"The places where the boundaries of a world grow thin aren't stable," he said at last, "and they usually aren't pa.s.sable in any physical sense. The vast majority of such breaches only allow dreams to slip through, or at best, fragmented whispers. Native shamans back home held their dream-quests at such locations, weaving narratives from the fleeting impressions they received from other worlds. But eventually such a breach heals, or shifts location, and dreams stop coming.

"Rarely, a breach becomes so wide that for a short while physical objects can pa.s.s through it. This is what the Shadows call a portal. They are volatile things, unstable and unpredictable. One day a portal might become wide enough for a man on horseback to gallop through it. The next day there will be no sign that it was ever there.

"The year that war ended, North Anna River was running low due to a recent drought, and on my way home I cut across a tributary that would normally have been impa.s.sable. And I ran into such a portal. Never saw it coming. There was a fleeting moment of dread as I approached, and my horse was clearly anxious-you can sense a breach when you get that close-and then suddenly I was swallowed up by the most fearsome darkness a man can imagine. I understand now that what lies between the worlds is a more terrible emptiness than that which separates the stars . . . but back then, all I knew was that I was lost and terrified. So was my horse. She bucked and threw me, and I fell to earth a few yards from where the darkness had first enveloped us. Or so I thought. But the land that had been dry a moment before was now knee-deep in water, and even as I struggled to my feet, coughing up the water I'd inhaled when I landed, I knew that something was terribly wrong.

"I soon learned the truth, which was that I wasn't in my world any longer, but a dark and terrible simulacrum, where people and things looked familiar but their essences were twisted beyond all recognition. In this new world the war hadn't ended yet, and Richmond was controlled by Loyalists, so showing up in a Continental uniform did not make for an auspicious start. By the time I learned enough of what was going on to save my neck from the gallows, the Shadows had gotten wind of my arrival. They despise anything they can't control-that is a part of their nature-and the thought that a man might dare to cross between the worlds without their say-so was deeply offensive to them. The Shadowlord of Richmond became my nemesis, and I spent months dodging his Hunters, unable to get back to my arrival point. By the time I finally managed it, the breach had disappeared. I had to travel hundreds of miles to find another one, hidden deep within the woods where native shamans gathered. Which is a story unto itself.

"After crossing back to my world I headed straight for home, feverish with the desire to be reunited with my family. But when I arrived, I discovered that my house had been burned to the ground. Oddly, it appeared to have happened some time ago; there was already a few years' worth of vegetative growth rooted in the ashes. But how could that be? And where were my wife and daughter?

"I scoured the countryside in panic, but there was no sign of them anywhere. Then I headed into Richmond proper, where I learned the terrible truth. In the months that I'd spent struggling to stay alive in this G.o.dforsaken world, striving to evade the Shadows long enough to find my way to an unguarded portal, five years had pa.s.sed back home. One night brigands had fallen upon my house, and-"

He shut his eyes, his brow creasing in pain as he remembered. We waited in respectful silence.

"I should have been there to protect them," he whispered. "And if I'd come back the right way I could have been there in time. I know that now." His voice trailed off into silence.

Quietly I asked, "What do you mean, the right way?"

He opened his eyes; the agony in their depths made my heart lurch. "You are part of the world you were born into. Your body knows it, your mind and soul know it . . . the whole universe knows it. When you leave your homeworld, you leave a gaping wound behind. And when you arrive in a new one, you're bringing a foreign element into a perfectly balanced system. The first time you cross the disturbance is minimal, but after that each pa.s.sage becomes more difficult, and more damaging. In time even your own home world may reject you, no longer recognizing you as its own. Thus, with each crossing, there is a greater danger of lost time, scrambled memories, the chance of arriving in the wrong sphere altogether . . . even of being trapped between the worlds, unable to enter any sphere ever again.

"The Shadows long ago discovered that if they sent people in both directions at once, binding the two pa.s.sages together, a safe crossing could be stabilized. I don't really know how it works. No one outside their Guild does. All we know is that they've perfected the art of orchestrating balanced transfers, to the point where it's rare for any traveler to suffer a time dilation of more than a few days, provided they pa.s.s through one of the Shadows' Gates. And mental damage is very, very rare." He paused. "Hence their monopoly over interworld commerce."

"But if all that's needed is to trade bodies back and forth," Devon said, "Why can't anyone do that? Why do they need the Shadows?"

"Because it's impossible to coordinate such a thing without being able to communicate freely between two worlds. And the Shadows are the only ones who can manage that."

"Why can they do it, when no one else can?" I asked.

The pale eyes fixed on me. "Whatever the metaphysical mark we bear, that connects us to our homeworld, does not exist for inanimate objects. So they can be carried back and forth with no issue. Dead bodies, likewise, can move from sphere to sphere without adverse consequences."

I breathed in sharply. "Are you saying the Shadows are . . . dead?"

He nodded. "Dead, and also alive. Trapped halfway between the two states, they belong to no world, and thus are accepted by all. It's a gruesome and unnatural existence, but without them interworld commerce could not exist. So I suppose you could say they've earned their right to power." There was bitterness in his voice.

I said it softly: "You don't believe that."

He shrugged. "I was a revolutionary. This is a world where revolutions rarely succeed. France, America, Russia . . . the popular uprisings that reshaped Terra Colonna all failed in this world. Here, it's Gifts that make or break a war, and once the n.o.bility get enough of a chokehold on society to harvest all Gifted children for their own ranks, common men don't stand a chance. When the worlds finally go to war with each other-as I believe they will some day-it will be a similar story, only on a cosmic scale. Eventually the Shadowlords will rule everything. And you see what kind of social order they prefer."

I thought about the abbies, the children being torn from their parents' arms, the two Seers who had spoken so casually of cleansing a world. I shivered.

Then Isaac spoke. "You said that you arrived home five years after you left. But now you're back here, what, three centuries later? How did that happen?"

Sebastian sighed. "I was mad with grief. To the point where I could no longer stand to live in the world where my wife and daughter had died. And I wanted revenge. So I found a way to cross back. I told myself I would kill the Master Shadow of Richmond, he who had prevented me from going home. And if I died in that attempt, so be it. No one who had failed his family so miserably as I had deserved to live.

"But I didn't understand how the portals worked, back then. How the negative effect intensifies with each crossing. It cost me twenty-three years to return here. By then the Shadowlord I'd come to kill had been promoted to the regional Guildmastership in Luray. So I went there." He paused. "Looking back, I think I hungered for my own death even more than for vengeance."

"You killed Guildmaster Durand," Isaac said.

The Green Man looked at him for a long moment. Something pa.s.sed between them that I could not interpret. Like when two people take out their cellphones and transfer pictures to each other, while no one around them has any idea what they're looking at.

"Master Durand died," he said steadily. "I was in Luray when it happened."

"Did you ever try going home again?" Devon asked, trying to steer the conversation back to safer ground.

Sebastian nodded solemnly as he turned back to us. "Once. By then I understood the price I would have to pay. But it no longer mattered. There was nothing in either world that I cared about enough to fear the loss of it." He paused. "I arrived in 1865. Richmond was alight again. Only this time her own people had set the fire. I walked through fields of blood-soaked mud where brother had fought brother, striving to tear apart the very nation I had risked my life to build.

"I had thought I could know no greater pain than the loss of my wife and child. I discovered I was wrong."

"But the secession failed." Rita's tone was unusually gentle. "The nation wasn't torn apart."

"I know." He nodded. "I get news from home whenever I can. That's why I came when Ethan sent word that you were here. Fortuitous, as it turned out."

"Do you think you'd ever go back home?" I asked.

He shook his head. "I doubt I would survive it. The last trip cost me far more than time. My presence has become an offense to this world. That will be true anywhere I go. The day might come when I exited one world and would not be able to enter another. Which would leave me . . . well, you've seen what lies between."

I remembered the darkness I had sensed when we pa.s.sed through the arch, and I shuddered.

"What else did it cost you?" Rita asked. "Besides time?" When he didn't answer right away she added hurriedly, "It's all right if you don't want to talk about it-"

"No. I do. I do. You need to know these things. No one should travel between the worlds without knowing the risk."

He gestured down toward the ground by his feet. It took me a moment to realize why.

I heard Rita gasp.

The gra.s.s beneath his feet had wilted and browned while he was talking to us. The plants climbing up the log had been reduced to shriveled black ribbons. All around him, in a circle a yard wide, every single living thing had died.

A chill ran up my spine.

"I am no longer compatible with this world," he said in a hollow voice. "Or any other. Animals can hold their own in my presence, but plants are more primitive, and easily succ.u.mb. Next time . . . it's possible men will not fare so well when they are near me."

I looked back at the area surrounding his cave. How stark it was! Not a single tree grew near the entrance. Not a single plant flanked the path he and I had walked together, nor were there seedlings struggling to take root in the dirt near his fire. Surrounded by a sea of life, Sebastian's home was an island of death.

Suddenly a lot of things came into focus. The strange t.i.tle he had adopted. The legends about his supernatural affinity with the forest, his ability to meld into trees. He'd probably spread those legends himself. Camouflage. Where would you go looking, if you wanted to hunt a man who was one with the forest? Not on a barren mountainside devoid of foliage.

"Come," he said suddenly, rising to his feet. "Enough for tonight. Jessica has had some sleep, but the rest of you haven't. You don't want to go into battle without being well-rested: Trust me on that." He indicated the cave. "There are blankets in there; take whatever you need to make yourselves comfortable. I'll wake you in the morning."

I got up to follow the others, but before I took my first step Sebastian said, "Jessica, your clothes should be dry by now. Why don't you help me take them down?"

Help him take two pieces of clothing down from a clothesline? Was he serious? I glanced at where my things were hanging, so far from the fire one could barely make out the outline of them. And then I got it.

"Sure," I said, and I followed him in that direction.

My clothes, as it turned out, were not completely dry yet, but with the others rummaging in the cave for blankets and the darkness of midnight closing in, we had as much privacy as was possible in this place.

He took out a folded piece of paper from his coat. It was a large piece when opened out, and drawn on it in red and black ink were a series of diagrams. The first few looked like the floor plans of a building. Beneath that were some spider-like sketches that reminded me of a metro map. Everything was labeled, but in the darkness I couldn't read it. Should have kept my flashlight, I thought dryly.

"Those are the plans for Shadowcrest," he said, "as best my memory serves. The route labeled in black is the way I travelled when I escaped my own imprisonment there. Follow my steps back to their source and you will come to the place where your brother is likely being held. The details in red indicate things that others have reported to me since then. I can't vouch for their accuracy, but I included them in case you are forced to choose another path. Better unverified information than none at all." He paused. "This is what you wanted from me, yes?"

I suddenly had a lump in my throat, that made it hard to speak. "Yes," I whispered. "It's . . . more than I dared hope for. Thank you." I looked up at him. "But why talk to me alone? We're all in this together."

He shook his head. "Three of you are in this together. One is a boy you picked up en route, whom you know nothing about. And yes, I know your instinct is telling you to trust him-that's clear from the way you look at him-but trust me, people from this world may look just like the folks back home, and we may want them to be like the folks back home, but there's more dividing our two worlds than a mystical barrier. You have no idea where his loyalties lie. You can't begin to name the prejudices that drive him. You don't know his real feelings about what you're planning to do. So for your safety, and that of your friends, you should part from him as soon as possible. And until that time, share no information with him upon which your life might depend." When I said nothing, he put a finger beneath my chin and tipped my face up until I was looking in his eyes. "Promise me that, Jessica." When I was still silent he pressed, "for Tommy's sake."

Tears welled up in the corners of my eyes. Finally I nodded, because he was right. I didn't want him to be right, but I knew in my heart that he was.

"Good, then." He glanced back to make sure we were still alone, then took a small object out of his pocket. It was a gla.s.s sphere, maybe an inch in diameter, hanging from a thin chain. Clear gla.s.s with tiny golden threads running through it, that glittered in the moonlight. "I want you to have this. Guard it with your life, because if the Shadows find out you have it that will indeed be the price."

"What is it?" I murmured.

Silently he placed the marble in the center of his open palm and focused his attention on it. After a few seconds, ribbons of golden light began to swirl out from the depths of the gla.s.s. A glowing pattern perhaps three feet across took shape in the air above his palm. Familiar, it was so familiar . . . could it be the pattern I had seen at the Gate? No, not quite that, but something similar.

Then he closed his hand about the marble and the light disappeared.

"The portals don't actually transport you from one world to another; they simply allow you to enter the formless chaos that lies between the worlds, from which you exit elsewhere. Some worlds, like this one, have a powerful attraction, and tend to draw travelers to them, but if you want to go anywhere else the journey is much more precarious. Many have become lost between the worlds, trapped in a terrible darkness from which there is no return." He held up the marble before me. "This is a codex. It's a kind of fetter the Shadows create to facilitate travel between the worlds. Activate this one when you step through the Gate and it will help you reach Terra Colonna safely." A corner of his mouth twitched. "No guarantee on the time frame."

He took my hand, pressed the marble into my palm, and closed my fingers over it. "I risked much to obtain this," he said, a tremor of emotion in his voice. "Now I give it to you, for your brother's sake. Guard it well."

I stared at him. For a moment I was speechless. "I can't," I said finally. "I can't take this from you."

"I want you to have it."

"But if you did want to go home someday . . . wouldn't you need it?"

He touched a hand gently to my cheek. There was a terrible sadness in his eyes. "I told you before: I'll never walk that road again. Better this should be in the hands of someone who can use it. Someone whose family is still alive, and needs them." His hand fell away from my face. "I failed to rescue my loved ones, Jessica. Let me seek my redemption in helping yours."

Tears welled up in my eyes. "Sebastian, I can't ever-"

"Shhh." He put a finger to my lips to silence me. "Just say thank you. I ask for nothing more."

I whispered it from the depths of my heart: "Thank you."

He turned away before I could say anything more, and probably that was a good thing. My throat had become so tight from emotion I couldn't have gotten another word out.

After he left me I stood there for a long while, feeling the weight of the codex in my hand. The weight of this whole mission on my shoulders. Tears began to flow freely down my face, but they were good tears. The kind that wash away pain.

Tomorrow the final leg of this journey would begin. Tomorrow I would rescue my brother or die trying.

Slipping the chain over my head, I dropped the codex inside my shirt so no one would see it. Then I headed back to the cave to see if I could get a few more hours of sleep before we started back to Luray.

24.

VICTORIA FOREST.

VIRGINIA PRIME.

THE BLACK PLAIN beneath my feet feels solid enough, but this time I know that it isn't. Beneath my toes I can sense the thrumming of a terrible chaos, that measureless void where nothing is real, which my dreaming mind has frozen into solid form. The realm between the worlds. That's what my dreams have always been about. I sensed the truth without understanding it. I witnessed a multiplicity of worlds without knowing their names.

How much of what I see is real, how much is metaphor, how much is just illusion? The gla.s.sy surface beneath my feet feels solid enough, but I sense that's just a feature of the dreamscape, an image my mind supplied to mask a reality I can't yet comprehend. Now that I don't need the mask as much as I once did, it's becoming less substantial. Reality is seeping into my dreams. I recall the darkness that engulfed me as we pa.s.sed through the Gate, and I shudder. Will it come to the point where my dreams deposit me directly into that void, without any familiar images to serve as anchor?

All about me I see doors. This time they all look like the entrance to the Green Man's cave, burlap curtains hung from stone archways. The stone surrounding them doesn't end suddenly, but bleeds off into the darkness on all sides. And the curtains waver as I look at them, as if they are fading in and out of existence. It's as if the whole place is becoming less solid as I look at it. Less real. Clearly the constructs of my dreaming mind are beginning to break down. But what lies behind them: reality or madness?

I walk to the nearest curtain and pull it aside. Beyond it I see a dark room with a small boy huddled inside. Tommy. I watch him for a moment as he sleeps, his body twitching like a kitten's as some unseen nightmare wracks his brain, and my heart aches. Is this a world that is merely possible, or one that actually exists? If I had the right codex and a Gate to transport me, could I travel to the place where he's sleeping, right now, take him up in my arms and bring him home? Or am I only dreaming things that might come to pa.s.s, but which, like Schrodinger's cat, are not yet realized?

I walk to another curtain, but I don't open it. I don't need to. The worlds that are cl.u.s.tered together will all be similar; the ones that are farthest from me show the greatest variance. So if I walk for miles in this place, what will I find? A world where Australopithecus Afarensis rules supreme? Where soaring pterodactyls still fill the sky? Or perhaps where the landscape is so alien and the life forms so incomprehensible that I won't be able to make any sense of it at all. Behind me I can see that I've left a thin trail of golden fire, marking the path I have been walking. It reminds me of the pattern I sensed within the arch back home, just before the Shadow pa.s.sed through it. Are the two connected? Will manipulating one affect the other? Or is the similarity a fantasy, conjured by a mind that is desperate to discover meaning in such things?

Too many questions. Too many questions. I sense that the truth is out there, waiting for me to discover it, but I'm not sure that I can face it and still remain anch.o.r.ed in reality. A world needs boundaries. A soul needs limits. In a place where everything is possible, nothing can exist.

No wonder dreamers go mad.

I woke trembling; it took me a minute to remember where I was. Fortunately Sebastian had brought some embers into the cave just before we all retired, so we weren't in total darkness. By their dim orange light I could see three dark, blanket-swathed bundles on the floor. It took my sleep-addled brain a few seconds to remember that Sebastian had insisted I take the bed. I'd been wounded, he said, and needed it more than he did.

The pterodactyl was asleep on my chest. Apparently it liked me.

As I looked around the room, it struck me that something was wrong. Why were there only three people on the floor? I could see the spot where a fourth blanket was lying, but there was no one underneath it. Who was missing?

I pushed aside my blanket gently, nudging the snoozing creature (bird? reptile? dinosaur?) off my chest as gently as possible, then sat up and looked around. Everything looked normal, except for the missing person.

I got up and padded out of the cave as softly as I could, trying not to trip over any sleeping bodies. Maybe Sebastian had just gone off to do some hermit-type errand. He'd probably berate me for worrying, when I finally found him.

Hopefully that's all it was.

Most of the sky was still ink-black, stars glittering overhead like diamonds. But to the east the first light of dawn was rising, and a thin line of pale blue was edging up from behind the mountains, outlining them in dramatic silhouette. As a city girl I wasn't used to such sights, and for a moment I was so entranced I almost forgot what I had come out here for.

Almost.

I headed to the campfire area to see if anyone was there. Along the way I caught sight of a figure standing off to one side of the path, near the edge of the shelf. He was staring at the sunrise, so focused in his observation that he seemed unaware of my presence.

Isaac.

Conflicting emotions churned in the pit of my stomach. On the one hand I felt overwhelming grat.i.tude toward him. Without him, Devon would have probably been killed in the raid, and G.o.d alone knew where Rita and I would have wound up after that. On the other hand, Morgana had talked about things she could only know if there was a spy reporting to her, and how many people in our party were in a position to fill that role? Seyer had suggested that she could influence whether I went back to the Warrens or not, and wasn't it Isaac who had tried to talk me out of doing that? It was too much coincidence for comfort.