The walk didn’t warm her up noticeably, nor did she reach the high tree line on the other side of the valley before night fell. She curled up into a ball beside a small boulder and shivered her way to a fitful sleep. It rained twice in the night.

Morning was when she realized she didn’t have anything to eat. Her tummy was grumbling when she bent over a tiny trickle of water running around the base of the boulder to lap up the icy liquid. She couldn’t remember ever being this miserable; not the day she left Laril, not even watching her apartments going up in flame. This was just wretched. Worse, she’d never felt so alone before. This wasn’t even a human world. If anything went wrong, anything as simple as a sprained ankle or gashed knee, there was no emergency service to call, no help within light-years. She’d just have to lie down here in the valley and starve to death.

Her limbs started trembling with the thought of it, at the full realization of the risk she’d taken yesterday wading through the river. Delayed shock, she decided, from both the river and the terrible fight in Bodant Park.

After that, she was a lot more careful walking up toward the tree line high above. There was still no sign of anything she could eat. Underfoot was just the yellowy grass with its speckle of tiny lavender flowers. As she plodded on gloomily, she tried to remember everything she’d ever heard about the Silfen paths. It wasn’t much; even the general encyclopedia in her storage lacuna contained more mythology than fact on the subject. They existed, there was no such thing as a map, and some medievalist humans set off down them in search of various personal or irrational goals-few of whom were ever heard of again. Except for Ozzie, of course. Now that she thought about it, she’d vaguely known he was a Silfen Friend. And so was Mellanie, whoever she used to be. Araminta could have kicked herself for not running even a simple search with her u-shadow. It was over a week since Cressida had told her about her odd ancestry, and she had never bothered to find out, had not asked a single question. Stupid.