His urgency to reach the Marietta peeled away from him and was discarded. He found himself standing still in the middle of the pebbled pathway. Today he would explore the island. To him would be opened the wonder-filled fey places of the Other, where a man might pass a hundred years in a single sublime night. Soon he would know and master it all. But for now it was enough to stand still and breathe the golden air of this place. Nothing intruded on his pleasure, save Gankis. The man persisted in chattering warnings about the tide and the Marietta. The more Kennit ignored him, the more he pelted him with questions. “Why have we stopped here, Captain Kennit? Sir? Are you feeling well, sir?” He waved a dismissive hand at the man, but the old tar paid it no attention. He cast about for some errand that would take the noisy, smelly man from his presence. As he groped in his pockets, his hand encountered the locket and chain. He smiled slyly to himself as he drew it out.

He interrupted whatever it was Gankis was blithering about. “Ah, this will never do. See what I've accidentally carried off from their beach. Be a good lad now, and run this back to the beach for me. Give it to the Other and see it puts it safely away.”

Gankis gaped at him. “There isn't time. Leave it here, sir! We've got to get back to the ship, before she's on the rocks or they have to leave without us. There won't be another tide that will let her back into Deception Cove for a month. And no man survives a night on this island.”

The man was beginning to get on his nerves. His loud voice had frightened off a tiny green bird that had been on the point of alighting nearby. “Go, I told you. Go!” He put whips and fetters into his voice, and was relieved when the old sea-dog snatched the locket from his hand and dashed back the way they had come.

Once he was out of sight, Kennit grinned widely to himself. He hastened up the path into the island's hilly interior. He'd put some distance between himself and where he'd left Gankis, and then he'd leave the trail. Gankis would never find him, he'd be forced to leave without him, and then all the wonders of the Others' island would be his.

“Not quite. You would be theirs.”

It was his own voice speaking, in a tiny whisper so soft that even Kennit's keen ears barely heard it. He moistened his lips and looked about himself. The words had shivered through him like a sudden awakening. He'd been about to do something. What?

"You were about to put yourself into their hands. Power flows both ways on this path. The magic encourages you to stay upon it, but it cannot be worked to appeal to a human without also working to repel the Other. The magic that keeps their world safe from you also protects you as long as you do not stray from the path. If they persuade you to leave the path, you'll be well within their reach. Not a wise move.

He lifted his wrist to a level with his eyes. His own miniature face grinned mockingly back at him. With the charm's quickening, the wood had taken on colors. The carved ringlets were as black as his own, the face as weathered, and the eyes as deceptively weak a blue. “I had begun to think you a bad bargain,” Kennit said to the charm.

The face gave a snort of disdain. “If I am a bad bargain to you, you are as much a one to me,” it pointed out. “I was beginning to think myself strapped to the wrist of a gullible fool, doomed to almost immediate destruction. But you seem to have shaken the effect of the spell. Or rather, I have cloven it from you.”

“What spell?” Kennit demanded.

The charm's lip curled in a disdainful smile. “The reverse of the one you felt on the way here. All succumb to it that tread this path. The magic of the Other is so strong that one cannot pass through their lands without feeling it and being drawn toward it. So they settle upon this path a spell of procrastination. One knows that their lands beckon, but one puts off visiting them until tomorrow. Always tomorrow. And hence, never. But your little threat about the kittens has unsettled them a bit. You they would lure from the path, and use as a tool to be rid of the cats.”

Kennit permitted himself a small smile of satisfaction. “They did not foresee I might have a charm that would make me proof against their magic.”

The charm prissed its mouth. “I but made you aware of the spell. Awareness of any spell is the strongest charm against it. Of myself, I have no magic to fling back at them, or use to deaden their own.” The face's blue eyes shifted back and forth. “And we may yet both meet our destruction if you stand about here talking to me. The tide retreats. Soon the mate must choose between abandoning you here or letting the Marietta be devoured by the rocks. Best you hasten for Deception Cove.”