The days grew short and cold. The year tumbled toward an end with rising speed yet Samodevia stood still, as if bracing against something more profound than the passage of time.

Victor Fair walked through the village of Elsendorf on a quiet morning. Frost crunched under his boots, the sound loud in the empty streets. Victor shifted his burden – a basketful of eggs and bread and other such things – to his nondominant hand. He did not carry his sword, but a soldier was never without a weapon at hand.

The curious silence lifted. As it did, a young boy stepped from the thin shadow of a nearby birch. He looked at Victor with large, unhappy eyes.

Victor inclined his head in greeting. Henry was not much changed from the child Victor remembered clinging to Mrs. Hendricks's side. He had grown not at all. From the length of his hair to the worn cuffs of his clothes, it was as if not a moment had passed since their very first meeting at the side of a bloodied river. Indeed, the only difference was the Guardian's absence – and oh, what a difference it made.

Victor would have never mistaken Henry for a human child, had he met the boy as he were now.

Henry came to Victor's side. He followed after the soldier like a flitting bird all the way to the Korral estate. His feet never quite touched the ground, Victor noted.

Malik appeared as soon as they crossed whatever invisible boundary the cub had determined to signal the start of their territory. He growled at Henry. Henry blinked back, entirely unimpressed.

"Take this inside," Victor instructed.

Malik accepted the heavy basket. He stared at Henry for another long moment, then turned away with a huff.

Victor led Henry into the house. The boy hesitated at the threshold, but did come inside, glancing around with intent. The light of a flickering candle washed his eyes gold.

"There!" Malik cried out.

The boy thundered down the stairs from the second floor, gesturing wildly at their unexpected guest. Sofia followed close after him. The girl was less apparent in her hurry, but her steps were much livelier than usual. She watched Henry with great focus.

Henry returned the attention. The boy stood so still he appeared a shadow himself, unblinking, unbreathing, cast by some unseen specter.

"Malik," Victor broke the tentative quiet, "Fetch the eggs."

Malik's scowl lightened in his confusion. His eyes lowered in sheepish realization soon thereafter. The boy bounded back up the stairs, only to return a moment later, a familiar basket swinging precariously in his dash. He glanced from Victor to Sofia to Henry, then to the kitchen door. His arms tightened around the basket but he made no move forward, reluctant to leave his friend behind.

"Let's speak over breakfast," Victor sighed.

Eggs cooked quickly. The time it took to heat the pan and break the shells still seemed eternal, immersed as the room was in silence that weighed like stone. Victor kept an eye on the children as he worked, somewhat amused to see them squared off around what remained of the kitchen table. Their serious expressions sat at odds on features still soft with youth.

Victor laid the food out and took a seat himself. No one moved, and he found himself prompting, "Eat. Eggs don't taste good cold," in the same manner his mother once had.

The soldier frowned. He had not thought of his parents for many years. The realization that he could not recall his mother's face momentarily strayed his thoughts.

Forks scratched over plates. Victor set his unease aside, turning his attention to the present and its needs. There would be time to panic later – provided that he survived whatever lay at the end of the road that awaited them all.

"Why have you come?" he asked the sprite in the shape of a boy.

Henry had not touched his plate. He watched Sofia as she ate, blind and deaf to the growling wolf at the girl's side. The boy did not shift his attention when Victor spoke, but he did raise his hands, pale fingers shaping words.

Malik turned to Victor, scowling. "What'd he say?" the cub demanded.

Sofia continued eating, unperturbed.

Victor considered softening the sprite's words for all of a moment. Ignorance rarely did much good, however; as much as he wished to keep these children safe and far from harm, he was not fool enough to think it possible.

"You must stay," Victor said, repeating Henry's message word for word. "Let them kill. Let them die. It is time for all to end."

Malik shot to his feet. Victor grabbed the boy's shoulder before he could launch himself across the table, calling for him to calm.

"Coward," Malik seethed. He did not attempt to advance again, having wrestled back control from whatever instinct demanded bloodshed. Still, his entire body vibrated with tension, clawed hands gouging crescents into the table as he leaned into Henry's face to make his point.

Henry looked at the other boy at last. There was surprise in his eyes, albeit fleeting. It was as if he had only just now noticed the cub's existence.

Have you Seen her future? Henry asked.

Victor repeated the question. Malik glared mulishly and did not answer.

Henry turned back to his pensive study of Sofia's dining etiquette. Victor patted Malik's shoulder, signaling for the boy to sit down and let off torturing the table. The kitchen had seen enough damage at the hands of Lord Beaufort – the furniture would not last another supernatural tantrum.

"I can't," Malik whispered, just for Victor to hear. "I can't See her at all."

A chill stabbed through Victor's heart. He tried not to think of what such a thing could mean. Malik's gift had its limitations and Sofia – as ordinary as the girl appeared – was an existence beyond mortal reach.

"We leave today," Victor said.

Malik settled at the confirmation. He had not been nearly as eager when this particular course of action was initially introduced, but that likely had more to do with Beaufort's feathered messenger than the plan to leave Elsendorf. The village was hardly a home for the cub.

You will not speak? Henry signed, eyes on Sofia. His hands moved in sharp, jerking motions.

Allow me, then.

The floor shook. The shadows that lay over wood and stone lengthened, reaching for the room's inhabitants with spindly fingers. Victor felt his heart slow down, beat by beat. The rush of blood in his ears was a voice, the soldier realized. It spoke in no language, commanding the very soul. To go against it would be to unmake one's self, to fall to dust and scatter.

Victor was fast losing sense of the room, the world beyond it, his own existence. Sofia alone remained untouched. The girl sat still at the eye of a storm. Her face was pale with fright. She reached for something – Henry, perhaps; if the boy was still corporal and in sight, Victor could no longer see him. All but Sofia was submerged in breathing shadows.

"Stop!" the girl cried out.

Victor lost some time after that.

When awareness returned, he was seated at the table. A cup of tea sat in front of him, steaming gently.

"What happened?" he wondered. His voice was barely a whisper, each word burning like swallowed glass. The tea helped.

The shaking of his hands was, however, less than pleasing.

"Sof made the world stop," Malik said.

The boy sat slumped in his own chair. He had his hand pillowed in his arms and spoke without moving, his voice muffled.

"Is that why she does not speak?" Victor asked after a moment, the words slow to make sense to his bewildered mind.

Malik nodded. "Her voice – it is power," he said, then added, almost in a whine, "She didn't mean to."

"I know," Victor said.

Considering the devastation a single word had wrought, Victor understood the girl's caution. He knew, too, why she had chosen to keep her newfound power a secret. Victor could not have allowed such a dangerous ability to go ignored.

"She's afraid. Everything's changing," Malik said softly.

"I am not angry with her. Or you," Victor said. He saw no reason for Malik to think otherwise, and wished the boy to know the same.

Malik's shoulders loosened from their protective hunch. He attempted to stand but his legs refused to support his weight; he collapsed back into his seat with a clatter and a hissed wince. Wooden chairs did not make for a soft landing.

Victor was more successful. He was forced to move slowly, steps disjointed and sense of balance off-kilter. He shook his head when Malik tried to rise again.

"Rest. I will find her," he said.

"That way," Malik told him, pointing the way with a shaking hand.

Victor nodded in acknowledgement. A gust of biting wind told him where it was that Sofia and their guest had gone.

The front door stood ajar. Victor made his stumbling way toward it, then paused at the threshold, hand gripping the doorframe for support.

Sofia and Henry stood in the courtyard. They turned to look at Victor as one, pinning the soldier in place.

For a long, startling moment, Victor could not distinguish one from the other.

The strange sense of disorientation faded. Sofia and Henry were separate beings once again, rather than an image overlaid with its inverse. It hardly mattered.

Once something was seen, it could not be unknown.

"My Queen," Victor said, giving voice to the truth of Sofia's existence.

Sofia watched him with sad eyes. She dipped her head in agreement, exhaling a soft, threadbare sigh.

Henry had long turned his attention elsewhere. The boy watched the sky, face tilted toward the sun like a flower seeking warmth. He obviously stood upright yet for one moment, the moment Victor had first caught sight of them side by side, the boy's body had appeared as a slanted silhouette cast across the frozen ground.

Sofia, Victor realized, had no shadow.

Not until Henry came to stand by her under the thin light of a winter sun.