Only it wasn’t missing. Deirdre knew exactly where it was: in the vaults of the Seekers. The Seekers had discovered it in the tavern that sat on the same spot that centuries later would house Surrender Dorothy. It was in researching Glinda’s ring that Deirdre had discovered the existence of the keystone, for the writing on the ring and the keystone were identical.

Travis pressed his hand against the television screen. “Maybe there is a way back,” he murmured.

Vani’s eyes shone, and Beltan gave her a dark look. However, before the blond man could speak, the sound of small feet broke the silence. Deirdre tore her gaze from the TV. A girl stood at the end of the sofa. Her hair was dark, but her skin was moon-pale.

“You must be Deirdre,” the girl said, her words articulate, though mustcame out as muth.

“Nim,” Vani said, kneeling beside the girl. “What are you doing out here? You’re supposed to be in bed.”

Nim. Deirdre didn’t recognize the name. However, she knew who this girl was. It was Vani and Beltan’s daughter.

“I can’t sleep,” Nim said.

Vani brushed her hair from her face. “And why is that, beshala?”

“Because there’s a gold face outside my window,” the girl said yawning. “It keeps watching me.”

Vani held the girl tight. “It was a bad dream, dearest one. That was all.”

However, there was doubt in the T’gol’s eyes, and a terrible certainty that the girl hadn’t been dreaming came over Deirdre. Fear cleared her mind, and at last she understood what it was that had been troubling her all evening, what it was she had forgotten.

“Vani,” Deirdre said, her mouth dry. “You came to Earth to escape the Scirathi, right?”

“Yes,” the T’golsaid, clutching Nim to her. “Why do you ask?”

Sickness rose in Deirdre’s throat as she recalled the picture hehad sent her during their final conversation three years ago: an image of two figures in black robes slinking down an alley in a modern Earth city, their faces concealed behind masks. Gold masks.

Deirdre drew in a breath. “Because I think they’re already—”

Her voice was drowned out by the sudden sound of shattering glass.

8.

The bones would always be there.

Over the last three years, the grass of the vale had grown up around them, lush and dense, and had crept up the sides of the larger mounds, shrouding them in green. Just that spring, on the sides of those mounds, a tiny flower of the palest blue had begun to bloom in profusion. No one—not even the eldest of the witches, and the wisest in herb lore—had ever seen a flower like it before. And while no one was certain who had first used the name, soon everyone called the little flower arynesseth.

In the old language, the name meant Aryn’s Tears. Almost as soon as the name came into use, a story sprang up around it, growing as quickly as the grass in the vale. It was said, in the days after the Second War of the Stones, brave Queen Aryn of Calavan stood upon the wall of Gravenfist Keep, and there she let fly the ashes of the knight Sir Durge, who had been noble and true above all other men. The wind carried the ashes out into the vale of Shadowsdeep, and one could always know where they came to rest, for in those places the arynessethbloomed the thickest.

In places like this.

Grace Beckett—Queen of Malachor, Lady of the Winter Wood, and Mistress of the Seven Dominions—stood at the foot of the mound she had ridden to that morning. It was one of the highest in the vale, rising up no more than a furlong from the Rune Gate, whose gigantic iron doors hung open, steadily rusting away.

As her honey-colored mare Shandis grazed nearby, Grace knelt and parted the grass with her hands, revealing a skull bleached white by sun and rain and snow. The skull was elongated, the eye sockets large and jewel-shaped. There was no mouth. She let the grass fall back and stood, holding her right arm against her chest. The wraithlings had perished. So had the feydrim, and their master the Pale King. All the same, the pain in her right arm lingered on, just like the bones beneath the grass. Just like the memories.

Grace started up the side of the mound. It was Lirdath, and even this far north in the world the morning was already growing fine and hot. Soon she was mopping the sweat from her brow with a hand and wishing she had chosen something lighter than a riding gown of green wool.

After several minutes of steady work, she reached the top of the mound. She panted for breath and pushed her blond hair from her face; it was getting too long again. Others might have thought it beautiful, a gilded frame to her regal visage, but to Grace it was simply a nuisance. She would take a knife to it as soon as she got back to the keep.

Hands on hips, she gazed around. She could see the whole vale from up there. Sharp mountains soared against blue sky, and in the distance Gravenfist Keep rose like a mountain of gray stone itself. Summer had come, and the vale was a verdant emerald. Still, here and there white patches gleamed like snow.

She half closed her eyes, and through the veil of her lashes she could see it again, pouring out of the mouth of the Rune Gate like a foul exhalation of hatred: the army of the Pale King. Its ranks of feydrimand wraithlings and trolls, heartless wizards and witches, was without number, and they had come for one purpose—to cast the world into shadow forever.

Only they had failed, thanks to the bravery and sacrifice of countless men and women. And of one man more than any other. Grace knelt, letting her fingers brush across the arynesseththat bloomed atop the grass-covered mound. She plucked one of the small white-blue flowers. Its scent was faint and clean, like snow.

“I miss you, Durge,” she murmured. “I could use your help. There’s still so much more to do.”

She stayed that way for a time, content to listen to the wind and the far-off cries of a hawk. At last she stood, and as she looked back toward the keep she saw a horseman coming. His need must have been great for him to make no effort to conceal himself.

By the time the horseman reached the foot of the mound, she had descended to meet him.

“I thought I might find you out here, Your Majesty,” Aldeth said as he climbed down from a horse as gray as his mistcloak.

Grace raised an eyebrow. “All I told Sir Tarus was that I was going for a ride in the vale. How did you know to find me here?”

“I serve you with all my heart, Your Majesty,” the Spider said with a rotten-toothed grin. “But that doesn’t mean I have to tell you the secrets of my craft.”

She folded her arms and waited patiently.

Aldeth threw his hands in the air. “Well, fine, if you’re going to torture me like that. He can’t blame me for not being able to resist your spells.”

“I’m not casting a spell, Aldeth,” she said, but the spy seemed not to hear, and he rattled on for several minutes about how it wasn’t hisidea to go to Master Larad, how he had been dead set against it, knowing how offended she would be, but how Sir Tarus had insisted that they ask the Runelord to speak the rune of vision, and how he—Aldeth—would never have dreamed of compromising his queen’s privacy in such a manner.

“No, you’d simply sneak after me.”

“Exactly!” the Spider said, snapping his fingers. “That way, you’d never even know I was—”

He bit his tongue, and he looked as if he was going to be sick. Grace couldn’t help a smile. He really was getting better; a year ago he would have dug himself a far deeper hole before having the sense to shut up.

“Oh, Aldeth,” she said, patting his cheek. Then she climbed into Shandis’s saddle and whirled the mare around. As she did, she cast one last glance at the Rune Gate.