“Yeah,” Tekchin replied. “That’s exactly why she’ll be moaning from the tall grass at night—it’s ’cause I’m rubbing her feet.”

  Brin wiped away her tears, and said, “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me, darling. I wouldn’t be doing this if Seph hadn’t ordered me to.”

  “I don’t believe that for a second.”

  “Well, maybe she didn’t have to twist my arm too much.”

  Tesh said to Moya, “I had no intention of going, but if Persephone is sending you and Tekchin, I’ll go with you.” He looked at Brin. “Give me your pack.”

  “I can carry it just fine,” Brin said.

  The scowl returned. “You’re not going, Brin.”

  “Tesh, I know what danger is. I went to Neith. I almost died there—more than once.”

  “And that’s why I won’t let you go. I don’t want you to die. I can’t lose you.”

  “If you’re coming, you can protect me.”

  “I can’t!” he snapped. “It doesn’t work that way. People die in the blink of an eye out there.” He pointed toward Mount Mador as if the mountain were some sort of monster. “I’d bring my whole troop if I thought it would help, but it wouldn’t. The elves ambush. They always get the first shot. You’re not going, and that’s it!”

  “I am going, Tesh. This isn’t up to you. I’m not one of your soldiers. You can’t stop me.”

  “What if I told you . . .” He hesitated again, his lips a tight, unhappy line. “What if I said that if you go, it’s over between us.”

  “What?” Brin felt as if he’d struck her, hard. The blow hit her chest, and she didn’t have the air to speak. She stared at him in disbelief. “Tesh—don’t” was all she got out. She took a step back, a step away, one hand covering her mouth. “Don’t.”

  He stared hard at her, and for the first time, she saw what he normally left in the forest. Tesh never spoke of his days in the Harwood, and all she’d ever known from him was warmth and tenderness, but beneath it lay a jagged rock. She’d figured it was there, a hard, cold edge. How else could he do the job he did? But she never thought she’d see it turned on her.

  All of this must have shown on her face because the brutality quickly faded from his eyes and he reluctantly nodded. “Fine,” he said, and then he reached out and took her by the shoulders. “But you have to promise me one thing—one lousy thing.”

  “What?”

  He reached up and took her face in his hands. “That if things go bad, you’ll run—you’ll run as fast and as far as you can to save yourself. Run right back here. I couldn’t bear it if you died. You can’t wait. If we get into trouble, and I tell you to—you run. Will you promise me that much? Please, Brin, promise me that.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  He shook his head. “Not good enough. Say the words. Make the vow.”

  She nodded. “I promise. I’ll run.”

  Tesh threw his arms around Brin and hugged her tight. “Okay then.”

  “Assuming this has any chance of actually working”—Moya squinted into the brilliant first rays of the sun’s face as it inched above the tree line—“we need to get going. No telling how much time Suri’s got.”

  “Wait,” Roan said. “We can’t go.”

  “Now what?” Moya asked.

  “That’s only six,” Roan said.

  “Huh?” Moya replied.

  Roan used her finger to point and count. “Me, Gifford, Brin, Tesh, Moya, and Tekchin—that’s only six.”

  “Yes, it is, Roan, and we’re all quite impressed that you can count,” Moya said.

  “But Malcolm said there would be seven.”

  “Who cares what Malcolm—”

  “I’m going,” Rain said.

  Frost glared at the dwarf. “No.”

  “You’re not gonna find her where they’re going,” Flood blurted out. Together he and Frost converged like protective parents on the smaller and younger looking dwarf. Frost had a finger out and pointed. “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “Okay, now what the Tet are you three talking about?” Moya asked.

  “You don’t know that,” Rain said to Frost. “I might find her.”

  “You looking for someone?” Moya asked. “In a swamp? Who?”

  Rain looked sheepish. “I dunno.”

  Frost made a sound in his throat signifying disbelief. “O’ course not. Knowing who it is would make too much sense, wouldn’t it? But it’s not ’cause of the swamp he’s going. It’s ’cause the trip is underground.”

  “There is a person, a Belgriclungreian, who is trapped at the bottom of the world,” Rain explained, and Brin realized this was the most words in a row she’d ever heard the youngest dwarf speak. “She has been calling to me for years.”

  “She has not,” Flood barked at him, bouncing on his toes, his eyes flaring.

  “Wait, how do you—” Moya paused. “If she’s trapped, and you don’t know where, how do you even know about her?”

  “She comes ta me. In me dreams,” Rain said.

  “Oh,” Moya replied. “Oh-kay.”

  “They need one more,” Rain said. “It’s a sign.”

  “O’ course it’s not a sign, you damn fool.”

  “Malcolm told her seven.” Rain pointed at Tressa. “It’s a sign. It’s why I went into Neith—both times.”

  “And remember how well that worked out,” Flood said.

  “I’m going, and that’s the end of it.”

  “Are we all set then?” Moya asked. “You need to get a blanket or something, Rain? How about you, Tesh?”

  “Aye. For a day and a night, I’m good a’right,” Rain answered.

  Tesh put his hands on the pommels of his swords. “I got all I need for a short trip.”

  “Okay then, let’s go,” Moya commanded.

  Frost and Flood looked at Rain, and they both sighed. Rain put down his big pickax and gave each an embrace, clapping backs. Then both Frost and Flood tugged once on Rain’s little beard. Why, Brin hadn’t a clue.

  With a final deep breath, Moya and Tekchin led the group down the slope to the north, eight walking into an unknown world and an uncertain fate.

  After many days of rain, the morning stood out brilliantly. Not just cloudless, the hazy face of summer had been replaced by a fierce glare born out of a deep-blue sky. Heat vanquished by a chill, the air was crisp and smelled of dying leaves instead of baking grass. Sharp blades of sunlight cut through trees and burned away mists that had pooled during the night in deep hollows.

  Brin had always loved fall. Food was plentiful; the work was light; the forest became a painting of bright reds and yellows, and there was the promise of the coming cold, when the dahl’s residents would gather around fires and tell stories to pass the many dark hours. She missed those days cuddled between her mother and father, wrapped in layers of soft wool. Safe and warm, she heard neither the crackling fire nor the howling wind, which was drowned out by the booming voices of storytellers recounting adventures with expressive hands that cast shadows of monsters on the lodge’s walls. Those same winter winds were now on their way, and she was wearing her mother’s wool once more, but the story being told was hers, and the monsters would not be mere shadows.

  Tekchin and Moya walked in the lead of their little group of eight. Brin had begun the pleasant downhill trip beside Tesh. She’d taken his hand at the start, but he’d let go. For miles, they hadn’t exchanged a word. She thought he was still angry, but she knew that sometimes Tesh was just quiet. That morning he’d seemed as chilly as the weather. By midday, he had moved up alongside Rain while Brin had fallen in beside Gifford and Roan, who both rode on Naraspur’s back. Roan had protested, not wanting to burden the animal with two, but it was clear Gifford loved riding with Roan’s arms around his waist.

  Walking alongside, Brin had a perfect view of Gifford’s leg, strapped into the brace Roan had made for him. “Does it hurt?” she asked. “Having your leg tied up like that, I mean.”

  “No,” he replied. “Well, not much.”

  Roan glanced down to the brace with a concerned look. “I can loosen the straps if you—”

  “It’s fine,” he assured her. “I want them tight.”

  “Okay,” Roan said, but she didn’t look better. She seemed just as pained as Gifford, maybe more.

  Brin picked a different subject. “I hear you can do magic like Suri, Gifford. That’s amazing.”

  Gifford smiled his lopsided grin. “Well, not exactly, but she has taught me a few things. I managed a location weave. It’s simple, and I just follow the steps. It’s a beginning, I guess.”

  “He’s scared,” Roan said as she rocked with the movement of the horse.

  “Really?” Brin asked.

  Gifford nodded. “I suppose so.”

  Brin waited, but Gifford didn’t add anything. “Scared of what?”

  Roan and Gifford exchanged uncomfortable looks.

  “It’s okay,” Brin said. “I was just making conversation.”

  Brin fondly remembered the discussions they’d had on the ship to Neith that had passed the hours, but this trip was different. Tesh seemed upset with her for coming. Moya didn’t want to be there at all, Tressa was abrasive, and Rain and Roan were always quiet. Now even Gifford, whom she saw as her last refuge, had become awkward.

  This is going to be a long walk, Brin thought.

  “It’s just,” Gifford began unexpectedly at the same time that he wiped the sweat from his nose, “I don’t want to upset anyone.”

  “Huh?” Brin asked.

  “He means he doesn’t want to terrify people,” Roan explained. “He just can’t pronounce the word.”

  “Oh,” Brin said.

  “Su-wee says a bad life with obstacles and pain amplifies the magic,” Gifford explained. “If you have big, ah . . . pwoblems, then you can have a lot of intensity, a lot of pow-ah.”

  “Power?” Brin asked.

  Gifford nodded, embarrassed, and Brin thought that was strange. Funny the things that bothered people. She felt that if she couldn’t talk clearly, it wouldn’t concern her. At least she wanted to believe that, but if she were Gifford, maybe she would feel differently.

  “Magic is made by pulling pow-ah fwom the outside, fwom living things, like dipping a bucket in a well. But people have wells inside them, too. I guess I have an unusually deep well because I’ve had lots of pwoblems.”

  “Oh,” Brin said, again.

  He made a face at her that looked to be part smirk, part grin, part pout, and totally indecipherable.

  Brin smiled back, but it wasn’t a happy face she made. She knew parents who pointed at Gifford when warning their children about angering the gods. Such accusations made no sense, as Gifford had never done anything to deserve any punishment, nor had his parents, but there was no doubt the gods hated all three of them. His mother died giving birth to their only child, and his father had to live with her sacrifice in exchange for Gifford. And Gifford—well, he had to be Gifford.

  “So when I do stuff,” he went on, “I’m anxious that I might . . . you know . . .”

  “Kill everyone,” Roan said. “When he tried to light the signal fire at Perdif, he incinerated the whole village. Singed some of his own hair.”

  “I see,” Brin said.

  Gifford pointed to his eyebrows. “Came back.” Again, he showed that inscrutable expression that Brin suspected would have been a self-deprecating half smile if it had been worn by anyone else.

  That afternoon, as Brin walked through hip-deep grass and waved away gnats while struggling with a heavy pack, the odds of actually finding a way to save Suri felt remote. Reality was back, and the tangible world held contempt for dreams. “Do you think it’s possible? Can the Tetlin Witch really be alive, and will she be willing to show us a way to get into the Fhrey city? I mean, last night it all seemed like it was possible, but now . . .” She looked up at the bright-blue sky. “I don’t know.”

  “Why not?” Gifford said. “Amazing things happen all the time. Look at me. I’m still alive.”

  Brin smiled, thinking it a joke, and then she wasn’t so sure.

  They continued all that day hiking downhill across open ground of late-season flowers and brown tasseled grass. Everyone kept glancing to the right as they passed Mount Mador—just too big, too magnificent to ignore. The snowcapped peak appeared a living thing, a white-haired god holding up the sky. To the north, just beyond a river, lay a huge forest. Hill upon hill, its dark trees blanketed everything as far as the eye could see. The wood didn’t look like the Crescent Forest. The Harwood was denser, less inviting, and Brin was happy to hear they weren’t going in. Their path turned due east, following the river—actually more like a wetland.

  Down by the water’s edge, the view grew hazy, as a stubborn mist lingered. They rested on a grassy bank and ate alongside the rushes, listening to water gurgling a pretty tune. Cloaks and capes were cast aside, spread on the grass like picnic blankets as the sun grew warmer. Brin was once again beside Tesh, eating one of her apples and watching the tall grass blow in the breeze. Tesh still hadn’t said much, but she no longer thought he was angry. He wasn’t not talking to her, just not talking at all. The man was moody. Most likely, he was worried about her. Instead, Brin tried to enjoy the moment by leaning back and feeling the sun on her face. Beautiful days shouldn’t be ignored.

  “It gets more difficult from this point,” Tekchin declared. “You said we were looking for an island where the swamp meets the sea, right?” he asked Tressa, who nodded. “Okay, so be sure to fill up on water, and drink deep while you can. That’s the bog below us.” Tekchin pointed downstream toward where the pretty rushes grew dense. Brambles rose, and stunted trees crowded together. “Plenty of freshwater creeks like this feed into it, but the water turns briny and black as we head east toward the sea.”

  “So we’re almost there?” Brin asked.

  “You are there. You’re looking at the Swamp of Ith—the start of it, anyway.”

  This admission turned everyone’s head toward the mist downstream, where Brin noticed dark birds circling. She found it hard to imagine they were already there. Somehow, she’d thought it would take longer. The alleged home of the Tetlin Witch turned out to be only a few hours away. The sheer convenience felt contrived to the point that Brin was all the more certain that Tressa was lying—well, perhaps not lying, but certainly wrong.

  “Doesn’t look too bad,” Moya said as if she didn’t believe her own admission. “I mean, it is just a swamp.”

  “It gets worse.” Tekchin reclined on his side near Moya, an arm propping his head, the sun shining off his bronze armor. “Years ago, the Galantians came down this way, and we ducked our heads inside. Miserable place, really.” He looked at Gifford. “Be best if you left Naraspur up here where there’s plenty of water and grass. Down there, the ground gets soft and muddy. You don’t want her to get mired. You can tether her to a line between a couple of trees. She should be okay for a day or even two.”

  Roan pulled a bit of rope out of a pack, tied it to Naraspur, and set to work.

  “What exactly are we trying to find out there?” Moya aimed her question at Brin, but everyone looked at Tressa.

  “Malcolm said it was an island,” the woman explained. “A sort of a secret island, I guess.”

  “Secret?” Moya said doubtfully. “How is an island secret?”

  “I’m not sure, he just said it wasn’t easy to find. That she makes it that way.”

  “She?”

  “The Tetlin Witch.”

  Moya stared at Tressa. “You aren’t serious.” She turned to look at Brin. “She’s not, is she?”

  Brin nodded. “Malcolm told her the Tetlin Witch lived on the island, and the witch will show us the underground passage, which I guess is also hidden, right?”

  Tressa nodded.

  “Tressa,” Moya said, “are you making all this up? Is this some kind of joke? It is, isn’t it?”

  Tressa continued to sit on her blanket, eating an apple of her own.

  “The Tetlin Witch is just a legend. If you make me go down there, and I find out this is all a lie, I will—”

  Tressa spit out what she’d been chewing and began to sing:

  “Far beyond the woodland hills, beyond the mountains vile,

  Hidden in a mist-soaked swamp upon an awful isle.

  She haunts the lapping blackened pools and creeping ivy ways,

  And there awaits with hair of brown and eyes of greenish-gray.”

  “What the Tet is that?” Moya asked.

  Tressa had a surprisingly nice voice. Not beautiful—she had no real talent for singing—but Brin never would have expected anything remotely pleasant to come out of Tressa, who, like most full-time drunks, spoke as if a family of frogs had made a home in her throat.

  “It’s a song Malcolm taught me.”

  Brin was shocked. “Never heard that one before.”

  “Malcolm mentioned it’s really old,” Tressa said.

  Moya stood up. “Let me get this straight.” She held up a finger. “We’re going through that swamp to find the hidden home of the legendary Tetlin Witch.” She held up a second. “And she’s going to show us a secret passage.” She added a third. “And it’s going to take us to the Fhrey capital city. Is that right? Do I have that straight?”

  “Look at that, everyone.” Tressa grinned at her. “It’s so easy even Moya can follow it.”

  Moya closed her pack and hoisted it on a shoulder. “I really hope you’re not messing with us, Tressa. I really do—for the sake of your face and my knuckles. Let’s do this!” Moya grabbed up Audrey, which she’d been using like a walking stick. “Let’s go knock on a witch’s door.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The Swamp of Ith

  We all have many secrets. Some we tell, and others we bury. The worst ones are those that come back to haunt us. — The Book of Brin

  The swamp wasn’t the Harwood, but even so, Tesh was worried.