Know this, my dears. Our realm is full of doorways. Doorways into other realms. You may have seen them sometimes. A curtain of water falling where there is no waterfall. A metal gate standing in the middle of a field. A pool of water in the middle of a desert. Do not enter them. If you do, you will be taken to a perilous place, the Lows of Aer. If you ever come out again, it will be to a different place entirely! Many are the children who have entered the Lows. Few have come back…
-From “A Child’s Retelling of the Sirin’s Tale” (Old Tales, Book VI)
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The ChangerThe day that Voran and his companions left Vasyllia, it began to rain—a steady, insistent kind of rain that chilled deeper than snow. It never stopped long enough for the three travelers to dry their clothes, and so
