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Her hand, trembling in mine, turned to sand.
My fingers closed on grains dribbling away.
She was gone.
Gone.
I had lost her.
My thoughts shattered. I could not see or hear or think.
Then I heard Andevai’s voice, shaken and hoarse. “It’s worse than I thought. I feel the wind of the spirit world. This is a crossing place, and it is open. Why haven’t you gone down already? Get me rope! Hurry! Catherine, speak to me.”
“I lost Bee.” My voice was scarcely more than a whimper. It was all the breath I had.
“I hear you, Catherine. I’m coming. Hold on.” His voice changed timbre as he turned his head away. “Cat’s down there, but she’s fading.”
Lord Marius’s voice was sharp. “Is she dying?”
“No. She’s fading into the spirit world. It shouldn’t be possible for humans to pass from this world into the spirit world except at the cross-quarter days.”
“Are these the cold mages’ secrets? That they can move at will between this world and the abode of the ancestors? The ancient poets spoke of spiritwalkers. I never thought it was true.”
“I’m tied in. Lower me down. Catherine, hold on!”
His body appeared as a shadow, covering half the lit circle. I felt, as on my own body, skin parting beneath a slicing edge of glass as he cut himself. Blood’s hot stinging scent drenched me as in a waterfall. Did a cold mage’s blood have more power than that of an ordinary person? On the threshold between this world and the other side, the force of his blood swelled and surged like the ocean tide, for it was the essence of life in the undiluted form of salt and iron. I suddenly understood why I had not crossed. My blood had opened the path, but the stinking spew of muck we’d fallen into had coated my skin, sealing away my blood.
A rope’s end spun down before my face. It bobbed, bounced, swayed. Clumps of dirt peppered the muck around me like grapeshot, loosened from the slime-dried stone shaft.
“Catherine! I’m almost down. Hang on.”
“I have to follow Bee. I can’t lose her, too.”
I scoured away the mud above my eye. Pain burned where my fingers gouged out the clogged wound. Liquid pushed, trickled, and then streamed down my face.
His voice rang closer now, almost on me. Astonished. “You’re all light!”
A rich fat drop of my blood struck the slime in which I floundered.
“I’m here! Grab my hand, Catherine.”
His fingers brushed my hair, but his touch was as insubstantial as mist.
His next words came as from the far side of the world. “The gate’s closing. I can’t grasp you. And I can’t cross. Catherine, I will find a way. I promise you, I’ll find you—”
I fell through.
10
Into a river whose rushing waters tumbled me over and dragged me under. Skirts tangling in my legs, I pulled upward but my hands could not break the flashing surface. I sank into my past.
I am six years old and the water closes over my nose and mouth as my mother’s strong hand slips from mine. The furious current wrenches her away.
My lungs were empty. I was drowning. The current dragged me toward a shadow that resolved into a vast maw rimmed with razor teeth. The spirit world was going to devour me.
Fingers with a grip like death fastened around my wrist. I thrashed.
“Cat! Don’t fight me!”
