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A half-hour of running and Rue burst through and out of the unnae of a steep cliff Far below, a river cut along the gorge The water was so far down her nose hadn’t warned her of its presence before her ears did She skidded to a halt, turning up road dust and scrabbling for purchase with her paws

She lost her passengers

Percy, fortunately, weighed down by his book satchel, fell to one side, landing safely in the bushes with a cry of distress

But Miss Sekh forward, tue

Rue’s instinctive reaction was to give the werecat back her immortality If she could snap their tether before Miss Sekhht survive So Rue whirled and dashed back the way she had just coh tired, Rue could reat deal faster without the burden of riders Her only concern was to put distance between herself and the woainst all hope she was not also in danger of stealing Miss Sekhmet’s life

She ran with such speed even a vaht her

Abruptly, between one stride and the next, Rue found herself sprawled on the dirt road She was naked, aching fro in the cool of the night The vegetation around her sharpened into focus, greens she had not seen as a cat becaht Individual sle

Did it work? was her first worry She had no way of knowing if her tether to the werelioness had been severed because Miss Sekhmet died, or because Rue had reached tether li Miss Sekh out either, for now Rue was so the scarf fro it around her body in a crude atte in its lily reticule and turned, resigned to trudging back the way she had just co so fast initially For not checking with Miss Sekh better use of her unfaer walk bare-footed and without supernatural speed Stones in the path cut her feet where the pads of her lioness paws had felt nothing She was more afraid that the scent of her blood would attract predators than she was upset by the pain One lucky result of shifting to wolf forular basis – if one could call it lucky – was that Rue could withstand pain better than nored her feet and walked, occasionally calling out in the hope that Percy would hear her One never kneith Percy He could have decided toto assist Miss Sekhareshwar Forest alone, or he could be sitting in the roadway reading a book about swis

Three-quarters of an hour later, tired, dusty, bleeding, and tetchy orry, Rue arrived back at the fateful cliff

Percy was nowhere to be seen

Rue hobbled to the edge and looked down into the gorge

Miss Sekhmet’s beautiful for the riverbank as a lioness, looking for some convenient way to leap up

The werecat had vanished

Rue straightened and took a long look all around her, feeling very alone Behind her lay the vast reaches of the unnaht for her to walk back through it Before her lay the gorge Across that looer, darker, and lusher than the previous one

Rue set her shoulders She still had the sparkler She could signal for aid, as unlikely as it was that anyone would respond this far from civilisation If Miss Sekhmet were somehow behind her and alive, she could follow Rue’s trail fro co for it but to continue on alone

There were two bridges around the corner from where Rue had due, which crossed and then veered away froareshwar towards the coast Above that stretched one of the sky cables It headed straight into the forest, although adht before the crossing, was yet another of the great elephant sky trains It hung partly suspended above the gorge, as though it had stopped for a nap mid-run Its interior was dark, its necklace of lanterns unlit Rue supposed it was under orders, like the rest of the country, not to work after dark It swung gently, rocking its sluo and crew Rue wondered if she could shout them awake and ask for aid But what could she say? I’ for weremonkeys? Oh, and I seem to have misplaced a professor and a werelioness And hoould shepantoht of the elephant was a foot-traffic bridge made of slats of wood and rope, of the suspension type It was designed for people, not aniriareshwar

Rue put a hesitant foot on the first board The bridge swayed under her weight

She was not afraid of heights One could hardly captain a dirigible and be scared to look down But Rue felt e, and without supernatural for a river

Rue paused, considering her situation She had nothing more to her name than a reticule shaped like a lotus, a flint and tinder, a sparkler, and an indecently sht, to devise some means of locomotion and not walk if she didn’t have to She looked at the elephant in the sky She was no fit co steam jockeys