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commons. An aircar was such a rare sight on the estate that even the Dread stared at the vehicle for several seconds before turning away and resuming her steady walk.
    John and Quin hurried to the edge of the meadow in time to see a man get out of the car and head toward Briac’s cottage on the far side of the commons. When John caught sight of the man, he began to run, sticking to the trees but moving quickly, trying to get a better view.
    Quin caught up with him. “What is it?”
    The visitor turned for a moment, looking around the estate. John stopped running. Was he imagining things? The man’s face looked familiar. But sometimes, when he was on the estate for months at a time, far from London and crowds, he found that every new face looked familiar.
    “I don’t know,” he said. “Do you think you can find out who he is?”
    “I’m sure Briac will tell us if it’s important.”
    “I’m not,” John said quietly. He glanced at Quin and said mischievously, “But if eavesdropping makes you nervous …”
    “Nervous?” She pushed him indignantly, and he was pleased to notice her now studying the visitor with more interest. John wanted as few surprises as possible when it came to Briac. “Hmm,” she said. “I’ll come find you if I learn anything.” She kissed John lightly on the lips. “I know Briac will do right by you tonight. He’ll say something harsh, but he’s not going to stop your training. Of course not.”
    With that, she ran ahead of him, toward the cottages. John could already feel himself bracing for the coming confrontation with Briac. He watched Quin go, her dark hair swinging, her body graceful—but not the slow grace of the Young Dread. Quin was full of life.

CHAPTER 3

Q UIN
    Quin glanced back at John as she ran from the woods and through the high grass of the commons. He was still standing where she’d left him at the edge of the meadow, in the shadow of a large elm tree. His eyes were following her, but his gaze had retreated within himself, as though he were thinking about something entirely other than her as he watched her go.
    John’s eyes were deep. That was how Quin had always thought of them. When he was with her, they would flash with humor and love, but at other times they were desolate and hungry, as though searching for something far away and out of reach.
    It was his eyes that had first drawn her to him. Though John had only been twelve when he’d come to the estate, Briac had made him stay in a separate cottage out in the woods, all alone. Quin and Shinobu would visit him there often, intrigued by having another child on the estate, especially one so worldly, who lived in London and had been to many other places besides.
    John had seemed wary of their company at first, and his look warned them away. He’d spoken very little of anything personal, buteventually, Quin had decided the storms in his blue eyes were not anger or fear of betrayal, as she’d at first thought, but simple loneliness. They’d begun to spend more time with each other, and she’d seen his look slowly change to something almost like happiness.
    Now, moving across the commons, she could still feel the press of his lips on hers, his arms at the small of her back. She stole a final look as she neared her cottage, but he was gone.
    A few minutes later she’d climbed through a window in the back wall of her parents’ house. Crouching inside the pantry, which shared a wall with the cottage sitting room, she could hear the visitor from the aircar deep in conversation with Briac.
    “There can be a disappearance,” Briac was saying. “In which case, searches may go on indefinitely. That can be good and it can be bad.”
    Silently Quin pressed her ear against the narrow pantry door, which allowed her to hear better and see a small slice of the room through a crack between the door and the jamb.
    Her father was sitting in the old leather armchair, beneath the rows of ancient crossbows strung along