Calling the little-used words to her mind, Meisha cast the spell. Outwardly, she felt no change, but she could sense the release of magic from her spirit, and knew the spell had worked. Still, as she shimmied to the edge of the drop, she felt a hint of trepidation.

She grasped the stone ledge and somersaulted, releasing the ledge before she hit her back against the rock. Slowly, lighter than the stale air in the cavern, she drifted to the floor below.

What seemed like a tenday later, when her feet touched the ground, Meisha sank into a crouch, grateful for the chance to bend her knees. Her spine cracked as she swiveled around to loosen her sore muscles.

By her light spell, Meisha could see the passage angled off to the right, the formerly smooth tunnel walls pockmarked with crags and fissures.

She drew her hand along the ground and found what she had hoped to find. Shaera's footprints hugged the wall. They moved steadily, and Meisha saw no traces of blood or torn clothing to indicate injury. She breathed a little easier as she continued on down the tunnel.

In the quiet, with half her mind alert on the trail and watching for danger, Meisha's thoughts drifted at random. Varan's words came unexpectedly into focus.

You've never shown any indication of friendship. . . .

She'd grown up on the streets of Keczulla, running in packs with other children of the same age and situation: a perpetual state of half-starved viciousness. She would never have risked her life for any of the other Wraiths, not when a loaf of bread was worth killing for. Why did she care about the future of a nobleman's daughter like Shaera? Why was Shaera worth risking her life for, when the Wraiths were not?

They had nothing in common. Shaera was refined and educated as Meisha never would be. The girl had never experienced the kind of hunger that was an acid in the belly, blighting any other rational thought.

Perhaps it was simply that Varan didn't care. Her teacher had the capacity for kindness; she had seen glimpses of emotion behind his power, but ultimately, the will was not there, Meisha thought.

Twice now, she'd been disappointed by those she'd chosen to trust. Yet here she was, groping in the dark after a stupid girl who hadn't sense enough to take a companion on her fool's errand.

Meisha picked up her pace, aware of a downward trend to the passage. At first she hadn't felt it, and if the rate of descent didn't change, she might have miles of tunnel to cover before she reached the bottom.

She stopped briefly to eat cold meat and a biscuit she'd taken from the stores. Before discovering the lower tunnels, Varan had kept a well-stocked food supply that often included fresh fruits and vegetables Meisha had never seen before. She hadn't thought to ask where they came from, until they were gone.

When she resumed her walk, Meisha discovered an abrupt end to the tunnel after roughly twenty feet. The passage fell away again, but this time, instead of being sheer, jagged rocks riddled the drop-off.

Meisha leaned over the edge to touch one of the rocks with her fingertip. Filed, she thought, to a razor edge. She drew her hand back and smeared the dot of blood away.

The architect of the Climb had gone to a great deal of effort to make the descent from the spider to the star as long and as treacherous as possible. If it were the work of the Howlings, to guard their stronghold, how had the dwarves ever traversed such a passage? Surely, there must be an easier way to move between both sets of caverns.

But if such a path existed, Meisha thought, even Varan did not know of it.

Removing a length of rope from her pack, Meisha tied one end around the nearest protruding stone spike. She looped the other end through her belt and slowly fed out the rope as she walked down the slanted wall.

At the bottom of the short climb, she found the remains of the trap.

A pressure plate smeared with blood sat crookedly at the base of the wall. Meisha touched the plate and found it sticky. The trap had triggered recently. She examined the immediate area. Following a line of fissures in the rock, she saw that the release of weight had caved in a false ceiling directly above the plate, spilling a hail of large rocks down on the passage.

Meisha crawled amid the rubble, shoveling stones aside with her bare hands. Dust rose in dry clouds. Her eyes burned and watered. Meisha scraped an arm across them and worked mostly by touch.

Finally, her hands encountered something soft. She uncovered a spill of red hair, and gradually Shaera's upper torso came into view. Blood had dried in a mask over half her face. Meisha put her fingers against the girl's neck and found a beat. Miraculously, she had survived the trap.

The heat from Meisha's hands seeped into Shaera's cold flesh. The girl stirred, moaning when she tried to lift her head.