Blackfeather Woods I felt your shadow on the way home.

She avoided the place where Anansi had died, loath to see it, that solitary tail. . . She couldn't move the tree and so there he would rest, rot, decay. No proper burial, no ceremony. She couldn't bear it. The thought of her boy meeting Jaes alone—

Please, tresy, know I am with you in spirit!

Hitching a sharp breath, Maegi instead diverted course and headed elsewhere, looking for the nearest cache. She was dreadfully sober; the pain she'd dulled over the past days was beginning to return. Physical, spiritual, existential—all of it, returning. Overcoming her. She couldn't bear it.

For a brief moment, the pale shape on the path ahead could have been Anansi, at least to her. Just one fleeting moment. But the feeling that she was looking at a ghost did not ebb, for surely it must be one if it was here.

The missing eye. The slender form. That scent. . .

Did ghosts have a scent?

A devastated sort of anger rose up within her, and Maegi did a 180, turning on her heel and stalking away into the forest. No. He had no right to be here, and she had no patience to deal with someone who'd left her in the lurch.