Riley Sane wanted the spirit-horse, and she had no idea where to look for it. Old stories said its rider learned a lost school of magic. She had believed those stories since she was small. Now she stood in her cottage doorway, boots laced, saddle rope coiled over her shoulder, and nowhere to go. A search needs a direction. She had none. She spread her mother's map across the floor and knelt over it. She marked every meadow where wild horses grazed. She marked the river fords and the high passes. None of it told her where a spirit walked. The map showed land, not magic. She pressed her palms flat and stared until the ink blurred. A cold weight brushed her ankle. She looked down and stopped breathing. Two cats stood on the map. She could see the floorboards through them. Their bodies glowed soft and pale, like breath on a winter window. One had green eyes, the other yellow. They had not come through the door. They had simply arrived, the way a dream arrives. Riley did not move. She had wanted magic her whole life. Now it sat on her mother's map, watching her with steady eyes. The green-eyed cat lifted a paw and set it down on a spot near the mountains. Then it looked at her, as if waiting. "You know where it is," she whispered. The yellow-eyed cat turned and walked toward the door. It passed through the wood and vanished. The green-eyed cat lingered. It looked back at her once, then followed the first, fading through the wall. Riley scrambled up. She grabbed the map, tore her cloak from its hook, and ran outside. The two cats waited at the edge of the yard, glowing faintly in the daylight. When she stepped toward them, they moved. They flowed over the grass toward the far hills, quick and silent, never quite touching the ground. She ran to keep them in sight. They led her past the last fences, past the grazing meadows she had marked. Every time she slowed, they slowed. Every time she stopped to breathe, they waited. They were leading her somewhere. By dusk they halted at the mouth of a narrow valley she had never entered. The cats sat side by side and would go no farther. Ahead, the grass was flattened in a wide, sweeping path, as though something huge had passed through hours before. Riley knelt and touched the crushed stems. They were still warm. She finally had her lead. But the valley climbed into unmarked mountains, the light was dying, and the trail was fresh. The spirit-horse was close, and now she had to follow it alone.

Riley climbed into the dark valley long after the light failed. The warm trail led her up a rocky slope. She kept her hand on the crushed grass to feel her way. Then the wind shifted, and something breathed behind the rocks. A low growl rolled down the slope. Riley froze. Whatever hunted her had caught her scent. She reached for her belt. She had no knife, no torch, no flint. Only a coiled rope and the old spellbook her mother had left her. She had never opened it in fear before. She dropped to her knees and pulled it from her pack. The runes on the cover glowed faint blue and pink in the dark. The growl came closer. Yellow eyes caught the starlight, low to the ground, moving in a slow circle. Riley's hands shook as she opened the book. She could not read the old marks. She did not know a single spell. But the pages themselves gave off light, and light was something. She held the open book up like a shield and shouted. The glow spread across the rocks. The predator flinched back, then crouched to spring. Riley knew light alone would not stop it. She braced to run and knew she could not outrun it. Then two shapes flowed out of the dark. The pair of glowing cats poured over the rocks between Riley and the beast. They swelled larger than any cat should be. Their soft forms turned sharp and bright. The green-eyed one arched and hissed, and the sound rang like cracking ice. The yellow-eyed one bared teeth of pale fire. The predator skidded, snarled once, and bolted down the slope. Its claws scraped stone as it fled. Then the valley went quiet. Riley stayed on her knees, chest heaving, the book still raised. The cats shrank back to their small graceful size. They turned to her with steady eyes, the way they had on her mother's map. The green-eyed cat stepped onto the open spellbook. It pressed one paw to a glowing rune. The mark flared brighter, then settled into a steady blue light that did not fade. Riley understood. The cats were not only guides. They were bound to the book, and to her. The rune they had lit now burned like a small lantern in her hands. She could read the first mark on the page. She could not read the rest. She rose to her feet. The trail still climbed ahead, warm under her palm. The spirit-horse was near. But she carried a book she could barely read and two guardians she did not command. To tame the spirit-horse, she would first have to learn what her mother's book could do. She turned the page toward the light and started up the slope.