The river was gone.

  Between the two banks lay a dry bed. A few puddles remained, but mostly it was sand, mud, rocks, and stones—lots of rocks and stones. The whistling that came from the tower had stopped—as had the roar of the falls. In their place was an eerie silence, a dead quiet.

  “What have you done!”

  “He’s unhappy,” Suri told the Fhrey on the bank, who stood stunned, his mouth open, his gaze on the empty riverbed. “But now he knows what it feels like to wear a collar. You see, I’ve discovered something about the Art,” Suri explained, speaking to all of them, but then she focused on the Fhrey near her. “You know about it.” She pointed at the beast. “Anyone who’s made one of those does. That power doesn’t come from outside.” She put a hand to her chest. “It comes from pain, but more than that—it comes from passion and emotion. An explosion of internal feeling fuels it. But it doesn’t have to be heartbreak. It can be joy. Do you understand?” She watched the Fhrey. He looked young, but there was no way to tell how old he might be. For all she knew, the Miralyith might have lived a thousand years already. “Maybe you can’t. You see, time, it wears away at passion. When you’re young, you’re so full of life, but age dries up that river. And you Fhrey—well, your lives are so long that you can’t keep it flowing. It’s the same reason you don’t mate for life, isn’t it? Arion said that feelings fade and passions pale. Bright fires burn out fast, but while they blaze, they are hot.”

  Suri looked back at the tower, at Jerydd, who had retreated into the shadows, but she was certain he could hear her. “You’re right to be afraid of human Artists, Jerydd. We don’t live long, but we live well. We don’t have so much knowledge and wisdom, but we have passion, and that makes us strong. We’ll always be stronger. We human Miralyith are—” She stopped herself. That wasn’t right. Miralyith was a Fhrey tribe. Human Artists weren’t Miralyith. Human Artists were . . . “Butterflies—wonderful, beautiful butterflies.”

  Suri smiled at the Fhrey, who still watched them. “Nice meeting you.” She waved again, then looked at the wolf. “Race you to the other side, Minna.”

  The wolf darted out across the riverbed, chased by a woman who ran like a girl.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The Chariot Race

  Some roads feel like they go on forever. — The Book of Brin

  “Brin did get out, didn’t she?” Moya asked as they ran back up the slope, climbing the ridge. One of the benefits of being dead was that she could run and still talk. Breathing, she discovered, was optional. She still did it, but more as a means of calming herself, the way people bit their nails or pulled their hair. Breathing felt normal, a comforting sensation, and she needed it because she wasn’t at all certain she knew what was going on.

  Roan and Gifford had clearly returned from the Abyss, but she didn’t know how. Brin had also returned and already crossed Nifrel in a blink of time, and according to Beatrice, she carried a horn that would allow Nyphron to challenge for leadership of the Fhrey. But no one said anything about Tesh or Tressa. Why this was, Moya didn’t know. None of that was important because the Queen of Nifrel was chasing them again. Also, it seemed, they still had a chance to escape the afterlife. However, once more, the details remained hazy.

  “Yes,” Roan said. “Brin was the first one out of the Abyss. Gifford and I followed later.”

  “The whole tower is lit up now,” Tekchin announced, looking backward as they ran. “She’s turning the place out looking for us.”

  “I meant, has Brin left Phyre?” Moya said. “What I’m asking is: Who has the key?”

  “Brin had it,” Gifford said. He looked tired as he struggled to keep up.

  That was one more thing Moya didn’t grasp. She had no idea what had happened at the bridge. One moment she, Tekchin, and Rain were looking across the Abyss at Gifford and Roan, and then everything exploded. When the cloud cleared, a new bridge existed—a thicker, bigger bridge that appeared to have been smashed into existence with as much finesse as ramming a splitting wedge into a log.

  Moya was fairly certain Gifford had been responsible. He had been doing something with his hands just prior, and Rain’s remark about Perdif supported the idea. That Gifford was doing magic now was, oddly, the most normal issue she had to confront.

  “If Brin had the key, why are we running?” Moya asked. “If we can’t—”

  “Brin left it,” Gifford said.

  “She did what?”

  They cleared the last of the ledges, reaching the top of the ridge. Standing once more where they had first met Fenelyus, they looked down at the sight of Nifrel spread out below. The White Tower blazed, and its light spilled out in all directions, but mostly its tendril roots reached across the plain and up the slope following the path they took. Moya watched with fear as the white lines of light bled out toward them.

  “She’s coming,” Rain said.

  “The door to Rel is this way.” Tekchin pointed into the forest of bone trees.

  “Is that where the key is?” Moya asked. “Did she stash it under a rock or something?”

  The very idea sounded absurd.

  How can we know which rock? And if Ferrol created all the rocks, won’t she know exactly where it is?

  “Don’t need a key to get back to Rel,” Roan said. “People can go backward, just not forward, unless you belong there.”

  “So does that mean Ferrol can enter Rel?” Moya asked.

  This was met with terrible silence.

  “Run!” Moya shouted.

  Stepping through the door to Rel, they were greeted by that familiar dull white light of an overcast winter’s day. Moya feared they would be leaping into disaster, but it appeared Drome wasn’t expecting visitors. The castle across the street was back up. Drome was clearly a stickler for consistency, and Moya wondered if he had a picture to go by, as it all looked precisely the way it had before their ill-fated visit.

  They quickly traversed the mountain region with its narrow passages and switchbacks. In no time, they came to that beautiful downhill broad way of white bricks that promised to make the remainder of their flight easy.

  “How you holding up, Rain?” Moya asked.

  The dwarf was pumping his little arms and legs with serious intent, the pick on his back still clapping hard against Mideon’s sword.

  “Right as rain,” he said and gave her an uncharacteristic grin.

  When they reached the homesteads, people came out to gawk.

  “Out of the way! Move!” Moya shouted, using both hands to wave them aside.

  Husbands pulled wives back; mothers grabbed up children; everyone stared.

  “Sorry,” Gifford offered the bystanders.

  Moya didn’t know what he was sorry for: Because he nearly ran down gawkers or didn’t stop for polite conversation? Knowing Gifford, it was both.

  The white brick road finally leveled out. They entered the sparsely populated fields of grass and wildflowers that surrounded the main valley. Now that they were back, Moya found Rel lush and peaceful—a pleasant change from the dark. She had to wonder how nice it might seem to Roan and Gifford after the Abyss. She wanted to ask what was down there, how they got out, and why they were suddenly so bright. But that conversation could wait until a day when they were not running for their lives.

  Running for their lives. The thought made her smile.

  Then she thought of Tesh and Tressa, and the smile died.

  What happened to them?

  Moya imagined the attack of some monster. Tressa, too slow to run, would have been devoured. Then Tesh would suffer the same fate while buying time for the others to escape. Or perhaps the bottom of the Abyss was some massive sea in a constant storm, and Tesh and Tressa were swept away while the others clung to rocks. She really had no idea. All she could tell was that now that Gifford had time to catch his breath, he and Roan showed no signs of fatigue, and Brin had looked like a star.

  What was down there?

  “Same tree,” Roan said.

  Moya assumed Roan was pointing out a tree she remembered seeing on the way up, but this was Roan, and Moya had learned long ago that with her it wasn’t smart to ever assume too much.

  “What do you mean, Roan?”

  “Third time we passed that tree.”

  Third time?

  “That’s not possible, we’ve only been this way twice.”

  “Third time heading in this direction,” Roan corrected.

  Moya looked out across the fields. “Which one?”

  “That one.” Roan pointed, not behind, but ahead of them. “If we pass it again, it will be the fourth time.”

  If we pass it? If?

  Moya, who like all the rest, had been focusing hard on running as fast as they could, now began watching their surroundings in more detail. Miles of tall grass spread out on either side. Not much distinction, nothing to gauge their movement, but there was a single tree. It grew at a distance along the start of what might be a small stream. Looking ahead, Moya saw a little bridge, except . . .

  “Does it seem to anyone else like we aren’t getting any closer to that bridge?”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Gifford said.

  “Everyone stop!” Moya shouted, and they all held up, bunching together and looking at Moya.

  “What’s going on?” Tekchin asked.

  “I don’t know.” Moya held up a hand. She peered around, looking, listening.

  She took note of the tree, which appeared to be a fruit tree of some sort, not very tall, lots of branches. Then, as she watched, the tree jumped. One minute it was across from them, the next it was a quarter mile ahead. The shift happened in a blink. Everything had moved—the grass, the bridge, the tree—everything except the road.

  Only it’s not the road that’s standing still . . .

  Moya moved to the side, off the white bricks and into the tall grass.

  Tekchin looked curiously at her. “What are you—” Then he was a quarter mile behind her.

  “Get off the road!” she shouted, and waved at them in case they couldn’t hear.

  That’s when she heard the familiar thunder—not in the sky but up the road behind them. A great chariot pulled by four white horses charged down the white brick.

  The queen has entered Rel, and she is . . .

  Moya couldn’t believe it herself even as she shouted, “The queen is pulling the road back!”

  Everyone leapt off. Rain was the slowest and was hauled another quarter mile back.

  “Run!” Moya waited among the meadow fescue, buttercups, and ragwort, watching them race at her. “Son of the Tetlin Witch! Run!” Everyone was already running as fast as they could, but she felt she had to yell something.

  “Go! Now!” Tekchin shouted back. “Don’t wait for us!”

  “Kinda have to! Can’t get out alone.” Still, she began trotting forward. “C’mon, Rain!” Moya shouted as Tekchin, Roan, and Gifford finally reached her.

  “She’s not screwing around,” Tekchin declared as he ran beside her.

  “Really?” Moya replied. “You think Ferrol normally does things half-assed, do you? That wasn’t my impression.”

  Once Rain was close, they ran again, but it was clear by then that the queen was gaining quickly.

  Tekchin looked back. “I don’t think we’re going to make it.”

  “Yes, we are,” Moya said.

  They cleared the fields and entered the villages. People were everywhere. They heard the thunder of hooves on the road, saw the chariot clattering on brick. This wasn’t Nifrel. This sort of thing probably never happened here. Screams and cries erupted as the chariot closed the distance and gave no hint of slowing.

  The five of them were strung out in a long line, Moya in the lead and Rain to the rear. In the villages, Moya didn’t know where to go, and the homes were too close to do anything other than follow the white brick. She hoped she’d be lucky and find it no longer cursed. Luck wasn’t with her.

  Not long after everyone resumed running, the road jerked back again. An instant later, Rain fell under the hooves and wheels of the queen’s chariot. It bounced over his body. A soft, rumpled slap on the bricks and the momentary irregularity that interrupted the thrumming rhythm of the horse’s hooves were the only clues to what had happened. The rest of them had just enough time to leap to the side to avoid the same fate.

  The horses cried as the queen reined them in. They puffed, snorted, turned halfway, and the chariot was still moving when Ferrol stepped off and approached them.

  Moya launched a barrage of arrows, all of which were incinerated in mid-flight. Each one turned to ash sooner than the one before such that the last one ignited and snapped the string it was nocked against. Gifford drew a sword that hadn’t been at his side before, but the blade became a shimmering snake. He gasped in shock and dropped it.

  “You’re bright, my boy, but no match for me,” the queen told him.

  Tekchin didn’t waste his time with the queen, but used his blade on the snake that had turned and hissed at Gifford. He cut the sword in half, then looked at the queen. She waited, watching him. Tekchin frowned and sheathed his weapon.

  “Well, that was fun, wasn’t it?” Ferrol said. “I haven’t had a good chase like that in, oh—” She frowned, then shrugged. “Who in Eton’s name really knows?”

  Ferrol wasn’t as brilliant as she had been in Nifrel. Moya couldn’t tell if the general luminescence of Rel diffused her, or if her power was in fact diminished. She certainly had power here, no doubt about that. And she was just as frightening: the same sharp cheeks and razor-thin black lips. Not what Moya would call a looker, yet there was an attractiveness about her, a sort of severe, merciless beauty.

  Ice is the same way.

  “You have something I want,” the queen said to all of them at once, pivoting so that her cape whirled.

  The ground began to rumble. All of them staggered, dancing just to keep their feet as the world shook. The queen staggered along with the rest, her confident glare replaced with concern.

  “FERROL!” a booming voice issued up from the ground.

  “Egat,” the queen softly cursed.

  A head emerged from the ground. It began as a face of white bricks rising up. “How dare you come into my house like this!” The bricks slipped down as the body of Drome rose up. His beard-wreathed face lacked the happy grin Moya remembered. In its place was an angry frown. Luckily, he wasn’t looking at any of them. “I just got my castle back in order, and here you are ripping up my road!”

  The queen, undaunted by the massive figure rising up, replied, “Yes, why don’t you go fix it, and leave us alone.”

  Not surprisingly, this did not make Drome smile. “Get out of Rel before I—”

  “Before you what?” she snapped.

  “Don’t test me, sister.” Drome rose up to his full height, towering over all of them. His great hands became fists that appeared as giant sledgehammers.

  People poured out from the many homes. None came close. They gathered in fearful groups, gazing in amazement at the scene before them. A few held their hands to their faces as if ready at any minute to cover their eyes rather than see what happened. Almost all were at that perfect age, past adolescence and before wrinkles. That was how they wanted to see themselves, or how they did see themselves, Moya guessed, remembering how few of her childhood friends had reached maturity.

  “Don’t be an idiot!” Ferrol shouted. “They have the key, you fool!”

  This stifled some of Drome’s fury. He turned his gaze to Moya. “Eton’s Key? Is that true? Do you have it?”

  “No,” Moya said. She spoke quickly, feeling that same odd desire to be honest rising up. Luckily, it was the truth. She did not have the key.

  Drome bent over, his great shadow covering them in darkness as he studied each. When he spotted Rain, he sighed. “Get up, son!” he shouted, and Rain’s head popped up as if the dwarf had merely fallen asleep. He looked about, disoriented. Moya knew the feeling and sympathized. Then Drome focused once more on Moya and Tekchin. “You two don’t belong here. Your ambition and skill make you her kind.” He nodded at Ferrol. “So if my sister is wrong, why are you here?”

  “We”—Moya looked around at the crowd, and she was disappointed not to see a single person she knew—“came back to visit family. The last time we passed through here, we went so quickly that we didn’t have much time to reunite. Is there a rule against that?”

  Drome looked skeptical.

  “She’s lying,” Ferrol declared. “She’s one of mine, and like all of my people, she’s selfish, self-centered, and deceitful.”

  “Hey!” Moya protested.

  “They have the key and are trying to escape with it. Moya of Dahl Rhen has no family—at least none that cares about her. She has no reason to come back except to—”

  “Yes, she does.” A small voice spoke up from within the depths of the crowd. “I’m her family—I’m her mother.”

  A hush took the crowd as everyone paused a moment, turning to look.

  From the back, a small woman pushed forward. She was beautiful, young, vibrant, and alive, at least in appearance, and it took Moya a second to recognize her. The last time she had seen her mother, Audrey had looked like the residue of a dried-up mud puddle. Too many years, too much work, and too much misery had ruined her. Audrey the First had been the sort of person who could always be counted on to find the one weed in a field of flowers. Her poisoned outlook found a way to express itself visually, and turned her into what Moya had always thought the Tetlin Witch should look like. All the curses Moya had leveled at the witch over the years were just her way of berating her mother. But this person looked nothing like what she remembered. This person was beautiful.