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his shoulder and uttered a series of soft croaks, purrs and clicks in his ear.
    “She has spoken with the king of the owls,” Moth said. “The fetches are nowhere to be seen. We should go now, without more delay.”
    Rowen took a dappled green cloak from a peg on the back of the door and handed it to Will.
    “Whose is that?” Will asked.
    “Yours, now,” Rowen said.
    It was all Will could do to keep up with Rowen and Moth, who both moved surefooted in the dark. At times they followed a path, but often Moth led them away from it into the trackless woods. Several times he whispered for them to stop. Rowen and Will would crouch and wait while he went on ahead and then returned to say it was safe to continue. After a while Will noticed that the archer never came too close to him or Rowen. He always kept himself at a slight distance, even when they were halted together. Watching him, Will was strangely reminded of the cloven tree.
    Once when Will and Rowen were crouched together, waiting for Moth, Will whispered, “What is he? I mean, he’s not … like us.”
    To his surprise, Rowen laughed.
    “In this realm we’re the odd ones, not Moth,” she said. “He is one of the storyfolk.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “It means this is his home. He’s not from elsewhere, like you. If I’m right about where you come from.”
    “Where I come from?”
    “We call it Elsewhere,” and Will realized she meant the word as a name. “Or sometimes it’s called the Untold. Grandfather says people from there are always trying to find the Perilous Realm. The lands of story. Not many ever do.”
    “So … you’re one of these storyfolk, too?”
    “Yes, but I’m also a Wayfarer like you.”
    Will opened his mouth and then closed it again. Every question he asked here only led to more questions.
    “Some people say Moth was once a warrior of the Shee n’ashoon,” Rowen went on quietly. “The Hidden Folk. He served the Lady of the Green Court, I heard. And then something happened. I don’t know what. But Moth left the Court and never returned.”
    “You didn’t seem very happy he found us in the snug,” Will said.
    “I’ve only met him and Morrigan once before,” Rowen said, “when I was very young. After what I saw in the clearing, I wasn’t sure it was really him.”
    Will pondered this, and then a new thought occurred to him.
    “He told you to go straight home. Where’s that?”
    “I live in the city of Fable, with my grandfather. He can help you, if anyone can.”
    Suddenly Moth was there in front of them. He held a finger to his lips and beckoned them to follow.
    He led them mostly downhill now, past large mosscloaked boulders and over fallen logs. As they descended, thin wisps of fog curled about their feet. A fine drizzle began to fall. The thick woods had been left behind, and now they were descending a rolling meadowland dotted with clumps of fir trees.
    Moth halted and crouched. He gestured for Will and Rowen to do the same. “What is it?” Will said.
    “
Silence
,” Moth hissed. “Stay behind me and do not move.”
    He slid his bow off his shoulder and notched an arrow in the string.
    Will peered into the dimness, and after watching tensely for a while he thought he could see something moving. At first it was little more than a faint disturbance in the gloom, but slowly it grew and took form as a pale, shifting shadow. At one moment it had a man-like shape, with arms that groped through the murk, then it twisted and shrank, and then, as Will watched, it transformed again into something to which he could give no name: a wispy, churning formlessness that seemed to be little more than fog taking greater substance. Rowen gripped Will’s arm, and he realized that she was as frightened as he was.
    A shrill cry went up from somewhere near by. It sounded to Will like the terrified shriek of a child. The shapechanging form halted, and for the first time it made a sound, a kind of hollow, whistling moan