mountain road curved down to the hamlet of Gray’s Crossing. Behind him rose Starhaven’s black silhouette.
Even though Nicodemus had seldom left the academy and never traveled this road at night, he noticed little of the dark beauty; his mind was too distracted by recent memories and new emotions.
At first he felt only exhilaration. His cacography had helped him escape! But then he turned a bend and saw a rotting log that resembled a woman’s body, curled up and facing away. A shiver ran down his body. The toppled trunk grew larger in his vision, revealing pale mushrooms scattered like warts across the wood, their roots eating into the rot.
Devin’s half-crushed face flashed before his eyes. He tried to think of the emerald, but his fear and grief would not dissipate. Devin and Kyran were dead. The demon Typhon had turned John into an unwitting killer. Far worse, the monstrous Fellwroth was still alive. The damage Kyran had done to the metal golem was of no consequence. Fellwroth might already be forming another body.
Nicodemus closed his eyes and again sought the emerald’s image, but again he failed. Fellwroth would keep coming, no matter how many times he escaped, no matter how many golems he deconstructed.
And yet, when the golem had grabbed his throat, he had heard the emerald’s voice as his own childhood voice. He had learned that the gem was the missing part of himself. He had learned that his nightmares had contained visions of Fellwroth’s living body.
But could that knowledge do him any good? He wasn’t the Halcyon. Prophecy dictated that the Halcyon would be born with a Braid-shaped keloid. Nicodemus’s keloid had been created after his birth, when his father had branded him with the emerald.
Worse, Nicodemus still had no idea where Fellwroth’s true body mightbe. True, he knew it was lying in a cavern with a standing stone…and inhabited by nightmare turtles? It was nonsensical.
His fear grew and the keloid began to burn again. The scars grew so hot he feared they might singe his hair. He paused to fan the back of his neck.
While he waited for the keloid to cool, he pulled the Seed of Finding from his belt-purse and tore off its encircling root. As before, part of the artifact melted and then recongealed on the back of his hand as barklike skin. Now Deirdre could find him.
However, the Fool’s Ladder had landed her on Starhaven’s eastern side. She would have to make a long hike around Starhaven to the road Nicodemus now traveled. Even if the druid had set out at once, she could not find him before morning. Until then, he needed a safe hiding place.
He started down the road again, hoping to reach Gray’s Crossing quickly.
But the night was not the same; he was not the same. The forest loomed larger and blacker. In the blue moon’s light, once familiar meadows became otherworldly landscapes. All around him lurked the loneliness of the road. He shook his head and tried to push away thoughts of Kyran and Devin.
But the night was not to be denied; it had his imagination as an ally. Everything changed. A stump took on a lycanthrope’s shape; a leafless branch opened gnarled fingers and hung ready to grab; the wind in the trees began to talk of Chthonic footsteps.
For most of his life, Nicodemus had dreamed of venturing into these woods, of battling monsters on this very road. But he never guessed that he could feel so alone, or that it could be so dark.
And then the blue moon slipped behind a cloud, leaving only the white moon in the sky. The world grew darker still.
Every falling leaf made him jump. Every snapping twig conjured images of lurking horrors. He felt as if his heart were beating an inch behind his eyes. The road seemed to shake. He dropped the Index and fell to his knees.
Behind boughs and under bushes, nightblue terrors grew legs and teeth; they slunk through the tall meadow grass and hid in the shadows. They began to chant in croaking voices, telling stories of how they had drifted among the woods as impalpable wraiths for many long years. They chanted about how Nicodemus’s long-awaited journey on the night road was making them stronger.
The night creatures congregated at the forest’s edge. And when he looked away, they darted across the road to the trees on the other side. They went mostly unseen, but every so often he glimpsed a gnarled elbow or two shining violet