He looked back to the Sea Lion once more. It, too, had been a charred patch, but was now reborn from the ashes, a little bigger and certainly brighter than its bleached and wind-worn predecessor. It would be home once again for him and Magiere, and for their dog, Chap, as well.

And somewhere beneath it lay the powdered bones of monsters.

But not the one who'd been here in the forest clearing and nearly crushed the life out of him. Not the one he'd let slip away.

He pictured in his mind the three undeads he and Magiere had faced. Two were destroyed, but the last, Ratboy, had escaped.

Leesil turned to the clearing's east side, where a large, scarred fir tree stood. Each morning he brought a small box wrapped in canvas sailcloth and set it at the tree's base. The fir was old and solid, and wind and rain had carried away soil, exposing lumps of deep roots. One bare patch revealed where bark had been torn away and a lower limb was raggedly broken off. These injuries were not so old.

The undead of Miiska were gone. All three of them, but this brought Leesil no relief.

It wasn't over. He couldn't tell this to Magiere, who wasn't ready to hear it. Not just yet.

Crossing to the scarred fir, Leesil unrolled the sail scrap to reveal the long box of dark wood, its length equal to his forearm. It was flat enough to slip inside a baggy shirt without leaving much of a bulge. A flick of fingertips opened the lid, and his shoulders knotted in apprehension at its contents, gifts from his mother on his seventeenth birthday so many years ago.