“It’s beautiful,” Kitsune whispered beside him.
Oliver glanced at her and saw behind them the gray mist that had delivered them to this place, evaporating. In moments it had dissipated entirely, leaving no trace of their arrival, save for their actual presence.
Kitsune’s admiration had not been for the mountains or the starry sky. Oliver swallowed hard and forced himself to turn his full attention upon the only structure built in the crux of those three mountains. At the base of the nearest there stood a massive pagoda-style palace with its many levels and fluted corners.
Made of sand.
In the eastern region of Euphrasia, this was the Sandman’s castle.
The sand that spilled out around the magnificent pagoda reached far enough across the rough land that Oliver and Kitsune were already standing upon it. The oxen grazed on rough grass nearby, but beneath Oliver’s feet was only soft, shifting sand.
“Collette’s here,” he said, more certain than he’d ever been of anything in his life.
Kitsune’s jade eyes gleamed in the starlight as she raised her hood, face grim. “Then let us retrieve her.”
Oliver slipped a hand into his pocket and clutched between his fingers the pillow feather that the Dustman had given him.
He started toward the pagoda-toward the Sandcastle-and Kitsune fell in beside him. Together they trudged up toward the tall double doors, the one aspect of the structure’s facade that matched the Sandcastle far to the west on the other side of the Atlantic Bridge.
The doors hung slightly open in invitation.
Oliver felt a strange calm descend upon him, settling into his bones with the chill of the night. He could hear his breathing too loud in his head. His hand found its way almost unbidden to the hilt of his sword, and with a bright whisper of metal upon metal, he drew it.
Kitsune slipped through the narrow gap between the doors. Oliver did not have her stealth, but neither was he concerned. The open door told him all that he needed to know about their arrival.
The Sandman expected them. He had been expecting them since the very moment that he had snatched Collette away from the house on Rose Ridge Lane, the Bascombe family home, on its bluff overlooking the ocean. Oliver did not want to think too much about that house and about his parents. If Kitsune’s theories about his mother were true, it changed every memory he had.
All that mattered now was Collette.
So if the Sandman knew they were coming, stealth be damned.
He kicked the door and it swung wide. Kitsune twisted to glare at him, surprise in her jade eyes. Oliver ignored the admonition and entered swiftly, investigating the shadows just inside the door, then turning his back to them, gazing into the dark corners he had yet to penetrate. The Sword of Hunyadi felt strangely light in his grasp, and he kept the blade raised, prepared to defend himself. If Rafael, his old fencing instructor, could see him now, the man would likely faint. He’d been taught sport and elegance, balance and dignity. Now he was learning bloodshed and survival.
Oliver recognized the chamber immediately, just as he was sure Kitsune did. They exchanged a glance and she nodded to confirm it, but the gesture was unnecessary. The Sandcastle had aspects in various regions throughout the Two Kingdoms, and perhaps even in such far-flung lands as Nubia and Atlantis. This was the second they had visited, and they knew of a third in Yucatazca. The exterior of this castle was drastically different.
But inside, it was the same.
In this vast cathedral chamber they had found the dead Red Caps, and the shattered remnants of the Sandman’s diamond prison. They had watched La Dormette die and been attacked by the Kirata. On that day, they had barely escaped with their lives, and Frost had been with them. Without him, they would surely have been killed.
Oliver moistened his lips, but his breathing remained steady. Frost wasn’t here now; they would have to find a way to survive on their own.
There were no lanterns lit within that massive reception hall. To the right, stairs along one wall led up to a second level, to a door that he presumed would take them deeper into the castle. But there were doors set into the walls on this level as well, all of them tightly closed. Starlight streamed in through the open windows, and a cool breeze whisked along the floor.
At the center of the room remained the shattered remnants of the diamond enclosure where once the Sandman had been imprisoned. Oliver pushed aside some of the broken shards with one boot, then glanced up at Kitsune.
The fox-woman stood twenty feet away, nearly lost in the shadow of a tall, fluted column that rose toward the ceiling high above. A dozen such columns stood in a circle around the hall, supporting the structure.
Cloaked in fur that seemed black, fringed with starlit orange, she caught his eyes and shrugged.
No sign of anyone.
Could it be that the Sandman remained unaware of their arrival? Oliver doubted it. And yet if that was possible, he had to resist the urge to call his sister’s name. They would have to start trying doors.
He gestured toward the stairs against the wall. If they were to find Collette, he thought it would be deeper within the castle rather than through any of those doors. He knew from experience that there was no telling where one of them might lead.
As he and Kitsune started to converge upon the stairs, there came the shushing sound of sand being disturbed.
Oliver spun and saw the hard-packed sand floor shifting. Something rose from it, sand cascading off of the figure, and in a moment she stood there, a small female form with wild hair.
“Collette?” he said softly, and took three steps toward her.
Then he slowed. Something was wrong with her. Even in the starlight he could see the utter lack of color in her hair and clothing.
His sword wavered. All of his courage and confidence lapsed in a moment of hesitation.
“Coll, what’s wrong?”
The figure turned. Its mouth hung open in a silent scream and where its eyes should have been were only black, empty pits. Oliver would have screamed, but now he was near enough to understand the lack of color.
This thing could not be his sister.
It was made of sand.
Raising his sword, he took the final two steps and brought the blade around in a smooth arc, and sliced the sand creature’s head cleanly off. It collapsed into a shapeless pile of dry sand.
In the same moment the floor began to stir and whisper in half a dozen places around the huge chamber.
“Oliver, be careful,” Kitsune said.
He nodded. His throat went dry and he could only watch in horror as the sand in the floor resolved itself into six more figures identical to the one he had just destroyed, each one an imitation of Collette, eyeless and silently screaming, desperate, clad only in what might have been ragged pajamas.
Then, in the center of the room-where Oliver himself had stood only moments before-a hissing noise began. A black hole formed and began to widen, sand slipping down into nothing, as though they stood in the upper chamber of an hourglass and the lower atrium beckoned.
A hulking figure rose from that hole, sand slipping around its legs.
It resolved itself in the starlight, becoming not one figure but two. The floor solidified beneath them, but all of the diamond shards had been swallowed by the shifting sand. The ones newly arrived were not like the others, not sculpted effigies of his sister.