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The place she meant turned out to be a cave, snug, dry, and very small once the two of them, her dogs, and the kalboks were inside. Pale conjured up a small fire and used it to warm some salted meat Pernho had given them, and they had that with a beverage she called barleywine that tasted something like beer. It was pretty strong stuff, and it didn’t take much before Stephen felt light-headed.

He found himself studying the woman’s features, and to his embarrassment, she caught him at it.

“I, ah, should have told you before,” Stephen said, “but I think you’re beautiful.”

Her expression didn’t change. “Do you?”

“Yes.”

“I’m the only woman for fifty leagues, and we’re sleeping unchaperoned in a cave. Imagine how flattered I am when you shower me with compliments.”

“I…no. You don’t—” He stopped and rubbed his forehead. “Look, you must think I know something about women. I don’t.”

“You don’t say.”

Stephen frowned, opened his mouth, closed it. This was going nowhere. He wasn’t even sure why he’d started it.

“How much farther do we have to go?” he asked instead.

“Two days, maybe three, depending on how much snow we find in the next pass. That’s just to the mountain. Do you know where to go once we get there?”

He shook his head. “I’m not certain. Kauron went to a place called Hadivaisel. It might be a town.”

“There’s no town at Xal Slevendy,” she said. “At least—” She broke off. “ ‘Adiwara’ is a word for Sefry. The old people say there’s a Sefry rewn there.”

“That must be it, then,” Stephen said.

“You have some idea how to find it?”

“None at all. Kauron said something about talking to an old Hadivar, but that supposes he’d already found the rewn, I guess. And that was a long time ago.”

“You’ll find it,” she said firmly. “You’re meant to.”

“But if Hespero finds us first…”

“That will be a problem,” she acknowledged. “So you’ll have to find it quickly.”

“Right,” he said without a lot of hope.

He was starting to appreciate just how big mountains could be. And he remembered the exit from the rewn in the King’s Forest. Four yards away, it had been invisible. It was going to be like searching for a raindrop in a river.

He pulled out the pages he’d copied, hoping to find a better translation. Pale watched him without comment.

Among the pages was the loose sheet he’d found; he’d nearly forgotten it. It was very old, the characters on it faded, but he recognized the same odd mixture of letters on the epistle he’d carried and understood with growing excitement that what he held was actually a key for translating it.

Of course, Hespero now had the epistle, but he ought to be able to recall—

Something suddenly shivered through him.

“What?” Pale said.

“There was something in the chapel,” he said. “I haven’t really had time to think about it. But I swear I heard a voice. And my lamp; there was a face in it.”

“In the lamp?”

“In the flame,” he said.

She looked unsurprised. “Ghosts get lost in the mountains,” she said. “The winds fetch them up into the high valleys, and they can’t get out.”

“If this was a ghost, it was an old one. It spoke a language a thousand years dead.”

She hesitated then. “No one knows what happened to Kauron,” she said. “Some say he never returned, that he vanished into the mountains. But some say he appeared in the chapel late one night, babbling like a man with fever, though his skin was cool. The priest who found him put him to bed, and the next morning there was no sign of him. The bed showed no trace of being slept in, and the priest was left wondering if he’d really seen him or merely had a vision or a dream.”

“Have you ever felt anything there?”

“No,” she admitted. “I’ve never heard anyone else report anything unusual, either. But you’re different: a Revesturi and Kauron’s heir. Maybe that’s why he spoke to you.”

“I don’t know. Whoever—whatever—it was, it didn’t seem nice or even helpful. I felt as if it was mocking me.”

“Well, I’ve no idea, then,” she said. “Maybe Kauron had enemies and you’ve attracted