Selwyn pounced on the crack. He could feel it with his fingers, but even if he leaned sideways like Ellswys, he couldn't get through.

A group of people, he realized; It was the group that hit the wall and blocked him. He threw it off his back, held it with his right hand, and squeezed his left shoulder into the crack. He sprinted sideways, feeling rocks behind and in front of him. There was no time to panic at the prospect of being sandwiched between immovable rocks: he was sure that Elsweith would never have the patience to come back to him. Two shuffling steps. Three. Then the rock wall was gone, the one his back rubbed against and the one in front of him.

He was still in the dark, but he could make out the shadows, and they were darker shadows, which meant more light than before. Best of all, the air is crisp and clean, with the smell of fallen leaves and apples. He looked up and saw tiny dots of light.

He was outside, looking at the night sky.

Ellswis patted the back of his head. "Are you going to stand there all night looking at the stars?"

She couldn't spoil his mood. He's outside. After all, he didn't want to die. Or at least not around the next day. Or at least he doesn't know. And, in any case, it will not be alone in the dark, surrounded by those who left before him.

He's outside.

Even the fact that there is no trace of Farrow does not diminish this. He believes Farrow won't go far.

"It's inconvenient, you know," Ellswyes told him, taking the backpack as if she hadn't carried it all the way here without him, as if she hadn't been in the habit of carrying it herself before meeting him. She drew a circle on his forehead with her fingers. "Seven days before the circle closes," she said in a voice he already recognized as her voice of power. She walked around him, her fingers still touching, and she drew another circle, which went around his head, from his forehead, around his right ear, around his back, around his left ear, and around his forehead. "Seven days, then you will be attracted to me." She moved her fingers down, over her nose, lips, chin, and neck, then moved to the left, drawing a circle above his heart. "Seven days, you must come to me."

Selwyn felt the beat change, the rhythm changed—he suddenly knew, but didn't know how he knew—to match her rhythm.

She withdrew her hand, straightened her backpack, and began to walk forward.

"Wait," Selwyn shouted behind her. He had never been here before, on the hillside where the tomb was located. He had never heard of this second entrance. But he can be oriented by the high mountain known as Grandfather, because it resembles the profile of an old man with a beard. "Penrith is like that."

"Go that way," Elsweiss cried, without looking back. "Come to me in seven days."

So she wouldn't stay to help him get out of any trouble he might get into: he might have guessed it. "But I don't know where you live." Selwyn took several steps to keep her audible. "You mean outside the woods?" But that didn't help: the whole area was wooded. The only witch he had heard of in the neighborhood was in the village of Waldham, but that witch was small, hunched over, supposedly like a dwarf, and had only one eye to be good. Elsweis, though with white hair and a wrinkled face, was straight, and he didn't notice that both of her eyes were a little cloudy.

"In the woods," Ellswys corrected. Then she turned to look at him. "You'll find me." She gestured to him, then to herself, and put her hand on her heart. Selwyn's heart fluttered strangely, almost in pain. "After seven days, you will be irresistibly attracted to me, and you will not be able to find me."

She lowered her hand, and Selwyn's heart stopped beating wildly, his head was suddenly filled with a buzzing sound, the muscles in his arms and legs stopped twitching, and he could catch his breath.

Elswys turned again, and Selwyn wanted to let go of her, but something hit the back of his head.

"I can't manage those landings," Mr. Farrow said. "And gnats and midges taste terrible. Have you ever tasted gnats or midges? Why can't you make me a bat that eats fruit? What is the plan? Are you going to let her go before you have a plan? That's not, it doesn't sound very smart to me. What if you need her magic again, and you've already left and let her go? ”

Finally, someone said something that caught Ellswys's attention. "Do you need another spell?" She asked, back.

Selwyn could guess the direction of the conversation. "No," he assured her.

"Yes," Farrow said, leaning on Selwyn's shoulder again.

Selwyn scolded him, "You want to deal with her, you arrange it yourself." ”