The Borderkind

CHAPTER 6

A t the eastern rim, Naga sentries awaited them. Oliver and Kitsune hurried away from the inn across that rickety bridge over the river. At the cliff wall, they climbed rope ladders that hung down from the edge. Kitsune reached the top first, but neither she nor the Naga sentries made any effort to help Oliver up out of the gorge. At the last moment, he was gripped with an urge to simply push off, to spread his arms and let himself freefall back down into the gorge, hundreds of feet, to hit the river, or worse, to crash into the roof of the inn or the balustrade of some better constructed bridge, breaking his fall and his back.

A helpless target. Better to be dead.

The Nagas held bows, just like the ones in the river tunnel, and he could hear the strings sing like harp chords as they were drawn back. The tips of arrows glinted in the sun as they followed the progress of their unwelcome visitors, ready to put an arrow in either of them. Borderkind or human, it did not matter to them. They were just doing their jobs.

The nearest Naga fluttered its wings and slithered closer to Oliver on its thick serpentine trunk. When he glanced worriedly at it, the Naga bowed its head once in farewell. A kind of deference was in its eyes, making Oliver more confused than ever.

Oliver paused to look back down into Twillig’s Gorge, far below. Someday, he hoped to return to this strange place, when there were fewer secrets and fewer people trying to kill him. It had sadly not lived up to its own legend. Twillig’s Gorge was supposed to be a place where fugitives fled, where anyone was safe, so long as they behaved themselves. He had read stories about Butch Cassidy’s Hole-in-the-Wall, and had imagined Twillig’s Gorge to be something like that.

But the world of the legendary had disappointed him. There were just as many lies, just as much betrayal and bullshit, on this side of the Veil as the other.

“Oliver. We must go,” Kitsune whispered.

He looked at the Nagas. Their wings fluttered and their jaws were tight, fingers twitching as though ready to unleash their arrows. Yes, it was most certainly time to get away from here.

Kitsune touched his elbow and he turned slowly. Her face remained partially hidden by her hood, as though she had retreated back into the solitary legend she was. No trace of a smile touched her lips, and that was a good thing. Had she smiled then, Oliver might have shouted at her, angry that she had not helped him fight Wayland Smith. And he did not want that tension between them. Obviously there were relationships here that he did not understand, perhaps a hierarchy of legends, or of Borderkind. Kitsune had treated Smith as though he was some kind of king, and how was Oliver supposed to argue with that?

They left Twillig’s Gorge behind.

Every time Oliver looked back, the sentries were still there, watching. He wondered if their bowstrings were still taut. Eventually he and Kitsune started down a craggy slope. When they could no longer see the Nagas, he finally felt the weight of their scrutiny lifted from him.

For nearly an hour they walked, first down that long craggy slope and then up a smaller, more gradual hill. When they reached its crest, Oliver saw that there was another-steeper, but even shorter-still ahead. Beyond that, however, he could make out the ribbon of a road unfurling across the plains ahead.

On that peak, they paused. Thanks to the mode of their departure, they had no food, no water. No supplies at all. But he was not going to complain. They had escaped with their lives-and in this case, that was enough.

He had been hungry and thirsty in the past few days. There had been worse moments. At least now they were doing something. They were in motion.

Coming to get you, Collette, he thought. Get you away from that thing. Hang on, sis.

As they started down, making their way carefully amongst loose rocks and scrub brush, he glanced at Kitsune. “You know where it is? The Sandcastle that Smith was talking about?”

The fox-woman nodded. “Across the hills and down to the plains, perhaps another hour’s walk from here, we’ll find the Orient Road. From there, I can find the Winding Way. But…”

“But what?”

“I thought only the legendary could travel the Winding Way. One version of the story says only tricksters can use it.”

Oliver stepped down from an outcropping of rock, loose stones and dirt tumbling down the slope. He paused and looked back up at Kitsune.

“Yeah. So you said. But Smith didn’t think that was as hard and fast a rule as you seem to. Why else would he tell us to go that way?”

Kitsune’s focus was upon the treacherous footing below, and she did not look at him. “I don’t know. But either way, our destination is east.”

Oliver frowned. Too many questions, too many rules-and too many of them seemed to be different for him than they were for others. The conversation Kitsune had overheard between Frost and Smith continued to perplex him. The insinuations contained within their words burrowed into his brain like insects-voracious and maddening.

“All right. The Orient Road, then. First stop. But before we take any shortcuts that we can’t turn back from, we need to talk about finding the Dustman.”

The sun had begun its climb into the sky in earnest. Oliver squinted against the glare as he descended. The Orient Road was not terribly far away, but in this heat, without water, it was going to be an unpleasant trek.

“The diversion will cause a delay.”

Oliver glanced at her. “Do you think we have a chance against the Sandman without help?”

Kitsune grimaced. Her jade eyes peered out from beneath the hood. The orange-red fur of her cloak gleamed in the sun, swaying around her, clinging to her as she walked. He thought about how much easier this descent would be for her in the body of the fox and wondered if she maintained a human form for his benefit.

“No.”

“Then we have to find him.”

“Agreed,” Kitsune replied, though reluctantly. “But the Dustman is ever in motion, as though with the wind. The only way to encounter him is by chance, or by intruding upon his legend.”

A small stone rolled under Oliver’s weight and he slipped, nearly fell sprawling on his face down the slope. It was pure luck that he was able to arrest his tumble before that happened. His breath came ragged in his throat and he paused a moment to rest, hands on his knees.

“Intruding. Apparently I’m good at that. Of course, I don’t have a clue what you mean.”

At last, Kitsune smiled. It was as though some of the distance between them was dispelled. She threw her hood back and let the sun touch her face, shaking her hair out behind her.

“We must return to England. Once upon the Winding Way, it is a simple diversion. If we cannot travel that way, it will be more difficult. But one way or another, we have to pierce the Veil again.

“As Wayland said, the only way to find the Dustman is to wait for him in the nursery of an English child. His legend was born there, and the old stories keep him in their hearts.”

Oliver stopped and stared at her. “Wait. Of all of the nurseries in England, all of the babies in the whole damn U.K., how are we supposed to find the right one?”

Kitsune moved with a fluid grace, stepping from stone to stone as though weightless. She passed Oliver and continued down the slope, glancing back at him over her shoulder as though taunting him to keep up.

“Not a problem at all,” the fox-woman said, and the wild mischief returned to her eyes. “When the Dustman senses the presence of another Borderkind-even worse, a trickster-in his domain, he will come swiftly.

“The trick will be trying to explain it to him before he kills us both.”

She laughed and spun, dancing from one rock to the next as Oliver struggled to follow.

“Wonderful,” he said. “Can’t anything in this world be simple?”

Kitsune paused and gave him a dark, warning look. “Legends are never simple, my friend. They appear to be, on the surface, but there are too many facets, too many fears, too many demands that human beings have placed upon every ‘Once Upon a Time’ for them to be simple.”

And with that, she was off again.

Oliver followed as best he could, wondering how long this side trip to find the Dustman would take, and if they would survive it. He wondered where Collette was, even now, and whether she understood what was happening any better than he did. He wondered what the Sandman had done to her, there in his dreadful place.

And how long she could stand it without losing her mind.

During the night, Collette could hear a child cry. A little boy, she thought. He sobbed and whimpered and whispered “no” over and over. It had begun perhaps two hours before dawn, rousing her from sleep. In her prison chamber in the Sandman’s castle, she had sat at first and tried to figure out the source of the crying. It came and went, as though at times she was nearer to the anguished boy and at others further away. She had stood and walked the circumference of her prison, had gazed up at the arched windows of the sand pit, and at the stars that showed through, even as they were bleached out of the sky by imminent morning.

She wondered if it was the Vittora, taunting her with more lunacy, but there was no sign of the thing, not a spark of light within the walls of her prison.

“Who are you?” she called into the emptiness of the castle and the vastness of the night. “Where are you?”

There came no answer. Only sobbing. But in spite of the lack of response she kept calling, speaking words of comfort, just in case he could hear her.

Her heart broke for the boy. She wanted to get to him, tried to push her fingers into the hard-packed sand of the walls, to climb, if she could, but there was no purchase. She knew that, of course. Once, and only once, just before the Sandman had appeared within the walls of her prison for the first time, she had felt the sand give way and been able to scoop away at the wall, digging into it. But since then she had begun to believe it had been a hallucination, for she had attempted it a hundred times, trying to make handholds for herself so that she could climb to the windows.

She knew the walls were solid. But the terrified whimpering sobs of the boy got under her skin and forced her to try again.

In time, all she could do was pace and try to cover her ears. The torment of hearing the child’s terrified voice, and being unable to help him, was more than she could bear. She had no children of her own, but Collette wanted them, wished to find a man someday who would be a better husband than the asshole she’d married and divorced…wished for a little boy. And here was this child, no different than the son she might have one day, sobbing in fear and despair, and she could do nothing to soothe him.

At daybreak, the child began to scream.

Collette froze, breath coming in tiny gasps. She stared at the smooth wall, the dawn’s light beginning to make a warm glow of the carved sand all around her. Once, twice, three times she spun, searching for the origin of that scream.

She could not just let it happen. Could not just do nothing. Shaking, skin prickling with gooseflesh, she raced to the wall and put her palms against it. Collette closed her eyes, listening more closely than she had ever listened to anything in her life. The screaming-a chilling shriek of agony that went on and on-echoed around the chamber, but its origin was nearby.

Close, but not here. Not right here.

To the left. Her eyes still closed, she slid her palms frantically along the wall, sand scraping her skin. Again she froze, focused, listening.

Here. Just here.

The screaming stopped. She opened her eyes. The Vittora hung in the air just a few feet from her, its light flickering.

“I met her in the mall,” it said, words drifting on the air, so close, as if it were whispering right in her ear. “I should have known our relationship was doomed.”

During her imprisonment, Collette had retreated again and again into her favorite movies, played them on the screen inside her head. There were a handful of movies she loved with a passion, and this was her favorite line from one of them. The Vittora spoke in the voice of John Cusack from Say Anything, as if it could comfort her now. As if the words were anything but gibberish in the panic of this moment.

“I don’t want to buy, sell, or process anything-” it began.

Collette drowned its voice out with her screams. She could not ignore its presence, the dreadful light, the knowledge that it existed there on the periphery of her imprisonment, waiting for her to die so that it could be released from the tether that held it to her. But she would not let it get in her way.

“Where are you? What is it?” she shouted, palms against the wall.

The silence shattered. The boy began screaming again, but this time he cried as well, not only terror and pain but anguish. Absolute despair and surrender.

“No,” she whispered, gritting her teeth. “No.”

Collette tore at the wall, grit getting up under her fingernails. The pads of her fingers scraped on the sandlike concrete. Her heart hammered. Fresh tears traced lines in the dirt on her face. She shouted back to him, pictured the little boy, wondering what he looked like, where he was, what was happening to him.

Anguish clutched her heart, and so it was a moment before she realized her fingers were digging in sand. Then her eyes widened as it came away in her hands, scoops of dry sand. It began to spill down from the wall as though she had broken through some outer shell and now it sifted to the ground, pooling at her feet.

“I’m coming!” she shouted to the boy.

Then his screaming stopped again. Collette kept digging, but fell silent. Perhaps shouting her intentions was not wise. Should the Sandman hear her, what would he do?

“Come on, come on,” she muttered under her breath. Her fingers hurt. They were bleeding. But she kept digging, trying to figure out what she was digging toward.

Another prisoner. That had to be it. The boy must be a prisoner in the castle, just as she was, and now someone, the Sandman or one of those freaky hunters, was hurting him. Torturing the little boy.

Her breath came even faster as she dug. The sun was rising and now she could see clearly. She cupped her hands into claws and she dug quickly, both hands at the same time, tearing the edges of the hole to make it larger and larger, digging deeper.

There came one last, long, lingering scream of sorrow.

“No!” Collette shouted.

She thrust her hands, fingers outstretched, into the hole, into the sand, and felt them break through into somewhere else…into open air. Holding on to the edges of the hole in the wall, she braced herself and kicked at the sand. Gray nothing light showed through from the other side. Almost darkness. But it was another room, some other chamber.

Again and again she kicked and huge chunks of hardened sand fell away, collapsing and crumbling so it spilled on both sides of the opening.

The Vittora began singing a song called “Joe Lies.”

The hole she’d dug in the wall was more a tunnel, its shape an arch almost like a door or the windows of her cell. Collette’s heart soared. She started through, praying it was not too late for the boy. In the darkness on the other side it was all gray light, but she saw now that it was not another chamber like hers.

It was a young boy’s bedroom, a poster of the Justice League of America on the wall, a small night-light casting a dull gray glow into the room. Sand from the hole she had dug had spilled onto the carpet, but otherwise the place looked entirely ordinary, as though she had opened up a tear in this world and back into her own.

With the glare of morning sun behind her, she blinked, trying to get a better look at the figure that lay on the bed. The covers were a tangle, the spread half on the ground. The boy had his arms splayed around him, the shadows making lines upon his face.

She stood in the opening as her vision adjusted to the dim light of the bedroom. Then she saw that the lines on his face were not shadows. They were streaks of blood. And the deepest of shadows were the indents where his eyes ought to have been. Instead they were gaping, empty, bloody holes.

“Oh,” Collette whispered.

All the strength went out of her and she collapsed to her knees, sand spilling all around her, down the back of her pajamas, into her hair, into the room ahead of her.

Then something moved across her peripheral vision, a shadow separating itself from the rest of the gray.

The Sandman stood just inside the room. He had remained out of sight at first, but now he swept toward her, his hideously bony form all sharp angles beneath that cloak, his fingers bent and contorted, hands held up in front of him like some bizarre insect as he moved.

From beneath his hood, he glared at her with those terrible lemon eyes.

Then he turned his right hand palm up, and she saw that he held the boy’s eyes, still dripping blood and vitreous fluid, optic nerves hanging from them like tails.

The Sandman grinned and opened his mouth, showing those yellow, broken fangs, then let the boy’s eyes dangle from the optic nerves above his mouth. He dropped them in and began to chew. Something damp and gleaming spilled over his lips and down his chin.

Collette could not scream. Her breath would not come. Her tears burned her cheeks and her whole body shook. Had she not already been on her knees she would have crumbled then.

“ Was that what you wanted to see? ” the Sandman asked in his rasping voice. He ran his black tongue over his teeth. “ Perhaps in the future you will learn that it is better not to look.”

Then he held up his hand.

Power struck her. The sand she had torn away, that had spilled into the boy’s room, rose up and hit her, wrapped around her, thrust her back through the passage she had dug. It threw her back into her prison so that she sprawled across the soft, shifting floor.

Collette looked up in time to see the wall repairing itself, the sand dancing up from the ground and rebuilding. In seconds, the wall was smooth again, as though she had never touched it.

Solid, again, probably.

But she did not want to know, could not imagine touching it to find out.

The Vittora hung above her, barely noticeable now that the sun had risen. It normally went away while the sun was up, but not this morning. She wondered what that meant.

Quietly, it sang its mad song.

“My daughter,” Halliwell said.

“Excuse me?”

He and Julianna walked side by side. They had been traveling across the plateau for more than two hours and Halliwell felt sure they would reach the river gorge anytime now. Twillig’s Gorge, the tricky little monk had called it. For the past twenty minutes they’d been on a steadily rising slope, but now he could see that it came to a crest ahead where the slope fell away like a cliff.

That would be the gorge.

He hoped so. God, he needed a rest.

Yet it was not only the gorge, or Oliver, that was on his mind. Since their meeting with the thing on the roadside, his thoughts had been of Julianna, and of home. If not for her, he might be dead now, or at least in debt to some monster, some…demon…on the roadside.

They were in this together. Julianna was trying to reach home just as desperately as he was, yet for her, Oliver was a part of that home. Halliwell had never quite believed Oliver was a killer, and by now he was sure of it. He only wanted answers from the man, and some help as well. But he had never looked at it through Julianna’s eyes. To her, finding Oliver was everything. She needed to see him, to hold his hands in hers, to hear his voice and maybe to tell him what was in her heart.

Halliwell understood that now.

And it made him think of Sara.

“You asked me what I need to get back to so badly,” he said, not turning to look at her, not wanting to see her eyes. “The answer is ‘my daughter.’ ”

They went on another ten steps before Julianna replied.

“What’s her name?”

“Sara.”

“It’s been a while since you’ve seen her, huh?”

Halliwell frowned. This time he did look at her. “It shows?”

Julianna smiled kindly. “When Oliver disappeared I was just as angry as I was scared of what had happened to him. There were so many things that I wished I’d said to him, conversations we should have had but avoided so many times. When he was gone, the idea that we’d never say those things was devastating.”

Halliwell nodded. For a few seconds they walked on, but it was an easy companionship, with no weight of expectation. If he said nothing more, Julianna would not press him. Perhaps because of that, he glanced at her again.

“I don’t see her much. But when I do, I never say the things I wish I could. It’s like there’s so much distance between these days and the old days, back when she was my little girl, that my voice just won’t carry all that way. Does that make any sense?”

“It makes perfect sense,” Julianna said. “But she will. You say what needs to be said, and she’ll hear you.”

“Yeah. Maybe,” Halliwell allowed. “But first we’ve got to get home.”

Julianna made no reply. None was needed.

Once again, Halliwell looked up the slope toward the sharp ridge there.

Two figures stood on the ridge, silhouetted in the late morning sun. Halliwell held his breath and slowed, but did not stop walking.

“I assume you see them?” Julianna said.

“Yeah.”

“So what do we do?”

“If you want to go home, there’s nothing we can do. We go talk to them, or try to. They’ve seen us by now, and neither of us is in much condition to outrace them if they want a chase.”

A few more steps, and Julianna whispered again.

“They’re not human.”

“So I noticed,” Halliwell replied. “There seems to be a lot of that going around.”

Halliwell trudged onward until the figures on the ridge came into clearer focus. They were tall, thin creatures with wings, and from the waist down had the powerful bodies of snakes. In their arms, they held longbows, and each had a quiver on his back.

The creatures watched them come. As Halliwell and Julianna approached, the larger of the two slung his bow across his shoulder and slithered forward to meet them, wings rustling against his back as though at any moment he might try to take flight. The other, whose flesh was a deeper blue, nocked an arrow and drew back the bow, watching them carefully.

“Hold there,” said the snake-man, slithering toward them, powerful upper body upright, wings unfurling.

Halliwell glanced at Julianna. Her chest rose and fell with short little breaths, and just from looking at her, he could see she wanted to bolt. He understood: the presence of this thing made his skin crawl. The very atmosphere of this bizarre world felt too close and claustrophobic around him; only by denying the reality of his surroundings could he fight that feeling. Otherwise it would shatter him.

Panic had been simmering in him from the moment he had stepped into this impossible world. Halliwell didn’t want to think about what would happen to him if he let the panic out.

He turned his attention to the snake-man, determined not to look away.

“Good morning,” Halliwell said, just as though he were walking on a backcountry road up in Maine and had come upon someone he did not know.

“State your business,” the snake-man said, pale blue skin rippling with corded muscle as he swayed before them.

High upon the mountain plateau, it was hot out in the sun. But when the wind blew, it carried a chill from somewhere far off, and Halliwell shivered as the thing spoke to them. He took a protective step nearer to Julianna.

“We’re…newcomers,” Halliwell replied, glancing from the snake-man to the other, whose grip was firm upon the bow. The tip of the arrow glinted in the sun.

The snake-man crossed his arms, scrutinizing them. “Lost Ones? Just arrived?” he asked, and Halliwell thought he was paying close attention to their clothes.

“Yes,” Julianna said. She smiled, a quiet plea in her eyes. “We’re not supposed to be here. We just…we’re trying to find someone. A friend. We were following him and we went through this door and came out…” She looked around, spreading her arms wide. “Here. We came out here, and we couldn’t get back.”

The archer fluttered his wings and took better aim. They were close enough that Halliwell could hear the twang of the bowstring being drawn further.

“Not the first,” the archer said. “Nor the last.”

Halliwell held up his hands. “Look, we don’t want trouble. We’re not even asking for help. All we want to do is get down to the river.”

The older, pale one narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

Julianna cleared her throat as though to get his attention. Halliwell glanced at her, realized that she was just as unsure as he was what to say next. What words would get them where they needed to be without an arrow through the heart?

“This woman is searching for her fiance. The man she’s supposed to marry,” he said at last. “His name is Oliver Bascombe, and we think he’s passed through the gorge sometime yesterday afternoon. He may even still be there. All we want is to find him, or to pick up his trail so we can continue our search.”

Something changed in the snake-man’s diamond eyes. Halliwell wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw pity there.

“That is all?” the creature asked.

Julianna laughed softly, and a bit manically. “Well, I wouldn’t say no to a sandwich and a cup of coffee…”

“That’s all,” Halliwell said, shooting her a wary glance. “Did Oliver come through the gorge yesterday? It’s a simple question. You don’t even have to let us down there if you don’t want. Just tell us where the river comes out of the mountain and we’ll leave you alone.”

The older snake-man gestured to the other to lower his bow. The archer hesitated a moment, then complied.

“Your names,” the snake-man said.

“I’m Ted Halliwell. And this is Julianna Whitney.”

The creature bowed his head. “I am Ananta of the Naga, and this is Shesa. Our people are the guardians of Twillig’s Gorge. I am afraid that this is not a welcome time for visitors.”

Ananta knitted his brows and bowed his head toward Julianna. “The arrival of your fiance has only made things worse. Suspicion is rampant here and throughout the Two Kingdoms. Neighbors begin to distrust neighbors. With strangers, the situation is even worse.”

“Wait,” Julianna said, moving closer to Ananta.

Shesa raised his bow again, but the older Naga waved him away.

“You said…you mean, Oliver is here?”

“He was,” Ananta replied. “At daybreak he departed, along with his companions. It appears that before they left, one of their number murdered the innkeeper at the Stonebridge Inn.”

“Murdered?” Halliwell said. His pulse quickened. “How was he killed?”

Ananta frowned, studying him. “Violently.”

He did not want to raise the Nagas’ suspicions again, but Halliwell could not help himself.

“Were his eyes removed?”

Ananta and Shesa exchanged a confused look.

“What prompts the question?” Ananta asked.

Halliwell shook his head. “Never mind. Where I come from, I’m a…guardian, much like yourself. But it’s not important now.”

Not important, because the look between the two Nagas had told him the answer. The innkeeper’s eyes were not taken. So whatever had killed Max Bascombe and all those children, it hadn’t caught up to Oliver here. Or so it seemed.

“Do you know where Oliver went? When he left, I mean? And how long ago?” Julianna asked, the questions tumbling frantically one after the other.

Ananta gestured toward the east. “Across the Gorge. He traveled east with Kitsune at dawn. The other Borderkind who were with him yesterday left earlier, on a westerly course.”

“We need to follow,” Julianna said quickly. “Can you help us?”

The Nagas regarded each other once more. After a moment, Ananta slithered over to Shesa, serpentine body scraping over stone and hard-packed dirt. They conferred for a moment quietly, but Halliwell heard enough to realize they were speaking a different language. One he could never have understood.

At length, Ananta turned to face them again, his wings spreading wide.

“Shesa will remain here on guard. I will see you safely to the other side of the Gorge, and there the Nagas who stand sentry to the east will set you on the path you seek. Whether you will overtake them must be left to fate, for the Bascombe has a Borderkind with him, and there is no telling how swiftly they might travel, or if they shall remain in this world.”

Halliwell allowed himself the smallest flicker of hope. If Oliver could go back, that meant he could, too. And that was one more mystery solved. When Oliver had disappeared from his family home on Rose Ridge Lane in the middle of a blizzard, Halliwell had been baffled by the question of how he had gone anywhere in the storm. Then Collette had disappeared. Oliver had shown up in Cottingsley, and then in London, with no clear explanation of how he had traveled there. But it was obvious now. He had traveled here, then back to the real world.

Home, Halliwell thought.

He glanced at Julianna and smiled, and he was sure she was thinking the same thing. The panic that seethed in him at the utter alienness of this world could only be calmed by two things: hope, and concentrating on resolving their predicament.

“All right, all right,” he said quickly, practically mumbling. “That’s fantastic. Thank you so much.”

The Naga guard studied them, surveying their clothes again. “You truly are newcomers, then? Newly Lost?”

“We said as much,” Julianna replied, though not unpleasantly.

Ananta nodded. “Come, then. Before I set you on the path, you must speak with Virginia Tsing. It is rare for the newly or recently Lost to find their way to the Gorge, but it has happened. Miss Tsing sees to them, as she will to you. There are things you will need to know about the Two Kingdoms if you wish to survive here. She will likely feed you as well. Perhaps even sandwiches and coffee, though I have never understood what humans love so much about those beans.”

“They’ve got quite a start on us already,” Halliwell said.

“Do not worry. Miss Tsing will not keep you long. Come.”

Ananta slid across the mountaintop, toward the top of the ridge. Halliwell watched Shesa warily for a moment, but the younger Naga ignored him now, as though humans were beneath him. Halliwell thought that perhaps, in this world, that was precisely what such creatures thought.

Now that they were near the top of the ridge, it was clear that this was indeed the gorge. The edge was in sight. Jutting up from the broad canyon below he could see the tops of some kind of rope and metal rigging, as well as the tips of some kind of ornamental stonework.

“You have no idea how much we appreciate your help. But I wonder…if Oliver and this person he’s traveling with go back through to…where we come from, can you show us how to get through? Is there another door that goes back?”

At the edge of the cliff, Ananta paused and looked back at her. “I am sorry. I thought you understood. You are Lost Ones now. You have crossed the Veil. And once through the Veil, the Lost Ones can never go home.”

Halliwell staggered, swayed on his feet, staring at the Naga as he spread his wings, trying to make sense of the words.

“That’s…that’s impossible. We have to go back.”

Ananta only shrugged. “You will want to speak with Miss Tsing. She can explain better than I.”

He took flight for just a moment, dropping down to a platform just beyond the edge of the cliff. Halliwell walked numbly after him. He glanced at Julianna. Her eyes were hollow.

The guardian had to be wrong. Oliver could travel back and forth. There had to be a way. The thing wasn’t even human, after all. What the hell did he know?

Together, Halliwell and Julianna went to the edge and looked down into the wondrous river gorge. There were awnings and stone bridges, ladders and walkways of wood and rope. The river went through a thriving village. The smell of food cooking down below rose to make Halliwell’s stomach growl. Somewhere down there, children were laughing, and the sweet sound echoed off the walls. He saw a large, colorful florist’s cart on the broad promenade beside the river, amidst all manner of shops.

Below, Ananta waited on the platform. It was connected to a strange latticework of stairs and rope bridges that led down hundreds of feet into the heart of Twillig’s Gorge.

Halliwell took one last, long glance at the eastern side of the gorge, knowing that their path continued there. They had to get after Oliver and this Kitsune. That was the only way they were going to find real answers.

But Ananta began to slide his long serpent body down the stairs, holding the rails, wings tucked behind him, and after a moment’s hesitation, Julianna followed.

Still numb, Halliwell descended behind them, wondering if there was any point in going on.