He heard men shouting. But they were running the wrong way, running to the smith’s.

“To me!” he cried. “To me!”

The creature opened its mouth wide and drew in a hoarse breath. It turned its head toward the door of the house.

“No, you won’t,” said Barg. “You filthy abomination, you’ll feel my steel first.” He let out a yell and, for the second time today, charged, his blade held high.

The creature took a step toward him.

Barg brought his blade down in a cut that would have cleaved a man from collarbone to belly.

But the creature simply grabbed the blade in midswing, reached out with its free, rough hand, and took Barg by the face.

Barg struggled in its stony grasp. And then he was slipping, twisting, falling into another place entirely.


Miles away, Sugar crouched in the moon shadows at the edge of the forest and looked across a river at the farmstead of Hogan the Koramite. The man she knew as Horse.

“Is the water deep?” whispered Legs.

“I don’t know,” said Sugar.

“Do you think he will help?”

“This is where Mother sent us,” said Sugar. But in her heart she knew the chances of him helping them were slim. If Horse harbored them, he put his whole family at risk. But if he delivered them to the hunt, he, even as a Koramite, would earn a fortune.

“I think I’m wicked,” said Legs.

“You’re not wicked,” said Sugar.

“I should have listened to the wisterwife.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Sometimes, when I held the charm, she would call to me like I was lost.”

Sugar looked at her brother. She’d never heard of such a thing. “She called to you?”

“In my mind. I could see her. She was beautiful. And sometimes I could see something else with her. Something made of earth, dark and wild and . . .”

Sugar waited while Legs found the words.

“Something in her voice,” he said, “it was horrible and wonderful. Every time I heard her, fear stabbed me because I didn’t want someone to think I was like old Chance. I didn’t want to be mad and taken to the altars for hearing voices in my head. And so I never answered. She said that the fullness of time had come. She promised to make me whole. Promised all sorts of things. Lunatic promises. But I was too scared. I think she wanted to help.”

Sugar thought about the wisterwife charm. All this time they’d thought it was a blessing, a gift. It was an annual ritual for most people to fashion a Creator’s wreath and hang it above their door to draw the blessings of the wisterwives. It was fashioned with rock and leaf, feathers and bones. Many set out a gift of food or cast it upon the waters. But Regret had his servants as well.