Chapter 44

“We should go,” Fordham said, reading her mood.

“Yes, I think so.”

Darkness had truly fallen in the village, but no one would be the wiser. Street performers had come out to dance and sing and play music. Taverns were open, and customers sprawled out onto the steps. A dance had started in the intersection to Painters Row. Merriment was had all around.

“I never knew anything like this existed,” Fordham admitted as they passed row after row of dancers.

“Is the House of Shadows so different? No dancing? No music?”

His eyes grew distant. “There is music and dancing, but it’s not like this. We have been closed off in our world for a thousand years. No one leaves, and only humans dare to cross our borders—and most do it by accident. We have made our own city our own realm.”

“That sounds isolating,” she admitted. Though she did not ask the question she wanted to know—how exactly had he gotten out?

“It likely helps that the majority of us do not know any different,” he admitted. “They have no