Outside the door, the world had changed.
The storm was gone, and so was Canna Island. A blast of warm air rushed in to greet them. A light summer rain fell from a sky striped with low clouds, speckled with clear spaces where the blue sky showed through.
Julianna could not breathe.
Shaking, she stepped out of the little stone hut. It stood now at the top of a long, sloping hill of rock, striated with colors like thousands of years of volcanic eruption. At the base of the hill, far below, a river rolled gently past. Some small brush and greenery grew on the banks of the river, but on the other side, once again, there was nothing but rock. She turned in a complete circle. Around her there were only mountains, though far to what ought to have been the south she saw the tops of trees in the river valley.
A short way along the rocky slope was the still, lifeless form of the tiger-man, who had escaped the carnage of Canna Island only to die here, alone on the craggy hillside.
“This…can’t be,” Halliwell rasped.
Julianna studied his face. Tentatively, she reached out a hand to touch him. The moment her fingers confirmed that he was real and solid, she felt foolish. Of course he was real. But in that moment, she had been uncertain of everything.
“Go back,” she said. “Go back through.”
Halliwell looked stricken, but he nodded and quickly reentered the stone hut. She followed him in. Even the warmth of the day and the gentle rain made her skin crawl, simply because it was wrong. Unnatural.
They exchanged a silent look. Trembling, Julianna reached out and closed the door, casting them once more in the grim gray darkness within those stone walls, behind those filthy windows. She expected to feel cold almost immediately, but the warmth remained.
A terrible weight settled upon her and Julianna bit her lip as she opened the door. But beyond it, nothing had changed. There was the barren hillside and the river below, the summer rain pattering the rocks. Whatever sort of door they had just traveled through, it only swung in one direction.
After a moment’s hesitation, she stepped back out into the impossible world. Her heavy jacket was too warm and she unzipped it, then slid it off and dropped it on the ground beside the open door.
She wouldn’t be needing it here.
Julianna turned and glanced at Halliwell. She was surprised to find not fear or confusion, but determination etched upon his face.
He stepped out after her, treading heavily upon the rocky terrain.
“All right, then,” Halliwell said. “Let’s go.”
“Go?” She knew they had no choice, but had no idea how to begin, which direction to take. “Where are we going?”
“The job hasn’t changed. We’re going to find Oliver. And we’re going to find some goddamned answers.”
Grim silence embraced Oliver and his companions as they made their way along the bank of the Sorrowful River. When they had crossed through the Veil from Canna Island, they had emerged on a rocky slope not far from the water. Blue Jay had transformed himself into a bird and taken to the air to survey their surroundings. He had returned with the news that not only did the river valley become fertile and wooded to the south, but that he knew the area and believed they were not far from a place called Twillig’s Gorge.
Kitsune had balked at this. She believed Twillig’s Gorge was only a story, a legend amongst legends, but Blue Jay insisted it was real. So they had set out, following the river as it ran through the valley and then into a forest of whispering leaves and cool shade.
The longer Oliver spent in the forest, the more troubled he became. It was peaceful here, even pleasant, but it simply felt wrong to him. It was jarringly discordant, moving from the carnage of the battle they’d fought in his world to the gentle respite provided here, beyond the Veil. He knew that it could not last, that there would be fear and blood to spare in the days to come. But to experience the calm beauty of this wood and the rushing river was unsettling.
They all felt it. He knew that they did. But none of them would speak of it. Blue Jay led the way, the wind making the feathers tied in his hair dance, and he rarely looked back to see that they were following. Oliver and Kitsune were side by side-though as close as she was, still she seemed far away from him. Frost trailed them all, sometimes falling back so far that he was nearly out of sight. The winter man’s face was a frozen mask. Icy mist trailed from his eyes, but he said nothing.
Amongst the four of them, fewer than a hundred words had been spoken since they had arrived here. Oliver understood. Jenny Greenteeth had betrayed them, and Kitsune had been forced to kill her friend. Gong Gong, the Black Dragon of Storms, was dead. Professor Koenig, the man they had gone to Canna Island to meet, had been murdered by the traitorous Jenny. Oliver blamed himself for the professor’s death. If he had never tracked him down, the old man would still be alive.
But what choice did he have? He was under a death warrant, an Intruder on this side of the Veil. If he could not do as Koenig had done, and persuade the monarchs of the Two Kingdoms to spare his life, he would soon be dead.
Yet Oliver felt certain that the future weighed even more heavily upon his friends than the past. There was a conspiracy afoot in the Two Kingdoms, a clandestine effort by forces unknown to eradicate all Borderkind from the world. The Myth Hunters had been pursuing any creature that could still freely move back and forth through the Veil-from the world of legend to the human realm-and many had already lost their lives. Others had gone into hiding. The Borderkind could not count on aid from the legitimate authorities of either kingdom, neither could they know who was trustworthy.
An underground resistance had begun to form, but those with whom Frost, Oliver, and Kitsune had contact had already been captured or killed. All save Blue Jay. The time had come for the surviving Borderkind to take action. Frost had fulfilled his obligations to Oliver. He would be determined now to discover who was responsible for the slaughter of his fellow Borderkind, to stop the killings and take vengeance. Oliver had to assume that Kitsune and Blue Jay would accompany Frost.
And he would be alone.
In his own world, back home in Kitteridge, Maine, Oliver’s father had been murdered by the Sandman, who had then abducted his sister, Collette. But why had he not simply killed her? What the Sandman wanted with her and what had driven the monster to kill their father in the first place, he had no idea. But Oliver had no choice except to find Collette. And that did not even begin to address the question of how he would get near enough to the monarchs of Euphrasia and Yucatazca to prove he was worthy of their trust. Finding Collette had to come first.
Oliver had not yet inquired about the origin of the name of the Sorrowful River, but he found it apt. As beautiful and calming as their surroundings were, he was not soothed. There was room for little else but sorrow in his heart, though he managed to find space for dread.
Soon enough, they would reach Twillig’s Gorge and they would rest. And after that their paths would diverge, and Oliver would be forced to make his way alone.
The Sword of Hunyadi hung heavily at his side. Though he had acquitted himself well with it back on Canna Island, he felt foolish carrying the thing. He was no warrior. No hero. He was just a smartass New England lawyer who wished he was an actor.
He wanted to scream, just to break the silence of his companions…the friends who would soon abandon him. But how could he blame them? They were in just as much danger as he was; they and all their kind.
There was nothing for Oliver to do but keep walking and enjoy their company until their paths diverged.
Oliver had tied his jacket around his waist. Even with the cool breeze and the shade of the trees, he felt warm, but he would not leave the jacket behind. Experience had taught him that the world beyond the Veil was impossible to predict. He ran a hand over the stubble on his cheeks and rubbed at the corners of his eyes. It had been long enough that he could no longer recall what it felt like to get a decent night’s sleep. He would have given almost anything to be able to lie down there on the riverbank, use his coat as a pillow, and sleep with the gentle shushing of the wind in the branches as his lullaby. But there was to be no respite for him. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.