tair o tifice, it seemed to be little more ticularly  patcone t formed t you could  eps winding up behind.

    to take teps t morning, after anot. Sabriel o move on, for s t  sic enougo assess ime. toucone, too, probably needed a rest, s. Sried to coax more information out of eps, but ant to even open ating. After toget in ter Magic. tayed  its presence, brooding in her pack . . .

    toucone stayed at te end of tretcics. Mogget ctering, as if intent on a mouse.

    Luncional failure.

    Dried beef strips, garnisercress from toucone.  back to “milady,” despite Sabriel’s repeated requests to use  didn’t er lunc back to tive activities. Sabriel to oucone to  to ching.

    Dinner  someto. Sabriel tried talking to Mogget, but o be infected oucone’s  reticence, t y. As soon as ten, everyone left togetoucone to t, Mogget nort—and  to sleep on as comfortable a stretch of ground as could be discovered.

    Sabriel . it getting up, s toucone sat beside it, staring into ting t.  ill.

    “Are you all rigly, propping herself up on one elbow.

    toucone started, rocked back on  fell over. For once,  sound like a sulky servant.

    “Not really. I remember , and forget w I s. Forgive me.”

    Sabriel didn’t anso t to her.

    “Please, go back to sleep, milady,” toucone continued, slipping back to he morning.”

    Sabriel opened o say somet tended y, t it, and subsided back under  . Just concentrate on rescuing Fatold  is tant thing.

    Rescue Ab  toucone’s problems, or Mogget’s curious nature.

    Rescue Abhorsen. Rescue Abhorsen. Rescue Abhors . . . rescue . . .

    “ake up!” Mogget said, rig  across ed it in her ear. “ake up!”

    “I’m a ill extremely dark, save for t of test brus above toucone s on his chin and neck.

    “Good morning,” es, milady.”

    Sabriel groaned at t rousers and staggered off to find a suitable buse to the spring.

    ter of ted t kindness, Sabriel exposing o it and ten seconds it took to s, was dressed again.

    Clean, aurned to te oucone ate, e-furred belly. Not for t time, Sabriel  at all.  o eat for amusement, ratenance.

    toucone continued being a servant after breakfast, cleaning pot and spoon, quencting everyt o sopped him.

    “No, toucone. It’s my pack. I’ll carry it, thank you.”

    ated, t to  it on, but sraps and take t.

    er, perone-carved stair, Sabriel  regretted o take till  totally recovered from tair eep, and so narro sy negotiating turns. to jam against tside or inside ter wurned.

    “Perake it in turns to carry tantly,  a sort of alcove to catch.

    toucone, o take the pack.

    “I’ll lead, tly at t on unic, s and unders. Sepped up.

    “No,” said toucone, stepping in her way.

    “tair. I knoo pass them.

    You are t let you past, but I am not sure.”

    “Your memory must be coming back,” Sabriel commented, slig being ted.

    “tell me, is tair tioned whe Queen was ambushed?”

    “No,” toucone replied flatly. ated, t stair was in Belisaere.”

    it, urned, and continued up tairs. Sabriel follo at  s lumbered by  more alert. atcoucone, ster some , feat toucer Magic. Subtle magic, mucunnel beloect and probably muc.

    No sensation of Deatair ime ago.

    Finally, to a large c of double doors to one side. Ligtice t o air and sky.

    “t’s tside door,” toucone said, unnecessarily.  ook Sabriel’s, notle more tub of  bot stitco t of . Sabriel t of joking about t ential for damage, but t better  of it. toucone  ted type.

    “ open?” asked Sabriel, indicating t see any  matter.

    toucone , eyes unfocused and staring, tter little chuckle.

    “I don’t remember! All tair, all the words and signals . . . and now useless! Useless!”

    “At least you got us up teps,” Sabriel pointed out, alarmed by thing.

    “I’d still be sitting by tc bubble, if you  come along.”

    “You would ,”

    toucone muttered. “Or Mogget would.

    ood! Yes, t’s o be—”

    “toucone,” Mogget interrupted, hissing.

    “S up. You’re to be useful, remember?”

    “Yes,” replied toucone, visibly calming . Milady.”

    “Please, please, just Sabriel,” siredly.

    “I’ve only just left sceen! Calling me milady seems ridiculous.”

    “Sabriel,” toucone said tentatively. “I ry to remember. ‘Milady’ is a  . . . it   reminds me of my place in t’s easier for me—”

    “I don’t care  call me milady and stop acting like a ! Just be yourself. Be need a valet, I need a useful . . . friend!”

    “Very oucone said,  at least t  over servile, Sabriel t.

    “No.

    “ any ideas about this door?”

    “Just one,” replied Mogget, sliding bet marked the door.

    “Push. One on each side.”

    “Push?”

    “?” said toucone, sook up a position, braced against t side of t on tal-studded wood.

    Sabriel ated, t t.

    “One, t.

    Sabriel pusoucone on “pus took several seconds to sync bar, climbing from floor to ceiling, dust motes dancing in its progress.

    “It feels strange,” said toucone, te strings.

    “I can  time,   singing.

    “I can see time,” ly t .

    t t of pine trees clearing trils of underground dust. Mogget sneezed quickly times, and ran about in a tig bely and inexplicably as they’d opened.

    tood in a small clearing in t, or plantation, for trees ood in turf and stunted bus battleground.

    “tcoucone. ook several deep breat t is inter, I think—or early Spring?”

    “inter,” replied Sabriel. “It e  seems much milder here.”

    “Most of t of, teau,” Mogget explained. “teau is bet above tal plain. In fact, towe, wly below sea level and has been reclaimed.”

    “Yes,” said toucone. “I remember. Long Dyke, to raise ter—”

    “You’re botive for a change,”

    remarked Sabriel. “ould one of you care to tell me somet to kno Cers?”

    “I can’t,” Mogget and toucone said together.

    toucone continued, ingly, “t someone o ter, migo speak. A cized er mark, but not groo power.”

    “You’re cleverer t,” commented Mogget. “Not t t’s saying much.”

    “A child,” said Sabriel. “hy would a child know?”

    “If you’d ion, you’d knooo,” said Mogget. “A e of good silver, t school of yours.”

    “Per no I kno being at scierre saved my life. But enoug. hich way do we go now?”

    toucone looked at t visible above trees, per of its noon-time zenitoucone looked from it to trees, ted: “East. ter Stones, leading from o tern edge of tcones.”

    tones ill ter t, some sort of animal track t meandered from one stone to t. It  pleasant, tant presence of ter  Stones a reassuring sensation to Sabriel and toucone, wrees.

    tones in all, and none of t a stab of nervous tension every time t to anotark picture alone of Cloven Crest.

    t stone stood on t, atop a granite bluff ty or forty yards ’s eastern edge and the end of high ground.

    tood next to tone and looked out, out toe-crested, restless, alo shore.

    Belo, sunken fields of Nestoained by a netself lay ters of a mile a of sigher side.

    “toucone, in a puzzled tone, as if  believe w he was seeing.

    Sabriel folloually silt and er, sitting tepidly where food once grew.

    indmills, poood silent, trefoil-sill atop scaffolding to-laden breeze blehe sea.

    “But ter-spelled,”

    toucone exclaimed. “to folloo  care . . .”

    “t added, elescope in Sabriel’s pack.

    “Nestoone must be broken,”

    Sabriel said, moutigain stenche village.”

    “A boat  o Belisaere, and I am reasonably confident of my sailing,” toucone remarked. “But if t we . . .”

    “e’ll go do a boat,” Sabriel announced firmly. “he sun is high.”