Yann woke up and stiffened when he heard high-pitched, childish laughter nearby. He frowned at the surroundings.

He lay on his side in the skeleton shelter he and the other Watchmen built last night. The other Watchmen all lay asleep inside the shelter, too. No one should be laughing in this hellhole.

He pushed himself up into a sitting position. Rien had been the last man assigned to stay awake and keep the fire going, but he’d fallen asleep on the job. Cold, black charcoal lay in the circle where the fire should have been.

Eliska no longer occupied the place between Yann and Yvan where she fell asleep last night. Marine wasn’t inside anymore, either.

Right then, he heard Eliska talking to another woman outside. The second woman had a high, musical voice and she said something that made Eliska laugh.

Eliska had a softer, more reserved laugh. She tried to keep it to a quiet chuckle. The first laugh Yann heard must have been someone else’s.

He left the shelter as carefully and quietly as he could to avoid stepping on any of the other Watchmen. He walked outside…..and his world stopped when he saw Eliska talking to Marine.

She’d cleaned herself up as well as she could under the circumstances. Her dress hung in dingy tatters the way it did yesterday, but she must have gone to the river to wash her face and hair.

She was still smiling at Eliska when Yann came outside. Marine’s cheeks glowed with light. Her eyes twinkled and color washed over her face when she burst into a huge, mischievous grin.

Yann stared at her in stupid disbelief. This couldn’t be the same person. That wasn’t possible.

Her eyes darted to him and she blushed. Damn, she was beautiful!

Eliska turned around to see what Marine was looking at and Eliska saw Yann’s reaction. “I told you she was beautiful, didn’t I?”

Yann opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

Marine bit her lips to stop herself from smirking so much, but it didn’t work. “Maybe he thinks I’m a changeling and I spirited the other Marine away to take her place.”

Her voice rose and fell in a musical wave. She exaggerated the word, spirited, and raised her hands to simulate flying.

“Your dress gives it away,” Eliska replied. “It’s too bad you can’t use your magic to fix it. That dress sure was beautiful.”

“I suppose I can always get another one somewhere.” Marine glanced at Eliska once and went back to returning Yann’s stare. “Anyway, it’s like the Watch Commander says. We might wind up back in some magical Layer soon enough.”

“But then you’ll go crazy again,” Eliska pointed out. “Isn’t there any way to protect yourself from the Dark?”

“I don’t have to commune with the Dark,” Marine replied. “I’m not communing with Darklings now. I do it when I want to and need to.” She made a disgusted face and stuck out her tongue. “I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t have to. Pew!”

Eliska laughed again and Marine joined in.

Yann blinked at both of them. This….this was the real Marine—the Marine who had been hiding under all that dirt all this time? He didn’t dare to believe it.

The two girls regarded him while he scrambled to come up with some reaction other than just slack-jawed shock.

Eliska snickered again, leaned close to Marine’s ear, and murmured again, “I told you so.”

Marine giggled like a little girl. Her dark eyes kept flicking upward to meet Yann’s. Every glance from her made his stomach flip.

Eliska took a few steps away from her. She had to pass Yann to go back into the shelter. “Tell your father I’m going back to the river to get some more water for the men when they wake up. Tell him I’ll be back in a little while.”

She ducked into the shelter and took out the two skull bowls Yann made last night—the large water bowl and the small bowl Neils used to serve Marine her share of the food.

Yann stood rooted to the spot while Eliska passed him the second time, murmured, “Come on, Marine,” and walked off toward the river.

Yann was still standing there with his jaw on the ground when the two girls walked away together and vanished behind the bone mounds.

Just then, his father came outside. “Where are the girls? I just heard them out here.”

Yann pulled himself together as well as he could. “They went over to the river to get water for the men. Eliska said they would be back in a few minutes.”

Yvan glanced around and frowned. “Where’s Marine? Did she disappear on us again?”

“She went with Eliska. They went together.”

Now Yvan frowned at Yann. “I don’t understand. Did Marine follow her or something?”

“Marine regained her sanity sometime during the night,” Yann explained. “She says she doesn’t have to commune with Darklings all the time and I guess she doesn’t have to do it now. She’s back to normal—back to being funny and helpful and beautiful and friendly the way Eliska said she was in the other Layers. Remember?”

Yvan furrowed his brow at his son. “Are you sure? That shouldn’t be possible.”

“I just saw her. She’s……” Words failed Yann. “You’ll see when she gets back. She and Eliska were just out here talking and laughing and joking around like old friends.”

Yvan wouldn’t stop frowning. “Are you sure?”

“I saw them with my own eyes. I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it for myself. Just wait. They’ll be back in a little while.”

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The rest of the men woke up while the girls were still away. Yann tried to explain the situation to them as best he could so they wouldn’t be too shocked when Marine showed up looking like….well….like a princess.

He just flat didn’t believe Eliska when she told the Watch that Marine was a princess.

Now he understood—now that he’d seen her himself.

She really was one. She had to be. He’d never seen any woman who matched his idea of a princess more than Marine. She only needed a beautiful, expensive gown to complete the picture.

The men went through a mixture of reactions when he told them. Omer only nodded, but Yann saw right away that even he didn’t fully comprehend the profound change that came over Marine.

“I don’t believe it,” Rien countered. “I don’t care what you say. I just don’t believe it.”

“I don’t think I fully believe it, either, to tell you the truth,” Yann replied.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Yvan added.

Neils brought the leftover buck meat outside. The men were in the middle of eating breakfast when the two girls came back.

The men heard Marine laughing before she got close enough to see her clearly. Her voice rang over the landscape and then Eliska’s quieter laugh joined in.

The two young women talked non-stop from the minute they came over the farthest rise. They didn’t stop talking until they returned to the skeleton shelter and rejoined the men.

“And then he skidded around a corner, crashed into the butler, and the cake flew up in the air,” Marine blurted out in a breathless rush. “He was running so fast that the cake sailed across the passage and splatted into an oil painting of Great-Grandpa Leopold Heinrich Von Schtuben. The cake hit him right in the face!”

Both girls exploded in laughter….and then they noticed all the men staring at them.

Marine blushed. Eliska clamped her mouth shut and tried without success to get serious.

She squatted down, set the bowl of water in front of the men, and put the smaller skull bowl next to it. She kept coloring and lowering her eyes so she wouldn’t look at anyone.

Marine stood off to one side and didn’t come near the group, but her cheeks still glowed with life. Her eyes danced with laughter and her lips twitched up into little smirks when she saw the way the men were looking at her.

Yvan broke the uncomfortable silence by clearing his throat. “Marine…..”

“Yes, Sir,” Marine replied, threw back her shoulder, and shook her long, dark hair out of her eyes to face him.

He frowned when she called him that. He cleared his throat again. “Um….how long can we expect you to stay like this?”

“I’m sorry I can’t tell you that, Sir. I’ll probably have to commune with Darklings again while we’re in this Island. I’m sorry I can’t predict what will happen—and I can’t predict whether I’ll be one way or the other in any other Layer we wind up in.”

“So…..there are Darklings in this Island? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Yes, Sir,” she replied. “There are a lot of Dark forces in this Island. I’m surprised we haven’t run into any yet.”

“What have you been communing with them about if you can’t convince them to leave us alone?” Rien demanded. “What’s the point of communing with them at all? You might wind up attracting them to us.”

His questions didn’t offend her in the slightest. “I don’t commune with them to make them leave us alone,” she replied. “I don’t think anyone can do that, especially not if the Voyant is the one sending them after you.”

“Why do you commune with the Darklings?” Yvan asked. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

“She does it to get information about the Voyant’s plans and activities,” Eliska cut in. “She’s a member of the Guardian Templars. Her order dedicated themselves to stopping the Voyant and stabilizing the Coil. She’s been traveling through the Dark Layers trying to find out why he’s destabilizing it and what we might be able to do about it.”

Yvan scowled at her. “I was asking this young lady here. I think she can answer for herself this time, don’t you?”

Eliska cringed, turned bright red, and looked away. Fortunately for her, Neils held out a handful of the cooked buck meat just then and scooped the food into her hands.

She stared down at her food while she ate. She didn’t look up or get involved in Yvan’s conversation with Marine again.

Yvan turned back to Marine. Now it was her turn to clear her throat. “I commune with the Darklings to get information about the….”

“I heard her, Marine,” Yvan interrupted. “Thank you very much.”

“I also commune with the Darklings to find out what the Voyant wants from you and why he’s coming after you to get it—if that helps,” she blurted out. “I don’t know if that helps or not, but…..” She trailed off when she saw the expression on the Watch Commander’s face.

“Have you found anything out?” Omer asked. “Do you know what it is he wants?”

“I’m sorry. No, I haven’t. My whole order has been working on almost nothing else for the past few years.”

Yvan searched the bone fields and muttered under his breath. “There must be some way to find out what it is.”

“We’ve always assumed it was something magical,” Marine went on. “Something that would increase his power.”

“Then it can’t be any of us or anything we have,” Vidal pointed out. “None of us is magical. The only people here who have magic are Eliska, Anríq, and you—and we’ve already determined that the Voyant was sending Darklings after us before any of you joined us.”

“I know!” Marine exclaimed. “It’s a great mystery.”

“If it’s a mystery the Guardian Templars can’t figure out, what chance do we have?” Yann asked.

“We don’t—which is why we aren’t going to try.” Yvan stood up. “Pack up. We’re heading for the other river Niyazi found yesterday.” He turned to Marine and examined her a little more closely. He took in her torn dress and her shiny hair. “So…..there’s no steps we can take to keep you like this?”

“I’m afraid not, Sir. If I thought it would help you at all for me to stay like this, I would do it.”

“It would help us for you to stay like this. It would be so much more helpful to travel with a sane person than a wild thing that keeps shrieking and snarling and spitting at everyone.”

Her jaw dropped. “Did I really do that?!”

“All the time,” Barsali told her. “It gets really annoying after a while.”

“But….wouldn’t it be more helpful to find out what the Voyant is doing and why he’s hunting you?” she asked.

Yvan grimaced and turned away. “I suppose so.”

The other men stood up and got busy getting ready to leave. The process didn’t take long at all because they had no baggage except their weapons.

Eliska put the small bowl into her shoulder bag and tucked the larger one under her arm to carry it that way. She looked up, made eye contact with Marine, and the two girls smiled at each other.

Yann and the others gathered their weapons. Neils wrapped what was left of the buck meat in his hog hide to take with them.

No one else had to do anything. Niyazi led the way farther inland. The group began another grey day of clambering over the bone fields.

Marine joined the line with Eliska. Yann took the same place behind Eliska, but the two young women spent most of the trip exchanging glances with each other. Neither of them paid any attention to Yann or any of the other Watchmen.

Yann spent most of the trip staring at Marine trying to understand how she could have just fallen from the sky like this. She walked straight upright like a normal person now.

She had a tall, willowy frame and stood at least five inches taller than Eliska. Marine carried herself with a regal bearing.

Her posture really did make her look like a princess. Her dress did absolutely nothing to dampen that impression.

The two girls posed such a stark contrast to each other. It staggered Yann’s mind to think how different they were from each other—and yet they made friends.

Marine’s warmth and outgoing personality would win anyone over —but it went further than that. These two young women understood each other at a deeper level.

They both had powerful magic. They both faced the same dangers and now they both carried out the same mission to find out the Voyant’s plans and try to stop him.

Eliska brightened up so much around Marine. Yann had never seen Eliska so happy and unguarded, not even around him.

She smiled much more easily. Her eyes sparkled with a new kind of light. She actually looked excited about all of this instead of barricading herself behind granite walls and driving everyone off at the point of her staff.

The whole unfolding situation astounded Yann too much to feel jealous—of either of them. He could only marvel that Marine was here—that she really had replaced that crazy woman who followed the Watch from the Dark river.

End of Chapter 4.