Icy claws sank into my skull and one of Flynn’s memories oozed through the wound with the ghostly rattle of Warden chains echoing in my ears. It took me a few painful seconds to stitch together the flickers and snatches of whispered words, but the moment I did I knew without a single doubt that the House of Silence members present at the Glade had not followed Lord Cahir’s troops to help defend Annesport. Almost no one outside of the Harvesters knew the House had marched alongside Cahir with their eyes set on Longreach, not Annesport. Annesport was a secondary concern, but why exactly eluded me. The memory had ended abruptly the moment the explanation had started.

  Suddenly Kiki loosed an abrupt squeak. HOLD ON TIGHTLY!

  Instinctively, I did just that. The next thing I knew, my stomach was pressing against back of my throat as we went vertical and the ground hurtled toward me much faster than any sane person would ever want to see outside the comfort of a rollercoaster. As fast as everything had occurred, my thinking self didn’t quite catch on to what was going on until we were low enough I realized I could vaguely see terrain through the fog below us, and at that point the only thing going through my head came from a youtube video on pilot safety, a short loop of Bitching Betty saying, “Altitude. Altitude. Pull. Up. Pull. Up.”

  And then suddenly Kiki did just that and I was crushed against her back the entire time she traded vertical velocity for horizontal. When the color came back and the sparkles in my vision stopped, I breathlessly gasped, “What the fuck was that, Kiki?”

  WE ARE NOT ALONE IN THE SKY.

  “What?” I would’ve popped the retaining strap on my rifle if I thought I could ride and fire at the same time, but without a saddle, that wasn’t going to happen. “What else is up here? A dragon?”

  NO. I THOUGHT I KILLED HIM WHEN I ESCAPED. MY CAGE MATE SURVIVED. I DO NOT THINK HE SAW US. HE WAS HEADING TO WHERE WE WERE CAGED.

  I stared at the back of Kiki’s head as we hurtled along only a few feet above the fog. “Wait, you’re telling me there’s another skyferret out here? Just how far out here can you see?”

  I grunted when Kiki abruptly rose, keeping just above the treeline of the hill as we climbed, nape of the earth style. She didn’t answer until she’d skittered to a halt on the ground just short of exposing ourselves to potential sentries in the direction of Longreach.

  FAR ENOUGH TO SEE THREATS BEFORE THEY SEE ME, SAM. HE WILL SEE ME, SMELL ME ON THE AIR. IF I STAY, YOU WILL BE CAUGHT. DO NOT WORRY. YOU ARE VERY HARD TO SEE. HARDER TO NOTICE THAN ANY PERSON I’VE MET. YOU WILL BE FINE.

  Now a bit worn out from all the excitement, I slid off Kiki’s back and stumbled a bit before getting my footing again. Kiki’s attention darted back and forth nervously before returning to me in a way that suggested uncertainty.

  SAM, PROMISE ME.

  I turned to the skyferret with a brave smile. “They won’t catch me, Kiki. I’m sneaky like that.”

  NO. NOT THAT. IF YOU CHOOSE TO GO WHERE I WAS CAGED, FREE HIM. IF HE CANNOT BE FREED— IF HE SERVES THE CAGE PEOPLE, KILL HIM.

  The sudden vehemence she finished with set me back half a step. “Okay, I’ll do that if I can.”

  THANK YOU, SAM.

  As she shuffled about to leave, I held up a small square of violently orange cloth. “Can you see this from far enough away you won’t be spotted?”

  Kiki squinted. IT IS A VERY UNNATURAL COLOR. MOST LIKELY YES.

  “When I’m done, I’ll come back here and signal with it then. Otherwise, remember what we agreed on with the shells.”

  Kiki made an unhappy warble. I WILL. GOOD LUCK, SAM.

  “Wait, what’s his name?”

  Her black eyes darted to me, glistening.

  RIAN.

  And then she blurred past me, back over the fog we’d just flown over. I stood there for a few seconds watching her shrink from view before turning and looking in Longreach’s direction. Well, at least I’m walking along the hill and not over it this time.

  Seeing as I was now well behind enemy lines and couldn’t expect any advance warning, I popped the retention strap on my rifle and lifted it out of the stirrup. A few seconds work got the single-point sling I’d left rolled up in a pouch plugged into my rifle’s quick-detach points and adjusted so the rifle hung against my side on its own. Warily, I started forward, keeping an ear open for local bird chatter so I could get a sense of what normal sounded like.

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  The next hour passed without anything untoward. I made my way along the hillside and then down, crossing the scrub-filled grassland separating the hillside from the forest ahead. The fact that local wildlife seemed unaffected by proximity to the fog when the entire region around Annesport was left barren wasn’t lost on me, but it’s not like I had any way to explain it.

  That said, my careful advance toward the forest wasn’t terribly speedy so I had plenty of time to mull over a variety of prospects when I wasn’t hyperfocused on a shift in the local soundscape or eyeing what might’ve been suspicious movement through my ACOG.

  Naturally, it was all conjecture, but the most convincing possibility I settled on as crossed into the forest was that the difference lay with who controlled the territory. If the people in charge here, Kiki’s cage people, had something to do with the fog, and if they had some sort of control over it, then the fog’s influence on the south side would be battlefield preparation. Hard to march an army through to your flank when that army is dependent on forage that simply doesn’t exist.

  Though, if these people didn’t have anything to do with the fog, then there had to be something about the localities that made them unique, either Annesport was more susceptible to the fog’s influence, or this place was simply just more resistant for some unknown reason.

  Spotting a pond, maybe a spring, nestled in the trees ahead, I figured Fiachra would have something to say about all that as I made my way over. Instead of just walking up, I took up a position against one of the stout oaks, partially concealed by scrub, and simply just listened. After a good thirty seconds, I hadn’t heard anything off, no suddenly silenced songbirds, no sticks breaking, no large animals.

  Cautiously, I advanced to the pond’s edge, rifle up. The surface was relatively still thanks to the trees cutting down the wind and the water crystal clear. The pond itself was maybe a hundred feet across and the shadows darting this way and that along the shore and through the plants along the bottom suggested it was deep enough to not freeze all the way through over winter.

  Still not quite shaking paranoia, I paused to listen again after taking a knee. Other than a woodpecker hammering its brains out somewhere nearby, nothing stood out. Quickly, I peeled open one of my side pouches, retrieved a water filter, and started topping off all my water containers.

  Unfortunately, this was a task that took as long as it took, there really wasn’t any rushing it, so I enjoyed the sounds of nature while working the tiny hand pump. Another continent, another land, and I’m still just a particularly well-armed tourist visiting with intent.

  The wind shifted and the scent of honeysuckle on the breeze left me with a smile. The place I grew up butted up against the county line, and the other side of the barbed wire fence that marked the border was nothing but woods. That fence line and a good chunk of the woods near it were absolutely lined with honeysuckle. I’d spent I don’t know how many days out in those woods as a kid, back when parents could still let their kids go outside without the watchful eye of a helicopter parent and not get hassled by DCFS.

  I blinked, realized I’d stopped pumping at some point, and went back to the task with a subtle frown.

  As I started on the last bottle, I recognized the call of a mockingbird, or something close enough in tone and cadence anyway. It was another warm reminder of a home I hadn’t seen in years. My parents had moved after I joined the Army, and now I’d never return to hear the mockingbirds that nested in the tree outside my window. Or deal with the neighbor’s cat that had evidently fallen in love with me to the point where it left presents on our doorstep and stalked me from room to room if it could see me through the windows. A myriad of childhood memories flooded in, laden with the scent of honeysuckle.

  And then the memories vanished and the world jump-cut to an entirely different scene leaving me completely and totally unable to process what had happened. By the feel of it, I was sitting against a wooden wall of some sort and the room reeked of pine sap, but my attention was riveted on the teen kneeling next to me as she shifted something on my head, giggled, and started to lean back to admire her handiwork. Her skin was wrong and so was her green, moss-streaked hair. She wasn’t human. Or Syr. Why does her skin look like bark?

  Adrenaline surged as a feminine voice grumbled through an opening on the far side of whatever room I was in. “Ebb, I know it’s your first time but stop playing with your food.”

  The girl frowned and started over toward the opening. “But why? He’s just some human.”

  At that point, my brain caught up with things enough for the details to start sinking in. Something light was on my head, something that felt a little bit like a hat. I was in some sort of hut whose walls were literally formed by closely-knit saplings. Light filtered in through gaps near the top. The floor was entirely pine needles. My bag and LBE were on the ground just out of reach and half my shit was strewn around the room. The moment I spotted my pants and boots in the pile, I realized I was naked from the waist down and the overwhelming scent of pine sap wasn’t just from the needles.

  “Because once you’re done, we have to kill him. Have some respect for the dead.”

  “He’s not dead yet,” the girl grumped back. “Besides which, why do we have to kill him? He’s harmless.”

  With deliberate force of will, I preempted any and all thought concerning the girl or anyone else present and slowly, smoothly leaned over toward the nearest piece of kit, my trusty walking stick. Morality and ethics were problems for when you weren’t surrounded by hostiles nonchalantly discussing upgrading your abduction to murder.

  “Ebb, look, it took all four of us to make the charm stick. He resisted the first two attempts. Normal humans don’t.” At least four adult targets and an unknown number of younger ones. A quick thought and the illusion around the stick parted with a waft of dark smoke.

  Thankfully, pine needles were a fairly quiet surface to move on, so I made remarkably little noise as I got to my feet and slowly stalked toward the doorway with the scabbard in hand.

  The girl had stopped just on the other side of the doorway and was facing ahead and to the left. Outside, light filtered in through the weave of overhead branches. Second target outside, my ten o’clock. Twenty, thirty feet at most. I cast a quick glance back at my rifle but pushed the thought away. Too far. Probably get spotted. Also too loud. If they managed to scrub my mind once, they’ll do it again if I give them the chance and then I won’t wake up again.

  “But why?”

  “Because those were the terms we were given by Lord Selyn, Ebb. We’re lucky he lets us harvest the trespassers before turning over the bodies. As few that make it this far, we can’t let this opportunity pass. The charm is only going to last so long, so get back in there before it weakens. Now.”