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"They are not alone," Cheval Bayard called, her silver hair glearination

Dusk was almost upon the about At the base of the hill, just at the outskirts of the city, three large figures slunk catlike along the ground They raced toward Frost, and the winter s twenty feet frole cats with black-spotted, golden-brown fur, hite uars, really, for they stood on their hind legs They were still built like cats--their faces had not altered and their tails still twitched behind thes were thened

"No!" Blue Jay cried

He took flight, transforun to descend now and were also ht toward Frost These Hunters were here for the winter man Just as the Borderkind had come to slay Ty’Lis to disrupt their enemies, the Hunters had been sent to murder the leader of the Borderkind

Li hurled a thin stream of fire into the air and it seared past the serpents Grin and Cheval raced toward Frost Blue Jay flew above theh the air and, just as he was about to reach Frost, prepared hiain In his round, the iven him would appear He would dance

He would slay them all

Whatever Frost’s faults, he was a friend and a leader, and Blue Jay would not allow hie, where the last of the buildings on its outskirts were capped with tall, ugly-faced stone statues, other creatures began to ee ends: creatures co and man, or crocodile and woman

The dusk erupted suddenly with a flash of brilliance, and Blue Jay saolorious wings as she transfored serpents descended They were even larger than he’d thought, nearly hted on the hill they held the behind the red eyes like hot coals, and when they hissed they revealed black s

Sos The name escaped him, but Blue Jay knew they were a breed of vampire

He steeled hiuar-men bowed to Frost The va as they lowered theain The rest of the creatures followed suit

"What the bloody hell is this, then?" Grin barked as he and Li caught up to Cheval

Blue Jay spun through the air and alighted beside the winter s shimmered, almost invisible He stared around at all of these creatures who had intercepted theesture of respect

"Frost, what’s going on?" he asked

The winter , cold ured it out yet, Jay?" Frost asked, looking at him with mischief in his frozen eyes "They’re not Hunters"

Blue Jay stared at the jaguar-ht and the things with the hideous mouths in their bellies

"These are Borderkind?"

Frost nodded "This is Yucatazca, not Euphrasia, dom A different world"

As Blue Jay watched, others streamed out of the city Humans Lost Ones, descended frodo

"What are they doing here?" Cheval asked, stepping up beside Blue Jay in the gathering indigo gloolowed uar-men came forward "They are here to help," he said, his words heavily accented "Just as we all are"

The Lost Ones and strange Yucatazcan Borderkind gathered more closely around the five who had traveled so far

"Whispers have coht "The slaughter of our kin has only truly begun in Yucatazca"

"Clever enough," Li said, fla at the corners of his eyes The patches of ember on his skin continued to spread like virulent infection "Ty’Lis wanted the Borderkind here to feel safe, as though it was all happening so far away"

"But we are not fools," the jaguar-rim-faced as he stared at Frost "This trouble comes to all of us The whispers froainst the Hunters When word arrived that you were coreet you"

Frost glanced around With nightfall, the mist that surrounded him seemed to form a cloud that eddied away on the steady current of the war us"

If a cat could be said to suar-man did "Oh, but there were And other eneuar-athered there--human and Borderkind alike--did the same

"We are here to see that you reach the castle and that you find the answers you seek…and that whoever is truly the hed softly to hih him They were not so alone as they had feared With all of the setbacks they’d had, he’d expected the worst It was a pleasure to be wrong for once

Frost glanced at Cheval, who had been studying the jaguar-man intently This could be a trap, after all, but she had a sense about things, about creatures and the truth in them She nodded once The winter man looked at Li and at Grin and then finally at Blue Jay, his expression clearing

"What are aiting for?" Blue Jay said, sliding his hands casually into the pockets of his jeans

Frost nodded and turned to the jaguar-man "Lead on"