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“Your protection?” I asked wonderingly. I ran a hand over the smooth clay surface of mine. I didn’t feel anything from it. If anything, it seemed to push against me, cold to the touch. I drew my hand back from the clay and held only the twine. That was more comfortable.

“Yes,” Karema said gruffly. “These ones will keep your mind your own. You can still be killed or trapped in any number of horrible ways, but you won’t meet my mother’s fate. Not so long as those remain around your neck.”

“A precious thing, then,” Oraik said. Seemingly unable to resist a joke about his desirability, he grinned and added: “for myself, and the rest of the world.” He quickly drew the twine over his head one-handed, cupping Bird in his other palm. The wooden creature had been silent all night and day, which I took for a good thing. I’d tried explaining to it that we hadn’t wanted Karema, we’d wanted Kalcedon, no matter how similar their blood seemed. It had not responded. Now and then it turned its head or rearranged its wings.

“How does it work?” I asked Karema. There had to be sigils somewhere, but I couldn’t see any on either side of the disk. They must have been inside it, like the Ward-stones.

“Do I look like a witch? All I know is, they work.”

“How’d you get them?” I asked. “Are there witches among your people, then? Practicing ones?”

“Some, but this is a skill beyond. Tarelay made these for us.”

My eyes bulged. The first words out of my mouth came out as unintelligible stutters, until I finally got a hold of myself.

“Tarelay? Did you say Tarelay? The same Tarelay Sorrowsworn who built the Ward?”

Karema pursed her lips at me. She didn’t seem to share my excitement.

“Yes. Try not to break those. I want them back, if by some miracle you survive.”

“He’s still alive, then? Do you know him? Could I meet him?” I had so many questions. My heart was in my throat.

“I haven’t seen him in nearly three years. He comes and goes.”

“What’s he like? Does he ever—”

Oraik elbowed me. Karema kept talking.

“Anyways, cross the river. An hour’s walk or so, due north, and you should be able to spot it. From a distance the palace just looks like part of the mountains. Look for where it gleams silver. When you get close enough, you’ll see the door. But listen: do not pass through the first entrance you see.”

“Why not?” Oraik said. “Is it a trick door?”

“It’s the main hall,” Karema said. “Faerie magic; it doesn’t matter where you walk up to the palace, the front door will be just there. But if you turn right and walk a hundred paces, you’ll find the servant’s entry. That’ll be less risky. They expect humans to come and go from there, anyways.”

She raised a fist to her forehead. I suppose it was some outland farewell we weren’t familiar with. I waved. Oraik of course insisted on a hug, which Karema didn’t seem to like.

She and her band watched us wade through the river. Even at its deepest point, the water barely came past my knees.

At the far bank we turned and watched the band vanish into the woods. The two sides of the river were different as night and day. Where we’d come from the forest was a thick tangle, but here the ground was arid, nearly barren, with rocks and thin shrubs. It seemed an odd place for a Lord to make his home. I remembered how the flowers wilted when I made Bird and wondered if somehow, he had drained the earth itself.

“Should we leave our things?” I asked Oraik.

He agreed, reluctantly. We found a cluster of rocks and hid our belongings. Oraik tucked the knife into his pocket first. Bird whistled softly, and we turned towards our goal.

“Is this it, then?” I asked the enchantment. “They were right, and Kalcedon is this way?”

Bird whistled again. We would have to hope my spell was a good one, and that we weren’t walking into a hornet’s nest without reason.

We could see the mountains already, though from here the silver veining of the palace was not visible. The bare stone cliffs looked indistinguishable from each other. In silence, we passed the occasional odd spray of heatless purple flowers growing from the dry earth. Walking through such open ground made me nervous; I wished I could cast a concealment spell or carry a shield. But while there was weak power in the air, I now knew that carrying an enchantment too long could be tiring. I wanted to be fresh when we reached the palace. Besides, Karema had not counseled us to hide our approach.

“We should have asked for horses,” Oraik complained. “I’ve never walked so much in my life.”

“Do you even know how to ride one?”

“I could figure it out,” he told me confidently. I shook my head.

The distribution of magic was strange here. The ground we crossed got colder as we went, for a time. At last we could see the silver shine of the palace up ahead of us, a narrow section of the mountain that seemed to glow. After that, with every step the magic got denser again, until it felt even hotter than my first steps past the Ward. Nervously, I wondered if it meant there were a lot of faeries inside the mountain’s walls.