In the cold, rational, calculating part of him that he keeps locked away from everything else, a wild thought occurs to Hal.

Even before, when they were all young and coming up together, there were whispers about odd happenings in Herefordshire, in Monmouth, in Usk, where the Mortimers lived. Hal heard less of it as they grew older, but other acquaintances -- from York, from Durham, from Alnwick itself -- there were mutterings. They were always mutterings, though, fancies and gossip and rumor.

Yet, scrabbling away on his back from this creature, Hal -- cannot avoid looking into its face, stricken, and wondering --

--if he should say her name--