***

The first light of dawn was in the sky. Alison got up and stretched. The air was dry and she felt warm. She pulled back her hood and was attending to her hair when she felt the baby move. Tears welled in her eyes.

'What's the matter?' Fury asked.

'I can feel it.' She placed his hand on her belly. 'I thought it would never be born. Now I wonder where it will be born.'

'Only time will tell,' Fury said. 'All we know is that we have a way to follow. Miralda has shown it to us.'

Alison took his hand and they went to the mouth of the cave. The ground was covered in a thick blanket of mist, pierced by the rays of the rising sun.

'A very special moment is approaching,' she said. 'It is a time between times ... a time when the boundaries between the realms are blurred.'

'How do you know?'

'The Sky Warrior told me.'

'Aye.' Fury nodded. 'He would. He came here by following the Way of the Wizard. We must get up there onto the headland before the sun breaks through. That's where we'll find Red Fox's Leap. We have our way to follow ... it's the Way of True Love.'

They abandoned their few remaining possessions and walked to the edge of the cliff. Alison looked down. Here and there the mist was clearing. She could make out rocks and the outline of a huge ship.

For a moment, she thought they had already made the passage between realms and she was back where she belonged. Then her heart sank. The Imperial Eagle on the ship's prow didn't belong to her former realm nor did the military equipment stacked on its deck.

As she watched, small boats left the ship.

'They're looking for us.'

Her heart beat wildly and she stumbled. Fury picked her up and carried her up a flight of stone steps set into a sheer cliff. They reached the top and Alison looked around. It was like entering a different world. The ground on which they stood was an island in a sea of cloud.

Two boulders poked up at the cliff's edge. An old man with a battleaxe sat on one. A boy with a toy windmill sat on the other. The sails of the windmill turned but the boy sat rigidly like a statue.

'Who are they?' Alison whispered.

'The Guardians,' Fury replied. 'The boy guards the pathways between the sixth and the seventh realms. I've already met him.'

'Who's the other?'




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