Everything was gone, the garden of wind and light, the Chrysalis, the Mother and her sister-crones, the rowan tree, everything. I was in a grove–no, it was a triad of trees: apple, oak, hazel. And at my feet something that smacked of familiar miens, a stone half buried in a pitch of heather. A stone bearing my name and a date I could hardly remember.A moment passed, another and in those moments I stood numb with gluey feet at the foot of my own grave. For the first time since I’d come to the Faeran Valley, I was alone. And the silence was deafening.

His voice a rhythm like rain, words rolling over themselves... “You are distinguished from the leaves by the shape of your eyes.They are whiter in color and rounder. Except on nights like this when the leaves are luminous....”“Still, you are distinguished from the night–your voice silent as candles melted in their own pools, used up with expression and light....