Page 56 of 13 Nights

I know that boundary the way a prisoner knows the dimensions of his cell.

I crossed it once, early in the curse, when fury still exceeded strategy and I believed force could accomplish what patience wouldn't. The boundary didn't resist. It detonated. Every nerve ending in the manifestation ignited simultaneously, and the pain lasted until the Void swallowed me and consciousness stopped.

The following October I materialized inside the boundary with the memory of agony intact and the understanding that the cage did not negotiate.

Tonight, before the final dawn, I will cross it again.

I'll walk east to the river and let the boundary collapse the manifestation. The pain will be immense. The Void will take me. The cycle will end incomplete, and the Gate cannot collect what it thinks is due while the curse remains unbroken.

Ashley will live. I will cease to exist until the following October. If I must repeat the crossing every year for the remainder of her natural life, I will.

The plan is the only option I have. Whether it's sound is a question I've been avoiding since Night Ten.

Footsteps cross the hall behind me. Ashley appears in the doorway, barefoot, my shirt hanging past her thighs.

"How long have you been up?" she asks.

"A while."

She leans against the doorframe, arms crossed, studying me in the gray kitchen light with the particular focus she brings to evidence that doesn't match her expectations.

I know that look. I've been the subject of it since October nineteenth.

"You walked the eastern tree line twice yesterday," she says. "Once at dusk. Once after I fell asleep."

"I'm aware of my own movements."

"You also asked me where the boundary crosses the river. Which you already know, because you showed me the crossing on October twenty-third." She pauses. "You don't ask questions you already have answers to."

"Occasionally I confirm data."

"You confirm data by walking the perimeter of a cage you've occupied for 250 years." Her voice is quiet, and the precision in it is surgical. "You're planning to cross the boundary."

I set the bread down. The counter presses against my palms, cool and solid, every ridge and grain distinct against my skin.

"Yes," I say.

"Before the final dawn."

"Before the thirteenth night completes."

"Before the curse breaks."

I turn to face her. She's standing in the doorway of the kitchen with her arms still crossed and her feet bare on the cold floor, and the expression on her face is composed fury held together by heartbreak.

"If the curse breaks, the Gate opens," I say. "If the Gate opens, the warning applies. The legible portion says the Gate will claim. It doesn't say what. It doesn't say whom. And neither of us can afford an incomplete answer."

"Neither of us can afford you riding for another 250 years because the grammar of a damaged document concerns you."

"I'd rather ride forever than let the Gate take you."

"My death is not the only possible reading." She uncrosses her arms and crosses the kitchen to the table where her notes are still spread from last night's work. "And your plan has a mechanical problem you haven't addressed."

"The boundary will collapse the manifestation. It has before."

"When the curse was at full strength and the dawn pull was dragging you into the Void every morning. The boundary destroyed a manifestation that was already on a leash." She picks up a photocopied page from the stack. "The dawn pull couldn't take you yesterday. What makes you certain the boundary can do what dawn can't?"

"The boundary operates differently."