Mother always kept Corvo away from towns. Before the Shadow Man came, they might pass through villages and sometimes spend nights in inns, always while under glamor, but any population center larger than a few hundred people was strenuously avoided. It had been different in Verarszag, while they were at Castle Erod; there she would sometimes take him into the nearby city for a day or two while on business. They were so remote from Esenia there that it had seemed safe to be seen.

He had loved the city. The sights and sounds and smells, the animals everywhere—his senses swelled with excitement in places like that. But since coming back south, such outings had become very rare.

Yet now they all walked together toward the town with the strange name. Dorian went first down the muddy road; second were Corvo and Mother, holding hands; then followed Trito, and Aletheia, and at last Melitas trailing behind. He led their train of four horses by the reins.

Corvo tried to pronounce the town’s name again.

“Batty?” he said.

“No,” Mother said. “Baw-haw-tee.”

“Bah-hatty.” He pronounced it like the noise made by a sheep, and when he realized that he had, he giggled. “Baahh-hatty!”

Mother smiled. The grip of her hand tightened. “Not quite, my little crow. Bahaty.”

“My name is better,” he said. “It’s like a sheep and a hat!”

“It may be fitting, too, for I suspect we will soon see many sheep.”

Mother was right, as usual, because as they came to “Bahaty” and its first buildings, fields of livestock came into view. Sheep and goats formed groups and grazed with heads held low to grass. Horses stood idle in stables and corrals. The air smelled like manure. The road was muddy and messy, and Mother cringed whenever Corvo stepped into an especially deep puddle.

Mud splashed onto his pants and along her skirt.

He loved it here.

The occasional shepherd or woman carrying water stared at them as they passed by. The people in Veshod had olive skin but fair hair and light eyes of unusual colors. They seemed smaller, scrawnier, and stranger somehow than the men and women Corvo was used to seeing.

“What’s wrong with them?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Dorian said over his shoulder. “They’re just Veshod.”

This answer was not satisfactory. “They look sick,” he said. “Are they sick like the Boy-r?”

“No,” Trito said from behind. “The Veshod are mutants.”

“What’s a mutant?” Corvo asked. He connected this word to one he had read before but never understood.

The elf stepped past Mother to speak more softly, to make sure he wasn’t overheard.

“The Kathars of Koilados were given their name because they alone were uncorrupted by the Fall,” he said. “Their name means ‘the pure’. The other humans of Esenia were not so lucky.”

“He is right,” Mother said. “Mana in this place has changed them. They are still human, but they have adapted to their new home.”

“But what’s a mutant?” Corvo asked again.

She looked down at him. “A mutant is a creature who was once normal, but who mana has now made different from its kind.”

“Am I a mutant?”

“No. You are quite human.”

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“Are you a mutant?”

Mother smiled, but her eyes seemed to frown. “In a sense. But a true mutation can be passed along to children. A manaseared magician is different.”

“Is Trito a mutant?”

She gave the elf a glance. He nodded.

“I am,” he said. “But it would be best not to remind the villagers of that.”

The magelights were out. There was no light except the sun overhead, for the first time in what felt like all of Corvo’s life. But still they seemed to draw more and more attention as they pressed forward onto Bahaty’s first true road. Crowds poured from mud-covered huts roofed with straw and leaves. Old women, men with horses, dogs and children rushed to the side of the road.

Mother always received looks when they met strangers, but this was something more intense.

“Did they know you were going for the Oak of Spring?” Dorian asked.

“They did,” Trito said.

It was Trito who seemed to be the most stared-at, followed thereafter by Mother and Aletheia. At first Corvo waved to a little girl with pale green hair, but Mother yanked his arm and whispered, “A duke does not consort with peasants. Do not pay them your attention.”

Corvo huffed. He wanted to be around children his age, peasants or not. But he did what he was told.

A man in red scale armor stepped out into the road in front of them. He was serious and taller than the others. A tabard of an eel hung down from his waist, but the bronze sword he wore was the surest sign that he was a member of the Boyar’s retinue.

Aletheia jogged to the front of the procession and bowed to the man.

“You’ve made new friends,” he said, with looks between Corvo, Mother, and Dorian. He spoke Kathar with a thick accent.

“They’re old friends,” Aletheia said. “Only new arrivals to Veshod. How is he?”

“Ilya grew worse some time after you left.” The man gestured for the crowds to part. “He is not dead, yet. Do you have it?”

Aletheia reached into her armored jacket’s pocket. From it she retrieved a golden acorn, and she offered it to him.

“They’ll work,” she said. “We’ve tested them.”

“We’ve tested them on injuries,” Dorian corrected.

The man looked Dorian up and down. He looked surprised and also irritated at the old man’s interjection, and promptly ignored him, turning his gaze back to Aletheia.

“They’ll work,” she said again.

“I hope so,” said the man. With that he gestured for them to follow.

They reached the shore that stretched to the north of town. Corvo couldn’t remember the last time he had seen the sea. Raucous blue-and-white waves battered against a white beach. It smelled of salt and fish. A wharf with small and unimpressive boats was off to the right, and straight ahead was a narrow stone bridge above the water that stretched two thousand feet out into open sea.

At the bridge’s end stood a castle on a small, rocky, and circular island. It clung so close to the waves that it nearly seemed to float, like a boat, except for that it never rocked or moved.

They were at low tide now. By high tide, the bridge would be drowned and inaccessible.

The castle was black and made of huge stones. Tall but not wide, sections of its parapet and outer walls had collapsed or eroded or crumpled away under the constant assault of the sea. Wherever the black stone had fallen, a far cruder palisade had been erected instead, so that a quarter of the castle’s lowest walls had been entirely replaced.

The bridge was solid all the way down. It had no railings or guard, and though it could still be traversed, foaming water splashed and ran across its surface.

This was a ruin of the Old Kingdom, repurposed by the local lord.

The man with the eel tabard led them to the bridge’s first steps. Another, shorter man in armor took their horses away, and then they began their march to the castle’s portcullis.

The party went single-file. Mother put Corvo in front of her, tapping him forward and saying, “It is sturdy. You will be safe. I am here behind you.”

At first he was not concerned. But the farther they went, the closer the water came to the level of the causeway, and the more dangerous the water seemed to become.

A wave hit the bridge. Salt water splashed across Corvo’s lips and foam trailed across his feet.

The man in armor didn’t slow down. Neither did Dorian, or Aletheia. But Corvo froze.

He felt as though he stood atop the water. If he moved, he might plummet into the sea and be lost forever.

“You must keep going,” Mother whispered. “Follow Aunt Aletheia.”

But Corvo shook his head. Another wave splashed across his chest, and the wind that followed it was freezing. He had no choice but to close his eyes. Mother would keep him safe, but he had to look away.

He turned toward her to be picked up.

“You are too big to be carried, Corvo,” she said. “You must keep walking.”

She pushed him forward. He held his ground. He hadn’t thought it would be like this. It hadn’t seemed so scary at first. Now he just wanted to go back to solid land.

When he dared to open his eyes, he saw Mother behind him, and then Trito, and finally Melitas.

Melitas scowled. But Trito leaned forward, and he said, “The tide comes in. We can stay safe here now, but if you block our way forward for much longer, we will soon find ourselves beneath water. Our feet will be swept up by a wave. We will be carried away, and we will drown. You. I. Your mother. Even Melitas.”

“Drown?” Corvo squeaked.

The elf nodded.

That terrified Corvo even more than the water itself. He was so scared that he looked back down the causeway. At its end he spotted Aletheia turned and waiting for them on the steps before a portcullis.

He sprinted toward her. They all made it into the castle after that.