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front of her who was shaking her head back and forth, her eyes squeezed shut. When she opened them again a moment later they went almost perfectly round in shocked surprise.
    And they were focused on Clare’s face.
    “Clare!” she whispered. “Rho ddiolch i Andrasta!”
    Clare! Thank Andrasta!
    The moment froze in time. Clare’s mouth worked sound-lessly as she tried to form some sort of reply to the words she heard in her head—different from the ones she’d heard with her ears.
    Her name. She had said Clare’s name.
    Suddenly the girl turned her head sharply as though hearing a noise from somewhere behind her. When she turned back, her gaze was full of fear.
    “Helpa fi, Clare! Maent yn fy hela …”
    Please help me, Clare! They are chasing me …
    “What?” Clare blurted finally in response, her voice a startled whisper. “Who …”
    The girl opened her mouth to reply but a sudden shadow blotted the moonlight from her face. A large, rugged hand clamped tightly over her mouth and Clare skittered backward as the looming form of a man, dressed in a bronze helmet and armour, rose up behind the girl and grabbed her cloak—yanking her back behind the rock, out of sight of the path.
    The girl whimpered, but the sound was almost completely muffled by the soldier’s calloused palm. The man and woman on the track with the chariots would never hear it. Clare watched helplessly as the girl thrashed about wildly, her hands struggling at a brooch that fastened her cloak around her neck. As the man tried to drag her away she made one wild lunge directly at Clare.
    Clare shook off her paralyzing terror and tried to grab the girl’s flailing limbs. Tried to help somehow. But the soldier cracked the girl sharply on the back of her skull with the butt end of his sword hilt and she went limp, eyes rolling up into her head.
    Clare cried out in protest, but the soldier ignored her as if she didn’t even exist. Or wasn’t even there …
    With a glance in the direction of the redheaded woman and the chariot driver, the soldier threw the girl’s slim body over his shoulder like a sack of grain and loped away, running silently through the long grass toward the dark edge of the forest and away from the river track.
    The girl’s cloak lay upon the ground. Clare plucked at the material as if trying to convince herself that what she’d just seen had really happened. Fear and confusion clutched at her and she stayed crouched down, frozen and unsure of what to do. But the young girl was pretty obviously in a serious heap of trouble and Clare couldn’t help feeling that it was somehow all her fault. If she hadn’t been there—hadn’t distracted the fleeing girl and stopped her in her tracks—she would have made it to the riverbank. To the young warrior and the ferocious-looking woman, either of whom might have been able to help her …
    “Help!” Clare shouted suddenly, leaping up and shouting, waving her arms wildly in a desperate attempt to attract the attention of the pair on the path. But the woman had already leapt back into her own cart and, with a crack of the reins, the pair of chariots thundered off down the path, away from the distant smoke and fire. Clare pounded down the track in their wake, hollering and flailing her arms to absolutely no effect, the dust thrown by the chariot wheels burning in her throat.
    They didn’t hear her. They hadn’t seen her.
    Clare slowed to a jog finally, the sound of her own laboured breathing almost drowning out the sudden harsh call of a raven, startled from its night perch into flight. She bent over, hands on her knees, dizzy. Sparks flared behind her eyes and the world tilted on its axis.
    “ WHAT HAVE I DONE ?” Clare gasped.
    “You tell me. Then we’ll both know.” Al’s voice still managed to convey tightly wound sarcasm in a fierce whisper.
    Clare blinked.
    Sudden starbursts faded from her vision and Al’s pale, frightened face, framed by the dark fringe of her hair,