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Ty’Lis bowed to the is not far off This battle will decide the war These councilors worry that you will not obey them"

As one, the two Perytons twisted their heads round to stare at Ru’Lem and the others with ht, perhaps, that I would let you explain to them that the Perytons are the allies of Atlantis, not our servants I ae a relationship valuable to everyone"

Ru’Leround "The Perytons may be our allies, but you are a child of Atlantis, Ty’Lis You will obey the High Council or be guilty of treason"

The Perytons spread their wings, feathers ruffling, instinctively reacting to the hostility between sorcerers They hung their heads low, racks of antlers sharp and deadly

Ty’Lis glanced at the eastern horizon, where the sky had lightened to an ocean blue Dawn see

"Your cooperation will benefit all of Atlantis," he said to the Perytons "Your people will not be forgotten I will not allow it"

He turned to Ru’Lem "The war is in your hands, now But if it is to oals--then there are other chores to which I an toRu’Leed his hood down over his face, pulled his cloak tightly around him, and vanished within it He left behind a tiny swirl of air A wave crashed on the shore, rolling in and erasing any trace that he had ever been there at all

The Shediac River flowed through Wessex County, Maine, in a serpentine series of double-backs, trickle-pools, and rapids, so that its personality changed drae, where Robiquet had worked for decades as housebut silent, placid on the surface but with a deep, dangerous current But upriver, in the town of Haskell, it passed under the Chadbourne Bridge in a rocky cascade The fishing off of the Chadbourne was fantastic, but nobody tried canoeing on that part of the Shediac And Sara Halliwell had never heard of anyone coh water and all of those jutting rocks, it looked like the kind of place to bust yourself up and survive to regret it

As a little girl, Sara Halliwell had loved the Chadbourne Bridge Fishing hadn’t appealed to her, but several ti to cast a line into the Shediac It had always been springtiray He’d have coffee and she hot cocoa Her dad hadn’t spoken to herthese ventures Oh, he’d talked, but never really to Sara There were no questions about school or what she ht want for her birthday or how pretty she’d looked in her new Easter dress Ted Halliwell had just talked about the weather and his philosophy of fishing and how e in the earlytrips in a very long tie on a drizzly graytrips, but the weather was ht around her and stared down into the tu rush of the Shediac River and she realized there were tears in her eyes

Hastily, she wiped theirl didn’t cry No rew to adulthood, that was one lesson she couldn’t seeht shed a tear alone in bed or behind closed doors, but never where others could see her More than one of her relationships had been doomed by this reticence

She took a breath, wiped at her eyes until she was satisfied the evidence had been erased, and then turned toward Sheriff Norris and Robiquet All of thee well But to Sara and the sheriff, it had always been just a bridge

An interesting bridge, true Spaced evenly along one side it had a pair of stone towers like castle turrets Set into each toas a ate The bars looked to have been rusted and painted and rusted and painted dozens of times over the years Sara had asked her father every tie what the toere for He had a dozen different stories One day he would say they were lookouts from the Second World War, fro up the Shediac to invade Maine A week later he would insist that each of those towers had been used in the early 1900s to hold the worst cri the

There had been other explanations, but those were the two she remembered best To this day, she had no idea what they were for Sheriff Norris didn’t know, either

Even Robiquet could not say what the stated purpose of their original construction had been But inside the tower on the east side of the river, he insisted that they would find what they had sought

"Sara, are you co?" Sheriff Norris called

She turned to find that he and Robiquet had gotten the rust-flaked gate open Lost in thought, she’d so metal she felt sure must have accompanied the act

A truck ru delivery or a father off to work Other than that, there was no traffic Once upon a ti before Sara had been born, the Chadbourne had been et almost anywhere

Sara cleared her throat The da to her As she walked toward the tower, she saw Robiquet disappear into the shadows beyond that gate Sheriff Norris went to his car--eo--and popped the trunk He glanced around as guiltily as one of the s he’d no doubt tossed into lockup, then took out a tire-iron and sla, as inconspicuously as possible, and walked back to the tower on the bridge

A light rain began to fall

Feeling as though she were in a dream, Sara could only stand and watch as he walked by He didn’t even seeate and paused to look back

"You co?"

Sara shook her head "I don’t think so"

Surprise registered on his face

"I’ll just…I’ll wait here," she told hihtful look and then went in without her Perhaps he understood

This ti of metal In the darkness inside that small tohere soldiers or criminals or olves at full moon (for that was another of her father’s tales of Chadbourne Bridge) had once resided, Robiquet and the sheriff pried open a door

No A Door Capital D

One that ought to have led to the other side of the Veil, where Ted Halliwell needed his little girl’s voice to guide hione in, Sheriff Norris stepped back out He wore upon his face the apology of the surgeon who had failed to save a husband or a son, or a father

He said her name

Sara shook her head, then turned her back on hiirl didn’t cry At least not where anyone could see her

Jackson said her naain She heard him take a couple of steps toward her, then other footsteps, softer