Tomas felt the cold change. It was no longer winter’s cold. It was the cold of a tomb.
“I don’t need to unmake it,” he said. “I only need to move it. One step left .”
The world lurched. Tomas grabbed Pug’s arm as the moor tilted, the sky and ground swapping places for a sickening instant. When his vision cleared, they stood on the frozen road to Stone Creek. Behind them, the fog had vanished. No tower. No ravens.
Tomas glanced sideways at his friend. The boy he’d grown up with in Crydee had changed. There was a stillness now behind Pug’s eyes, like the surface of a deep well. The magician’s hands, bare despite the cold, rested on the pommel of no sword. He carried no blade.
“You’re blocking the King’s road,” Pug said quietly. “Move aside.”
Pug looked at his hands. The blue light was gone. So was most of the color in his face.
Not one raven—hundreds. They descended from a sky the color of old lead, settling on the bare branches of thorn trees that had not been there a moment before. Pug stopped walking.
“What happened?” Tomas breathed.