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made sense. The rest of it was disintegrating around her, shattered into the Portal’s splintered light—the Portal that was taking her from the known world to the unknown.
    And her father had sent her here.
    “I’m sorry,” she sobbed out loud, unable to help herself. “I’m sorry I can’t be what you want me to be…. I’m sorry….”
    2.
    T he sudden tears momentarily blinded her, and when she blinked them away it was to discover that everything had changed. The Portal light was gone. So was its Alphiri Guardian. It wasstill night, but the air was colder than the place she had just left, cold enough to make Thea shiver. Hanging large and heavy in the sky, shepherding the stars, was a waxing moon, nearly full and bone-white, flooding the empty country with a wash of ghostly light. Thea’s bag lay at her feet, and she stared at it blankly, trying to remember what was in it and just why it had been thought necessary for her to have luggage. It wasn’t as if she had been going on a holiday somewhere.
    Thea wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand and looked around. She appeared to be quite alone, except for a distant cry of what she supposed was a coyote.
    “So,” said a voice behind her. “You are here.”
    Thea whirled, stumbling over the bag and nearly falling backward. She flailed for a moment to regain her balance, feeling a flash of pure resentment at being blindsided like this, and then stared at the man who stood before her.
    He was not tall, but managed to give an impression of looking down from a great height. His hand rested on a wooden staff, polished to a pale burnished shine. It wasn’t a crutch or a cane; the thing was half again taller than he was,with two feathers—one black, one black-and-white—hanging from the tip on a leather thong. He somehow gave an impression of being ancient, but his hair was long, black, and so glossy it reflected the moonlight. His face was a strange mixture of chiseled and round, with high cheekbones and a hooked nose below a broad expanse of forehead and eyebrows that cast his eyes into shadow. He was wrapped in a cloak made from what appeared to be a mixture of fur and feathers, reaching almost down to his mid-calf, but his feet were bare and thrust into a pair of sandals.
    Thea clung to the resentment because it gave her courage.
    “Who are you?” she demanded, in a voice that sounded much stronger and more self-confident than she actually felt.
    “Cheveyo,” said the man, as though that one word stood for everything. “You are Galathea.” His accent gave her name an odd, unfamiliar lilt.
    “Thea,” she said stubbornly.
    “No matter. Here you will have a different name; I will find out what it is in due time. Come, the Whispering Wind Moon is almost full. They sent you early. This is good.”
    He turned and began walking away, without looking back.
    He simply assumed she would follow.
    For an instant Thea contemplated sitting down on top of her duffel bag, and staying put. But this night, this place, made her feel utterly alone. Some part of her knew that her family, her friends, were no longer an easy plane ride away—that even Aunt Zoë’s comforting promise of coming to get her if things got tough would prove to be impossible to fulfill. They were all lost to her here, in a different world. Here, she was all she had. Herself, and the man walking away from her, knowing she had no choice but to follow.
    They had told her nothing, given her no clue as to what was supposed to be happening to her, other than the ongoing hints about “private lessons.” And it seemed that this was it, that her instructor was that taciturn man in a feather cloak whose long stride was even now taking him farther and farther away from her.
    The coyote howled again, somewhere in the distance, and Thea scrambled for her bag, stumbling in Cheveyo’s wake. He made no effort to slacken his pace or adjust his stride for her, andshe was almost running by the time