The white woman scrambled to her feet amid bits of broken stone. A figure in gray-green leaped up onto the thick railing's remains. A long, glinting wire was stretched taut between his spreading hands.

"Wynn, stop it!" Leesil shouted, and then, "Sgaile! Don't!"

Sgaile hesitated, his amber eyes fixed upon the white woman below him. She lashed out with one hand, not even looking up at him.

Sgaile hopped up into the air. A grating screech of stone filled Magiere's ears as the undead's nails tore more chips from the railing. Magiere gained her feet and lunged with her bare hands.

The white woman charged to meet her-and then jerked to an awkward halt.

Magiere's whole body grew instantly weak.

A sudden sense of weight nearly crushed the hunger out of her, and the chamber turned dim in her sight. She wavered where she stood, and when her sight cleared…

The white undead shuddered with narrow muscles straining beneath her smooth skin. She lifted her sagging head, but her eyelids drooped as colorless irises rolled up. She swayed like a drunkard or someone caught in waking sleep.

Wynn appeared in Magiere's way. "Wait! She is more dangerous than you know… and we may need her."

Chap trotted over, pacing before Magiere as he watched the frail-looking undead.

Magiere held her place only because hunger had slipped from her, and she wanted it back.

Nothing was as Magiere had expected. All she wanted was to kill any undead in her way, find and take the object she'd come for, and silence her dreams once and for all. She felt weary.

Magiere grabbed Wynn by the arm and pulled the little sage back behind herself. Then she remembered the shadow beasts.

The ravens were perched upon the rail of the upper landing. The inky coats of both wolves glimmered slightly. Then they all turned to translucent smoke and vanished through the chamber walls.

"This is getting a little too odd," Leesil whispered, "even for us."

Magiere's relief doubled at the sight of him beside her. Beyond him, Osha hurried toward Wynn, but Sgaile still perched above the white woman, watching her coldly.

The white undead lowered her head, crystalline irises rolling down to settle upon Magiere.

Chap reached for Li'kan's memories.

Her forced breaths hissed out, twisted and broken, as her lips worked in a failed attempt to speak. She pressed a hand over one ear and appeared to whisper to herself. But she never uttered a sound.

Chap recalled a memory he had seen within Magiere-and once heard her recount.

When Ubad had conjured Magelia's spirit, Magiere's mother had shown her memories from a few moons before her birth. Welstiel had wandered her father's keep's courtyard in the dark, whispering to a voice Magelia could not hear.

Chap saw nothing within Li'kan's mind.

Then something blinked through her thoughts.

Not an image, but a fleeting sound, like a whisper or a hiss.

Chap could not make out any words. About to pull free from Li'kan's thoughts, he heard the sound change.

Like a leaf-wing flutter?

That was how Wynn described hearing Chap communing with the Fay, but rather than the chorus she'd mentioned, he heard just one quick, soft buzz in the undead's thoughts.

Then it was gone, like a blink completed.

Chap watched Li'kan tilt her head with half-open eyes, as if listening. Her lips moved silently again, and he pulled quickly from her mind.

Perhaps he had only heard Li'kan's own voiceless whispers.

He studied this mad thing and reflected upon the "night voice" spoken of in the old parchments found by Wynn's guild. He felt like a pup lost in a dark room, wandering to find a way out.

Chane stared at Welstiel in disbelief as dusk settled in.

"What do you mean, 'she's lost'?" he demanded.

"Last night," Welstiel answered. "Sometime before sunrise."

They crouched in the tent, facing each other across the glowing steel hoop. The ferals sensed their tension and shifted restlessly.

Chane's mouth hung half-open. He closed it, teeth snapping together.

"You knew… when you returned before dawn? And you said nothing!"

"What would you have done?" Welstiel challenged. "Run off once more to save your little sage-in daylight? Spare me your outrage."

Chane slapped open the tent's flap. He was already ripping down the shelter before any of the others got out. Barely bothering to fold the canvas, he lashed the tent into a bundle as Welstiel sat scrying in the snow. When the undead stood, he appeared mildly surprised.

"What now?" Chane hissed, hating to even ask.

"Magiere may have gone farther than anticipated… or has not yet returned from the search."

Welstiel's continued reluctance to share information was infuriating. Chane finished packing their gear and motioned to Sabel.

"We go."

She took up the bundled tent, and the other monks reluctantly gathered the remaining gear to follow. This trek of ice and starvation wore on all of them.

Welstiel stepped off upslope as they followed, but Chane hung back to walk at the line's end. They trudged on, until spotting a crusted canvas pinned to a rock face across the slope.

"Their camp," Welstiel said. "We can track from here along their trail."

Chane had a fleeting urge to look inside the canvas, as he smelled no life nearby. Instead, he pushed past Welstiel along the clear path in the snow left by Magiere's people. He followed this for a long while-up to a place where the tracks broke in all directions. Many of them turned back atop each other, all placed around a gully that forked in two directions.

"Which way?" Welstiel asked.

Chane crouched in the snow. The thought of doing anything for Welstiel's benefit made the beast in him yowl. But he could not stop picturing Wynn lost out here in this frigid land.

"The right fork has no returning footprints," Chane rasped. "Wherever they went, they did not come back this way… as on the other paths."

The ferals crouched, sniffing about, but none seemed to catch anything of interest.

Chane stood up and pressed on. They passed through a saddle between the rocks, and he slowed at the sight of a boxed gully. As they moved inward, he found a wide split in one stone wall-and a frozen, stiff body just inside.

And a head tossed haphazardly near one gully wall.

The ferals sniffed wildly but did not rush in. Even Chane smelled no blood in the cold. Perhaps the monks were confused by the lack of scent when faced with a dead body-and no life to feed on. He glanced at the head.

A coating of snow crusted its face and open eyes.

"How many elves were trailing Magiere?" he asked.

"Uncertain," Welstiel answered. He stepped close to the corpse in the chute.

A fist-sized hole gaped in the man's chest. Chane studied it from where he stood.

"Could Magiere have done this?"

Welstiel leaned over the wound before answering.

"No… this is not the way an undead kills, even her." But he did not sound sure. "We press on. There's nothing more to learn here."

"Press on?" Chane hissed. "To where?"

But he followed as Welstiel turned up the rocky chute.

Hkuan'duv and Danvarfij watched the pack of crouching humans and their two leaders approach Sgailsheilleache's camp.

"Downwind," he mouthed, and they slipped south.

Danvarfij's eyes narrowed as she took her first clear look at these people.

The dark-haired one with white temples led, while the younger brought up the rear. Both wore cloaks and heavy clothing and swords. Both looked grim and weather-worn and pale, but otherwise like any common human Hkuan'duv had encountered.

But the hunkered ones sniffed and grunted like dogs, often crouching on their hands and feet.

The taller man with red-brown hair took the lead, following the broken trail in the snow.