save as a faint, flickering shadow. He took care not to look too closely at any slithering, crawling thing on the edges of his vision, focusing instead on his destination—on Dornrise, high on its promontory above the sea.
Would Nelle be there?
He reached the ruinous gates of the great house and plunged on up the drive. The labyrinthine brambles of the overgrown roses seemed to shiver and hiss and tremble as he passed through them, but they made no move against him, and he saw no active sign of the Thorn Maiden.
She was near, though—he felt her presence, awake and eager.
He navigated the narrow path through the brambles to the kitchen door. When he tried the latch, it wouldn’t give. Living vines had grown around the latch and hinges, fastening it shut with a force like stone.
Soran stepped back, studying the vines. He couldn’t break through them in his own strength. He’d have to use one of his spells.
Reaching into the front of his robes, he withdrew one of the folded pages torn from his book, unfolded it, and studied the words in the weird half-lit gloom of the nightmare realm. It was a powerful incantation and should be enough for the purpose he required.
“Dilaren vamnal,” he read softly. “Rel arrea nomot malar.”
The words burned to life on the page, brilliant, almost blinding. He flinched but kept reading through to the end, his mind and soul melding with the written words to draw magic into physical reality and shape it according to his will.
Long, curved, razor-sharp claws sprang from the tips of his nilarium fingers. He nearly cried out at the sudden shooting pain, but that might break the spell before it was complete. With an effort of will he read on to the end, finishing the spell. It should last—for a little while, it should last.
The spellpaper crumbled and fell to the ground in a pile of drifting dust.
Facing the door, Soran drew himself up straight. Pain throbbed up his fingers beneath the nilarium coating, pulsing along his arms and through his shoulders and neck to burst in the back of his head. But transformational spells were always painful. Pain simply meant the spell was working.
With a snarl, he ripped through the vines as if they were cobwebs. At first the briars hissed and shivered and tried to fight back, fresh tendrils shooting out to replace those torn apart, but soon enough they retreated under the assault, skittering away along the wall.
Soran grabbed the doorlatch again and entered the kitchen.
Nelle lay in a mound of skirts in the middle of the floor.
His heart lurched to his throat and lodged there, unable to beat. He stood in the open doorway as though turned to stone, all life, will, and strength drained out of him. Then, with a flooding surge of energy, he sprang forward, leaving the door open behind him, and rushed to her, collapsing to his knees. He reached for her, only just remembering his spell claws in time to pull back before they tore into her soft flesh.
“Peronelle?” His voice was almost inaudible. Was she breathing? He couldn’t tell. Placing his hands on either side of her, he lowered his head to her chest, listening for a heartbeat. At first he couldn’t feel one, but . . . there! There it was! Thin, but present. She was still alive.
He drew back. His fingers gripped the floor, claws tearing into the stone. “Peronelle,” he said again. “Can you hear me? You must wake up!”
She wasn’t there. Her body might still be alive, but she herself was not present.
She walked somewhere in the Noswraith world.
But the Thorn Maiden hadn’t gotten to her yet. A quick inspection of her limbs told Soran as much. He found no wounds, no slicing cuts. She was whole, for the moment at least. He had to find her. Quickly.
Gathering his courage, Soran rose. As he turned toward the door, he spied something lying on the ground not far away. A book. One he recognized.
“No,” he breathed. “Please, no!”
He lurched across the room and crouched over the little volume lying beside one of the big empty ovens as though dropped there. It was the blank spellbook. When he turned it over and paged through it, he saw the used-up remnants of a spell.
Maybe it wasn’t what he thought. Maybe she hadn’t done it, hadn’t foolishly used her magic despite all his warnings.
He looked back at the girl lying several feet away. She probably didn’t realize she was