"No." No hesitation. "He is entirely himself and entirely safe and entirely ready."
I nodded.
I kept walking.
Alaric was not in the clearing.
He was at the boundary between the clearing and the deeper Realm — the place I'd seen him standing the last time, at the edge, moving toward me. But this time he was looking outward. Not inward at the clearing, not inward at whatever the Realm still contains. Outward. Toward the boundary. Toward the Black River.
He heard me before he saw me and turned, and his face did the thing that seven-year-old faces do when something they've been waiting for finally arrives — the unguarded, immediate thing, before the person remembers they're being watched.
I reached him in a few steps and went down to my knees so we were at eye level and held his face in
