“We have to get it to a vet!” Liam cried as he dropped down beside the dog. “Oh, we’re so sorry, boy, we are so sorry.” He stroked a clean patch of dry fur behind the dog’s left ear.

“We can’t!” Emma cried. “My dad!”

“This dog is messed up; we can’t leave him here like this,” Liam argued, but already I could see the way he blinked, doubting his own certainty.

The dog mewled. It was not urgent. It was not a plea for help. It was sad and accepting. The dog neither knew that it was dying nor that it might yet be saved. It only knew pain and that its legs would no longer raise it up off the pavement. His tail moved once, twice.

“We have to get out of here,” Emma fretted. She went around to the front of the car and moaned upon seeing a dent, a bloody dent, in the right front bumper. “Oh, my God, oh, my God. I have to clean off the blood and get home right now!”

She was close to panic, and Liam left the whimpering dog’s side reluctantly and went to comfort Emma.

“Someone’s going to come by and see us here,” Liam said, glancing nervously down the road. “If they do, they might pull over to help. Then we’re out of luck. But we can’t leave him suffering like this.”

“We could drop him off somewhere and drive off.”

“Carry a bloody dog in the car? What if we get pulled over? What if the car breaks down? What if there’s a security camera at the vet? We have to . . . to put him out of his misery.”

“Maybe if we left him, someone else would come along.” Then she surrendered. Her shoulders sagged and she shook her head, not in denial but in rejection of her own desperate plans.

The dog made a soft mewling sound, then a yip of pain.

They stared at each other until Emma said, “I can’t do it. I know we have to, but I can’t. I can’t.”

“Make up your mind,” Liam snapped, then apologized. “I’m sorry. I—”

“It’s—” Emma said, and waved a hand, as though that movement could push terrible choices away.

“I’ll do it,” Liam said. “I’ll drive. I can do this. I can do this.”

They got back in the car, with Liam behind the wheel. He threw the car into reverse and backed down the road a hundred feet.

“Did he stop moving? Maybe he’s dead,” Emma said, biting her fingernails. Tears were flowing freely.

“I’m sorry, boy. I’m so sorry,” Liam said. The he put the transmission into drive, sent the car rolling forward.

There was an agonizing bump as the right front wheel went over the dog. And a second bump as the rear wheel finished the job.

The car sped away.

Messenger and I watched their taillights glow in the dark. And then, we were back in the car. Emma and Liam were crying and cursing and apologizing still to the dog or to the heavenly powers or perhaps to themselves. Both were shaken and weeping.

Messenger said, “What is your judgment, Mara?”

“My judgment? What are you talking about? It’s sad, that’s my judgment.”

The car stopped moving. Emma and Liam stopped moving. Outside the wind still ruffled dark oak trees and sinister hemlock, but within the car only Messenger and I could move.

“They’ve done wrong,” Messenger said. “They’ve listened to the worst in themselves and acted in ways that upset the balance of Isthil, the balance of justice and wickedness. The crime demands a price be paid. So, I ask again, Mara. What is your judgment?”

“I DON’T KNOW WHAT—” I FELL SILENT BECAUSE I saw someone approaching the car, walking down the road toward us. It was a young man, maybe twenty years old, not much older. He wore a white hoodie and blue jeans.

Messenger spotted him, drew what seemed to my ears to be a nervous breath, and sat back in the seat. He rolled down the window.

The man in the hoodie ambled up, loose-limbed, thin and not very tall, but with that easy sense of command that spoke of great confidence and an absence of fear.

“Daniel,” Messenger said.

“Messenger. Mara.” Daniel leaned over, resting his forearms on the roof of the car but lowering his head enough to make eye contact with Messenger. From where I sat, I could see only the lower part of Daniel’s face.

I was consumed by curiosity, wanting to ask Messenger just what he meant by Isthil. Had I even heard that correctly? But this new arrival—not to mention Messenger’s eternal taciturnity—made follow-up questions impossible.

Daniel’s voice was like Messenger’s in that it seemed as if he, too, was whispering in my ear. But Messenger was serious and soft-spoken, while Daniel’s voice carried a hint that he might just possess a sense of humor.

“Have you dealt with the Early matter yet?” Daniel asked.

“We have begun,” Messenger said.

“Ah, so you’re being nonlinear,” Daniel said. “I remember a time when you were a prisoner of Flatworld, Messenger.” That was perhaps some sort of joke, I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t understand it.

Daniel’s voice grew more professional. The pleasantries were over. “Where is she in her progress?” The “she” was clearly me. Daniel indicated me with an outthrust chin.

“She’s calmed,” Messenger said.

“Memory?”

“I don’t want to overload her.”

“Ah,” Daniel said. He dropped to a squat, which let him look me in the eye. “So you have no real idea what’s going on. No idea why you’re here.”