“The difference is air. There is plenty.” Williams folded his arms. “Now. The reason.”“Please tell us,” Sablen said dryly. “I am beginning to suspect it will be unpleasant.”“It is a trial of the mind.” Williams’s voice softened. “The silence does something to people. After a while, your thoughts stop being thoughts and become voices. They tell you things. Things you have buried. Things you do not wish to hear.”“What kind of things?”“The worst ones.” He gazed at them steadily. “Thorne, when you were struck with grief on the battlefield, the golden clover took you. Why? Because your grief was unexamined. You pushed it down, you ran from it, and when it finally surfaced, it surfaced as a flood. In the Hollow Hour, you will meet that grief. Face it. Sit with it. And learn that it cannot destroy you unless you let it.”“What if it does?” Thorne asked quietly.“Then you will emerge from the pit, and we will talk, and we will try again.” Williams’s expression was kind. “No one has ever b

He saw Lirael.She stood in a dim, stone chamber, her gown torn, her hair tangled. Her eyes were red and swollen. A tall, smirking figure stood over her, a young man with Darius’s sharp nose and cold eyes. Voss. He reached out and seized her wrist, and she cried out. Thorne’s heart seized.“No,” he whispered. “No.”The golden light flickered beneath his skin.“Control,” Williams said sharply, behind him. “Breathe.”“He is hurting her!”“It is an image. It is not real.”“It is real! It is happening!”“It may be. But you cannot stop it by rage.” Williams’s voice was low and urgent. “Look at it. Do not look away. And breathe.”Thorne’s hands clenched. His whole body shook. The golden light surged, crackling along his knuckles, and the lamps around the cellar flared and guttered. Kester stepped back, one hand rising to the silver gauntlet.In the mirror, Voss’s hand tightened on Lirael’s arm. She struggled. Tears streaked her cheeks.“Breathe,” Williams said again. “In for four.”Thorne d

By the second hour, they were moving in a smooth, almost rhythmic flow, each step in unison, each turn anticipated. When a swinging log came out of the rain, Thorne ducked a half-second before the rope tightened behind him, and the entire chain bent as one.“Better,” Williams called, from the sidelines. “Much better.”“Is this a game to him?” Breck panted.“I think it is a religion,” Cael said.They reached the end of the course in the third hour, soaked, mud-caked, and laughing, a high, giddy laughter born of exhaustion and relief. Kester pulled off their blindfolds one by one, and they blinked in the grey light, staring at one another’s filthy, grinning faces.“That was the worst thing I have ever done,” Breck announced.“You say that about everything,” Sablen said.“I mean it this time.”“You mean it every time.”“Well, I am consistent.”Williams, standing at the finish line, wore a small, pleased smile. “You have discovered something important,” he said. “Trust is not a feeling. I

“I know.”“Good. Keep going.”Thorne regained his balance, tightened his focus, and pressed on. The beams grew faster. The wind rose to a howl. A bucket of cold water doused him from behind, and he gasped, nearly losing his footing, but the water clover caught him, and he slid forward like a seal across ice.When he finally reached the platform, drenched, battered, and exhilarated, he turned and saw the others watching in wide-eyed silence. Sablen was grinning. Maya was shaking her head in amazement.“That was beautiful,” Maya said.“That was terrifying.”“That too.”The others had a harder time. Without clovers, Cael Dross and Breck had to rely on pure agility, and both took multiple blows, falling into the shallows and scrambling out, cursing and spitting. Sablen, with the Verdant Watch’s training, crossed with fluid, economical grace, and Maya, using her small blades to deflect the lighter beams, managed a respectable, if bruised, passage.By the time the last of them had stumbled

“It means we will repeat each trial daily for the next month.” Williams smiled, and Breck groaned. “And add more difficult variations.”“I think I hate him again,” Breck whispered to Sablen.“Yes. But you also respect him.”“That is the worst part.”Evening on the IslandThat evening, the dwelling was warm and golden with firelight. The team gathered around the long table in the main room, still aching, but fed and washed and wrapped in clean blankets. Master Adrian had cooked another feast, roasted fish, root stew, fresh bread, and a rich, spiced pudding that disappeared in minutes. Outside, the wind moaned through the trees, and the river hissed in the dark.Thorne sat near the fire, staring into the flames, turning the day over in his mind. The Mercy Duel replayed in his head, the words Williams had thrown at him, the fury, the white-hot temptation. He had held on. Barely. But he had held on. A faint, unfamiliar sense of pride warmed his chest, tempered by a deeper unease. If it wa