He’d already seen she wasn’t in the front room or the kitchen. He went back there anyway. “Thelberge?” Fear made his voice quaver.

Only silence answered. Little by little, Ealstan realized he hadn’t known what fear meant. Now he did.

My neighbors, he thought wildly. Maybe my neighbors know something. Trouble was, he hardly knew his neighbors. For one thing, they kept coming and going-this block of flats wasn’t the sort of place where people settled down to live out the rest of their lives. And, for another, because of who and what Vanai was, she and Ealstan hadn’t gone out of their way to make friends. If anything, they’d gone out of their way to keep to themselves.

But he had to try. Thinking about the alternative… Ealstan didn’t want to, he wouldn’t, think about the alternative. Imagining Vanai in Algarvian hands… He shook his head. Hewouldn ‘t think about that.

He knocked on the door to the next-door flat closer to the stairs. Silence. He knocked again. “Go away,” someone inside said-a woman’s voice.

“I’m your neighbor,” Ealstan began, “and I’d like to ask you-”

“Go away,” she said again, “or else I start screaming.”

“Powers below eat you,” he muttered under his breath, but he went away, to the flat on the other side of his. Wondering what would go wrong now, he knocked on the door there.

This time, at least, it opened. A gray-bearded man stood in the doorway. His narrow eyes had all the warmth of chips of ice. “What do you want, kid?” he demanded. “Whatever it is, make it snappy.”

“I don’t mean to bother you,” Ealstan said, “but have you seen my wife today? She was supposed to be home when I got back, and she’s not. She’s expecting a baby, so I’m worried.”