Claire took a few steps forward, unsure where to go. She had made it to the Shadow Lands, but she still didn't know how to find Owen. The fog was so thick and the landscape so indistinct that she couldn't tell where she had been only seconds ago.

"Hello?" she called out, her voice echoing. She shivered, but then tried to shrug it away. "This place isn't too terrifying," she told herself, hoping that saying the words would help her change her mind. It didn't.

She had been walking for a few minutes, trying to go in a straight path, when a crow suddenly took off into the air a foot over her head and pierced her eardrums with a shrill cry. She watched it fade into the fog, then continued walking.

Another crow shot toward her out of the murky air, sweeping over her shoulder and tugging a claw-full of her hair before disappearing from sight. "Ouch!" Claire exclaimed, reaching up to massage her scalp.

As she went along further, a third crow burst into view, then a fourth, then a fifth. They circled around her head, cawing so loudly that they left her ears ringing.

"Shoo!" Claire yelled, batting at them. After she hit one in the head and another in the wing, they fled some distance away. But then they only came back. And they had others with them.

Claire gasped and screamed as she was swarmed by the black birds, at first only a few, and then dozens. They pecked at her face and pulled her hair, beat her with their rancid-smelling feathers and scratched her with their pointed claws. The little she could do against them was run while trying to hit them away. Soon she was tearing across the Shadow Lands trailed by a murder of fiendish crows.

The birds grew more violent the further she ran. "Why are you doing this?" she demanded. "I didn't do anything to you!" Then an idea dawned in her mind. She stopped running. The swarm immediately lessened. She started walking backward, and a few crows fell away, circling overhead to keep an eye on her but doing nothing else to bother her.

To make extra certain she was right, Claire began walking forward again. The crows came back and pecked at her. "I see," she said, shielding her eyes from a crow's sharp beak. "You don't want me going this way."

This didn't discourage her. In fact, it did the opposite. "If these little monsters don't want me going this way, it must be the right way to go!"

A crow cawed loudly at her and scratched her ear. "Yes, that's right," Claire said sternly to it. "I called you all monsters. And I usually like birds, so that insult is not a light one!"

Running the direction the crows didn't want her to go was not pleasant. A cloud of black feathers, worse than the fog, surrounded her and made it hard to see, move, and even think. Claire almost became accustomed to the horrible feeling of being poked and prodded from all angles, which was why she was slightly shocked when the crows gradually began to drift away.

Even after the last crow let out a hoarse caw and disappeared into the shrouded sky, there was still something dark in Claire's vision, blurred by the fog a few yards away. She walked a few more steps and saw that it was Owen.

He was standing with his eyes closed, fists tightly clenched, and shaking with strained effort. At his feet was a small, black wisp, no higher than his knee.

Claire noticed all this in only a second before she called out his name. "Owen!"

~*~

Terrifying things still flashed through Owen's mind, but the unearthly noises had died out to almost nothing. He still kept his eyes closed, determined not to let the shadow catch him in its burning glare.

Suddenly he heard Claire's voice, calling his name over and over and laughing ecstatically. His eyes opened a crack.

"No," he told himself. He shut them firmly. The shadows had mimicked her before. They were trying to trick him again and had almost succeeded. She had sounded so real that time.

He felt two arms around him and flinched at the touch. "It's just a shadow," he thought. "Don't open your eyes."

Owen heard Claire say his name again. The hold tightened. A glowing warmth ignited in his face and flooded down to his feet as she kissed him.

"That was definitely not a shadow," Owen thought.

"It's me," Claire said as he opened his eyes. He saw her smiling face, but was hesitant to smile back.

"I'm here," Claire continued. "Let's get you out."

"W-what about the shadows?" Owen muttered weakly, his eyes flicking around nervously.

"I didn't see any shadows."

She was right; there weren't any to be seen. The air didn't feel as cold anymore. The torture was over.

But he still felt something cold at his feet. He looked down and saw a tiny shadow, writhing on the ground and hissing quietly. Its red eyes were dull.

"I did it," he thought, staring at the now pitiful creature. "I did it!" he said aloud, a smile spreading on his face.

"Yes, you did! You survived in the Shadow Lands for two days."

"Two days?" Owen repeated, fear shooting through him. That left him only four days to leave Etherea.

"Maybe a day and a half," Claire said, taking his hand, "but that's still too long, I think. Let's leave!"

He took a few steps before stopping again. "Are these the Shadow Lands?" he asked, looking around. "How did you get here? How did I get here? How are we going to get out?"

Claire laughed. "One question at a time!"

"Fine," Owen conceded. "I suppose the most important one is: how do we leave this place?"

Claire furrowed her delicate brow in thought. "I know how I came in, but I'm not so sure how to get back out."

"How did you get in?"

"Through...well, a tar pit."

Owen raised his eyebrows. "What do you mean? Did you just--?"

"I had this," Claire interjected, holding up a clear orb. It looked like the Gossamer Sphere, though instead of glowing with color it seemed to suck the color out of everything around it.

"That looks like the Sphere I used to enter Etherea," Owen said, watching it curiously.

"I used this one to come here," Claire continued. "I also went through a tar pit, so maybe we have to find one to leave."

Owen nodded. "We had better start looking, then."

They walked only a few more paces before Claire stopped. She grinned excitedly. "I have an idea!" She let go of his hand and dropped to her knees, pressing her palms against the ground.

Owen watched her in bewilderment. "What are you doing?" he asked.

Claire sighed in frustration and pushed against the ground harder. "I'm trying to turn the ground into tar, but it's not working!"

"Oh, right," Owen said. "You can do that. I forgot."

"But apparently I can't this time." The princess stood and brushed off her hands, obvious disappointment etched into her features. "Why can't I?"

"We are in a different land than Etherea," Owen suggested. "Maybe the rules aren't the same."

"That's probably true," Claire admitted. She let out another sigh. "Oh well. Let's go find a tar pit, then."

Owen and Claire set off through the foggy land, the princess talking about her travels as they went. Owen was amused and a little shocked by how many things--angry fairies, an oblivious giant, and a forest full of shadows--she had to conquer in order to find him. Her explanations answered all of his questions, except one.

"If you were traveling for more than a day, how did you stay in Etherea?" Owen asked. "Before, you were slipping out of dreams more often. Shouldn't you have been gone by now?"

Claire was caught by the unexpected question. "I hadn't thought of that," she mumbled. "How strange. I don't know."

While quietly puzzling over the unanswered question, Owen walked right up to an edge where the ground abruptly dropped away.

"Stop." He held out an arm to keep Claire, who wasn't paying attention, from walking off.

"What?" She looked down and immediately took a step back. A few loose rocks tipped over the side and clattered down. Though they disappeared into the fog, Owen and Claire could hear the rocks sliding for minutes before their sounds faded with distance. "That's a long way down," Claire whispered.

The princess turned around to walk a different direction, but Owen stayed at the edge. "What are you doing?" the princess asked. "We need to find some tar and get out of here."

Owen stared out at the drop and muttered, "We have to jump."

"What?"

"We haven't found any tar pits yet," Owen said quietly, looking intently at her. "I'm supposed to leave Etherea by going off the edge. Maybe...this is how we have to leave the Shadow Lands, too."

Claire shook her head. "No. No, that's not a good idea. Nobody mentioned anything about this. I'm not jumping off a cliff unless I know for sure it's not going to kill me."

"I fell off a cliff twice, and I'm still alive," Owen mumbled.

"What did you say?"

"It's not important. Honeyflower is the one who told you everything, right? She's a little absentminded, so it's very likely that she just forgot to tell you."

Claire hadn't stopped shaking her head. "This is madness, Owen. I didn't come all this way just to have you jump off a cliff."

"I thought you would know more about magic by now." Owen smiled. "It is madness."

She let out a slow breath. "I don't like it, but I think you're right."

Owen held out his hand, and Claire walked back and clasped it in hers. They both peered down, not seeing anything through the mist.

"Just make sure you're holding the Sphere," Owen said.

Claire nodded and tightened her grip on the orb.

"Are you ready?"

"Are you?"

Neither of them were, but they both nodded as bravely as they could. Their hearts pounded wildly, they held their breaths, and they jumped.