblong mound.

She knew the headless body must lie there beneath the snow, and she crouched to pick up the head. Frozen hair crackled in her hands.

"Magiere?" Leesil called.

"What is she doing?" Sgaile asked, voice rising in alarm.

Something she had not done since Bela, and the hunt for an undead who had been murdering nobles. Holding a dead girl's dress, she had accidentally stumbled into Welstiel's footsteps, where he had torn open the girl's throat upon her own doorstep.

Two dead anmaglahk lay here, and she sensed a Noble Dead like no other she'd come across. Instinct and blood told her in part what had happened. And Chap and Wynn were still missing.

Magiere cringed at what she might learn-see-through the undead's eyes by touching its victim. But she had to know. She had to-

"Magiere!" Leesil shouted. "Don't!"

Darkness and the previous night's blizzard swallowed Magiere's world.

She looked down upon an anmaglahk pinned in the snow between her narrow white thighs. Before he swung a long curved blade, she grabbed his face. Her white fingers slid up into his hair as she drove her teeth into his throat.

Skin, muscle, and tendons tore between her jaws. Blood flooded her mouth and seeped into her throat. She arched, whipping her torso back as she tore his head free, and stared at another bloody mass clutched in her other hand.

She felt no hunger to feed upon his life. She was already glutted, constantly fed by something she couldn't see. And suddenly, claws bit into her bare back.

Magiere whirled to find Chap snarling, with hackles raised and teeth bared. He harried her until she backhanded him. Part of Magiere shriveled inside as his body hit the gully wall and slumped motionless into the deep snow.

She wanted to scream. She wanted to run to him.

The small white body she existed within turned toward a figure standing in the chute's opening.

Magiere tried to stop herself, but her delicate white hand latched around Wynn's throat. And then she cringed and shrank away at the sound of Wynn's cry.

She didn't know why the words hurt her, frightened her… and then made her hungry to hear more of them. She ran up through the chute with Wynn gripped in her hand, and Chap's scrambling paws fading behind her.

She crested the chute's top, and something hammered the side of her face.

Hunger erupted in Magiere's belly.

She tumbled back in the snow as someone slapped the frozen head from her hand. Her jaw ached but not from her sharpening teeth. She tasted blood-real blood-

"What are you doing?" Leesil's voice cracked with hysteria. "You think dreams are the only things that mess with your head?"

He crouched over her, one hand pinning her chest and the other still clenched into a fist. Rather than anger, blind panic filled his amber eyes.

Magiere's eyes began to burn. The sky around him was brilliant, but not as bright as his hair around his tan face.

She grabbed the front of his coat, pulling herself up.

"Your eyes…," Leesil whispered, "they're almost pure black!"

Sgaile and Osha stood behind him, wary hardness and fright plain on their faces.

Magiere wanted only to run for the chute.

Resisting the pull within her no longer mattered. It now led to Wynn and Chap-and the creature who had taken them. All her drives led upward. She gripped Leesil's jacket with both hands, tears running from her burning eyes.

"Have… to… go," she snarled, barely understanding her own mangled words. "Now… to Wynn… and Chap."

"What is happening to her?" Sgaile demanded.

Leesil settled his hands on her cheeks, holding her face, and she dropped her forehead against his chest.

She still felt as if she were constantly being fed, as when she'd been inside the monster who had slaughtered these anmaglahk. But it didn't sate her body. She clenched her fingers so tightly they ground upon the rings of Leesil's hauberk beneath his coat.

"Please," she whispered.

"Go," he answered.

Magiere lunged around him, bolting straight for the chute. Sgaile ducked out of her way, but Osha froze. She slammed him aside with her palm and drove up the rock path, fingers clawing the stone walls she climbed.

Somewhere behind her, Leesil shouted, "Follow! And don't lose sight of her! She knows where Wynn and Chap have gone."

Leesil bolted out of the chute's top and chased after Magiere. They raced on through late afternoon until exhaustion threatened to pull him down.

He couldn't find a trail in the fresh snow that Magiere was following, but her course never wavered. And he was still uneasy about what she'd done with the anmaglahk's severed head.

Magiere had seen-relived-the moment of an undead's kill. She had not tried anything so reckless since Bela, and that had been by accident. It had served a purpose then, and perhaps it did now, but she shouldn't have repeated the experience.

He hadn't even seen her pick up the head until it was too late.

And how could a vampire exist here, with no life to feed on? The only thing clear to Leesil was that Magiere somehow knew how to find Wynn and Chap.

"Is she still sane?" Sgaile panted beside him. "Is she aware of what she does?"

Leesil wished he could answer. It wasn't that simple where Magiere's dhampir nature was concerned.

"Yes," he lied. "Just be quiet and follow."

Leesil hadn't forgotten what they'd found in the gully. Sgaile had questions to answer later. What were other anmaglahk doing here-and why? Sgaile said he didn't know, but was he lying? Or was this more of Brot'an's scheming?

Magiere hit a steep rocky incline where snow thinned. She didn't even slow, but climbed on, with one hand clawing for holds.

"Move faster," Leesil panted. "Before she's out of sight!"

Sgaile passed him on the slope as Osha came up behind. Leesil raised his head, grabbing for holds with both hands. Magiere stopped at the crest and looked down at him.

Her enlarged irises were pitch black in her pallid face. She shifted nervously, head twisting back and forth, and she kept glancing over the ridge's far side.