Abruptly, the Master Watcher stopped, and the old man was upon her. She looked swiftly at Lan and saw that despite his firm grip on her, he was pale, shaken. He looked once at the Guide, a pleading in his face. But the old man was implacable, and the Master Watcher fell back. The Guide seized her then and drew her toward him, piercing Nell with those terrible eyes.
You, she heard, sought to break the patterns of the world. Desire drove you; now let it take you.
Nell squirmed. The man’s lips did not move. His voice penetrated her head, shouted inside her mind. It was then she began to fight. She tried to pull away from him, tried to summon enough focus to fling him off her, but he gripped her like a machine, his face set, his long legs propelling them both forward as his words drilled into her thoughts. Push him away! she screamed furiously to herself. Run! But she couldn’t.
Desire, animal desire, she heard. The man’s voice whirled in her head, clouding it, confusing her. The passion of the beast, who respects nothing and knows nothing! Become, then, what you wished! Satisfy your passions; let desire, let the animal, take you back!
No!
She shouted it in her mind, struggling, writhing against his voice. Visions of beasts, of the city, of the terrible, savage things she had seen rushed into her mind, and she fought against them, fought with thoughts of home, of her parents, of their voices, of — All are animal. The beast lives in us. Listen to it. Let it claim you, the voice commanded.
He was moving swiftly, on up toward the mist, faster than seemed possible, and a wind rushed past them, blowing in her ears. It made the terrible cold harder to bear. Her thoughts and vision blurred, and it seemed, as she struggled, that there were others now, behind the old man, a silent platoon, pushing her out with their very eyes.
Welcome it. You desired it, and now it reaches for you. It is you. Return. Return, rebel, to the beast.
They had reached the mist, thick now, as substantial as a white wall, loud with the echo of the old man’s voice, and the voices of others — terrible voices, jeering, calling, magnetic.
The hillside rose abruptly beneath her, and the Guide threw her to the ground. Gasping, she looked up in time to see the mist gather like smoke.
“Wait!” she shouted.
There was no one. She staggered to her feet and tried to follow. Susan! she thought. Max!
But she couldn’t be heard. Voices howled through the mist, taunting her.
Try! Try! she pleaded with herself, blindly groping, trying to get her bearings. Her hands were stiff now with the cold, her feet like clubs. She stumbled.
Susan had opened the mist. She could open it, too. She had to open it!
Nell pressed her numb hands to her eyes, then her ears. The roaring would not stop. It howled from all sides, jabbing at her, hurting. She swayed and staggered backward.
Animal! it screamed. Exile!
The sound seemed to crawl inside her. It echoed behind her eyes, a dizzying, hateful wail that she couldn’t push away. It choked her, and she realized she was sobbing, gasping for air that wouldn’t come. She fell to her knees, holding the earth for reassurance that something was real. Something was solid. But her fingers were frozen and useless, unfeeling. The world spun.
The mist swirled white around her. Now patches of darkness marred it, blotches in nothingness, holes and passages into more nothingness. It yawned before her, and she rolled, choking, gasping, beneath the terrible landscape of emptiness, a pit sucking at her from every direction.
Exile! it howled. Ingrate! Beast! Beast!
The black moved overhead, a blank wave, a hole, an abyss.
And then there was nothing.
There is a time, in the hour before dawn, when the heaviest darkness drains away, leaving merely gray. It is the effect, if not the coming, of the light. Kate, never before having spent many full nights awake, hadn’t know this, but her time in the woods had taught her the night’s various shades: its twilight blue, midnight black, and that final uncertain lack of tint as night makes way for day.
It was in this gray hour before first light, the air cool and smelling of wet, that she found herself outside the sanctuary walls, searching.
Panic had bloomed in her chest when Zirri brought news of Nell’s disgrace. The girl was gloating; Kate could see the hateful joy she took in her news. She’d rushed to get to them, coming before Mistress Meva could, before any of the others.
“She broke the biggest rule,” Zirri had smirked. “She went to the center.”
Immediately, Kate had looked to Susan. Susan, who had grown sick these last days, her face blank in a way that made Kate feel hollow and jittery. But still, Susan would know what to do. It was an emergency.
And she did. She’d turned on the girl, her eyes suddenly focused, impatient. She had no time for Zirri. Even Zirri could see it.
“Where did they take her?” she demanded.
The girl pursed her lips and shrugged.
“How should I know? The old man said she was an exile now and that we shouldn’t think of her anymore.”
Susan frowned, and Kate’s spirits lifted. Susan would fix everything!
“You know,” she had said, moving closer to the girl. “You know because you told on her, and you’ll tell me now or you’ll be sorry.” She said it so fiercely that Zirri backed up, knocking into Jean.
“Outside the walls,” Zirri said. “That’s all. I saw them take her outside the walls. But she isn’t there anymore,” she added. “I know that, too.”
The Shepherdess hurried in, and Zirri made a swift exit.
Mistress Meva was tearful when she sat down, and Kate wanted to pull away
