“What were you thinking, Mara?”

  The loose thread at the edge of her sensing caught tight on the sharp edges of the voice. With each syllable, it tugged a little harder, unraveling her at one end and drawing the other into a tight knot. With a gasp, she stumbled, tripped, and fell to her knees. She caught herself on her hands, but she barely felt the pain of rough stone scraping her palms.

  “Do you want it to stop?”

  She gasped, clutching at her chest, but she couldn’t fight what wasn’t real. Couldn’t regain control of that thread when the hand that held it didn’t exist.

  “Mara!” This time the voice came from right in front of her and she squeezed her eyes shut, but a hand caught her by the chin, another shoving her upright by the strap of her pack. “Mara, look at me.”

  She squinted and caught the impression of Eli’s face in the dim light before the voice returned.

  “He’s touching you again.” A hard yank on the thread. “You must be so,” yank, “happy,” yank. Her vision grayed at the edges as she fought to breathe against the stricture, collapsing forward.

  Eli caught her against him as she fell, one arm tight across her lower back beneath her pack, the other on the back of her neck. He spoke into her ear, but the voice spoke into the other–a nauseating duet.

  “This is what he wants. He wants you helpless.”

  “Mara, just focus on me. It isn’t real.”

  “He’s lying. This feels real doesn’t it?”

  She continued to unravel, nothing inside her now but empty space and a tight knot of tangled thread.

  “Mara, please.” Eli, she knew, because the voice came with the heat of his breath beside her ear. “If you don’t pull it together I’ll have to knock you out and carry you.” The other voice must have answered, but she barely registered it because Eli kept talking. “And I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I really don’t want to drag your carcass the rest of the way out of here. You’ll get all morose about it and apologize too much.”

  “He’s killing me,” she gasped.

  “No, he’s not. He’s not real.”

  “You don’t…” she broke off, panting, barely drawing enough air to remain conscious, let alone speak. “You don’t...understand.”

  “Of course he doesn’t,” The voice in her right ear was accompanied by another hard pull, and she whimpered, tucking herself deeper into Eli’s arms as she fought to curl in on herself, to protect what was left.

  “I do understand. Trust me. I know it feels real, but it isn’t.”

  “I can’t breathe.”

  “Yes, you can.” His hand moved from her nape to the back of her head. “You can breathe. I promise you.”

  “He’s a liar.”

  The voice was no longer goading or sharp but outright mean. Fear–long held at bay by reason–rushed in, and Mara reached out on instinct, clinging to the body in front of her as if she would float away without it, her fingers tangled in the warm linen of his shirt.

  “Just breathe, Mara.” The hand on the back of her head didn’t move, but it pressed her forehead more firmly against a patchwork of leather and canvas. His shoulder, she guessed, by the proximity of his voice to her ear. “Focus on me. It’s not real. You can breathe. Remember, focus on getting the air out and it’ll be easier to breathe in.”

  “Thinks he knows everything, doesn’t he? You can’t trust him, Mara. You can only trust me.”

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  She pressed the air out of her lungs, and the next breath came in a little easier. The next after that even easier.

  “He’s going to get you killed.”

  She couldn’t deny that the voice was menacing, but it lost power with each breath she managed to take.

  “You’re okay, Mara.” The arm Eli was using to brace her relaxed as she leaned more deliberately into his body, looping an arm around his neck to hold herself upright. “Just keep breathing.”

  “You can’t breathe. He’s just letting you die.”

  “No he isn’t,” she moaned through chattering teeth.

  “Don’t respond. Just breathe.”

  “Why doesn’t he want you to respond to me? If I’m not real, what harm can talking to me possibly do?”

  She sucked another breath in through her nose. Leather, smoke, and sweat–too harsh to be soothing, but undeniably of the earth. Without thinking, she turned her face into the crook of his neck, as if she could hide from the voice if only she could get close enough to something real.

  “Where is Nick?” she asked.

  “Lev’s got him. He’s right here. He’s okay.”

  “He’s lying.”

  That, at least, was easy to ignore. Eli might not always tell her the truth, but he wouldn’t lie to her about Nick. She pulled in another breath, and another, greedily absorbing the comfort of being held. But they couldn’t stay here. Her mind had come back to her, the unraveling halted. And with the return of her senses, she realized how much danger she was putting everyone in. With a last shaky breath, she pulled away and Eli let her go, though he hung on to the strap of her pack as if she was at risk of running.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, turning to face Lev and Farin and trying to remember the Trellish phrases she’d picked up. “Sit waros.”

  “You’ve put them all in danger.”

  At odds with the voice, the two men shook their heads and offered understanding smiles. Eli stood, dragging her up with him by the strap of her pack and hanging on while she found her balance. “You’re okay?”

  “He’s manipulating you.”

  Mara nodded. “I’m okay.”

  “Alright.” Gesturing at Lev, Eli took Nick back and tipped his chin. “Let’s keep moving.”

  After her little spot of idiocy and the embarrassing crisis that followed, Mara was too distracted by self-recrimination to pay much mind to the voice. Another hour passed and night came upon them fully, stars winking to life as the sky faded from navy to velvet black. Davy’s voice continued to harass her and the hollow place in her chest remained, but she was able to walk, to keep her face impassive, focusing on the strap of Farin’s pack digging into her fingers and the sound of Eli’s footsteps behind her.

  Up ahead, the ground rose up to blot out the stars, and she knew without asking that those hills marked the far side of the Sanguine Sea.

  But just as hope flickered to life in her hollow chest, Farin staggered and then stopped, whirling to the left and spitting angry words into the empty air.

  “Farin!” Lev turned and tried to pull him close, but Farin wrenched out of his grasp and, to Mara’s horror, stumbled backwards. Unslinging Carissa from his shoulders, he shoved her into Lev’s arms and, with a mumbled apology, turned and broke into a stumbling run. When Lev went to follow him, Mara lunged and grabbed onto the strap of his pack on instinct, but he was stronger than her, and frantic, and her feet caught on the uneven rock as she fought to hold him.

  Then Eli was there, looping around her. He grabbed Lev by the other strap and gave him a hard shake. Mara didn’t understand the words he spoke, but she heard Carissa’s name, and then her own.

  “What’s he saying, I wonder? So many secrets,” the voice mused in her ear, but she didn’t have time for her own horrors. She kept hold of Lev’s pack as the two men spoke–Eli brisk and calm, Lev’s voice strangled by desperate fear. To her relief, Lev eventually stopped trying to fight his way free, head drooping with defeat. Eli waited two heartbeats, and when the other man didn’t move released him and came to Mara, gesturing for her to let go as well.

  “I’m going after Farin,” he said, swinging her son’s limp body from his shoulders and helping settle him over hers. “I took Lev’s compass so you’ll have to lead. If you lose Lev, don’t chase after him. Just keep moving. We’ll catch up.”

  “He’s abandoning you.”

  Mara wanted to argue, not with the voice but with Eli. But there was no point and no time. “Okay.”

  “You know what to do. You’ll be fine.”

  “He’s a liar, Mara. He’s leaving you to die.”

  She nodded. “I got it. We’re okay. Go.”

  There was no moon, and his face was little more than a collection of shadows with two wells of reflected starlight where his eyes should be. But they’d traveled together for months. She knew his face in the darkness as well as she knew it in the light, and she could tell that he wanted to say more. But all he said was, “Go,” before he too melted into the shadows, leaving her with two helpless children and a man whose partner had just abandoned him.

  And the voice.

  “I told you he was leading you astray.”