Free Night Gate by Isobelle Carmody

have to solve it if we are to find the wizard, get home, and help your mam.”
    “The wizard might be mad that we solved the riddle,” Rage pointed out.
    Billy frowned. “I’m more worried about the keepers than the wizard, to tell you the truth. That centaur said we ought not to draw any attention to ourselves in Fork, but if we tell them how we came to be in Valley, it’s sure to cause a fuss.”
    “I know,” Rage agreed.
    “I wonder if the wizard setting a test for the firecat could have anything to do with his disappearance,” Billy murmured, now floating and staring at his hairy toes. “Maybe he made the riddle and went to the shore of the Endless Sea to wait for the firecat to solve it, and he’s still there waiting because the firecat can’t figure it out.”
    “Why would he wait so long? He’d use his magic to come back and see what had gone wrong,” Rage said.
    “What if he couldn’t?” Billy countered, turning onto his stomach. “What if, instead of the hourglass containing a record of all he knew, it actually held all of his power!” His brown eyes glimmered with excitement.
    “It doesn’t make sense,” Rage objected. “Why would the wizard risk his power to set a test for the firecat? Besides, like you said, maybe the firecat was lying about the hourglass. That riddle on it doesn’t say anything about the wizard, after all.”
    “Then what on earth does the firecat want of us?” Billy dog-paddled neatly around the lagoon, looking glum. Coming back to Rage, he said, “That centaur said the keepers kept annoying the wizard for advice—advice about what?”
    “Maybe about everything. I suppose it was because of him making Valley. He must have been like the king here,” Rage said.
    “Only he didn’t like being the king, so he became a hermit and then he vanished.”
    “I wonder why he made Valley in the first place if he didn’t want to live here,” Rage pondered.
    “I’ve just thought of something!” Billy pushed his hair out of his eyes. “What if he put the magic in Valley when he created it, and it’s dying out because he has disappeared?”
    They were distracted from this interesting idea by the arrival of Elle and Mr. Walker. Rage climbed out of the water because her underclothes needed time to dry out. Fortunately, the sun was shining brightly and the air was pleasantly warm.
    Elle and Billy romped and splashed in the pool. Mr. Walker drank daintily and washed his hands and face but otherwise avoided the water with a shudder. Rage spread out her coat and laid out a breakfast of slightly squashed berries, bread, and cheese. Bear was nowhere to be seen, but Mr. Walker said he could smell her nearby.
    After they ate, Rage dressed, checking to be sure the hourglass and Mam’s locket were still safe. She went through the ideas that she and Billy had discussed, but there was no way of knowing which were right. Talking had got them no closer to unraveling the riddle of the wizard’s whereabouts, and in the end that was really all that mattered.
    The others were having a last romp on the bank when Bear came out of the bushes. Rage offered her food, but the old dog shook her head and sat down to lick at her paw.
    “Why do you keep doing that?” Rage asked.
    Bear regarded her through tiny black eyes. “A thorn from the bramble gate got into me.”
    “Why didn’t you say so?” Rage asked, undoing a pin she kept in the hem of her coat and taking the huge paw firmly in her hand.
    “A dog’s pain is a dog’s pain. Dogs don’t complain,” Bear said with melancholic poetry as Rage probed the swollen flesh.
    When she found the shiny black top of a thorn driven deep into the pad, she looked at Bear with concern. “I am afraid I will have to hurt you to get it out.”
    “It is in the nature of humans to hurt,” Bear said, staring bleakly into her eyes.
    Rage swallowed and stuck the pin into the paw, forcing it under the thorn and levering it out. The breath hissed through