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The door swung shut It sounded like bones breaking

THE TALE

OF THE

CROSSING,

CONTINUED

IDYLL COUGHED IN THE DAMP AIR, HIS BREATH ricocheting in his lungs like a loose arrow His fingernails, long as a wealthy woed it forward A tiny whirlpool for, dragging down

“I would like to disbelieve you, but this is not a place where many men hazard lies You were in the Mourned City—I envy you I was there when there were neither ashes nor pages nor fish skeletons piled up into one white and brown, drifting along the dead dockside?”

Seven frowned and shoved his dark hair back from a wan face Around his bruised eyes were already lines and cracks that would one day be wrinkles, chasms, trenches in flesh He spoke softly

“Soh the door like snow”

Idyll nodded In the farthest distance, behind the ht he could make out the spiky, scattered tips of bare trees, cat scratches in a gray sky, and a lonely beachhead It was still so far off he could scarcely call the water a lake It see to The ferryman rubbed at his k

nee with a hooked and gloved hand that seemed to have far too many knuckles

“I can feel the storet you across before it coh, but I can’t promise”

“What sort of storm? How can there be storms here?”

“The sort that little coat won’t begin to hold back And if you knew ht better and thicker, and a tongue less eager for questions”

Seven sank back against the ruined ainst them and the leaf-stiffened wind reddened his nose