“We mustn’t hurry,” she said. “From one side of the Draye’varg to the other is but a few hours’ journey, but we cannot risk someone falling. Even a single drop of blood can create a simulacrum.” Kara and Taff used strips of cloth and long tangles of vine to secure their meager supplies, though Kara wasn’t sure they needed to fear a creature made from a spoon or coffee urn. While they did this Mary used a mortar and pestle to crush various cones into a thick paste. She spread this on their fingernails and it hardened in minutes. “We’ll be climbing a lot,” she said, “and you’ll have to use your hands to gain purchase on the stones. A piece of your nail could easily chip away.” “Would it be made of fingernails?” Taff asked. And then—Kara suspected simply because he liked saying the world aloud—he added, “The simulacrum?” “No,” Mary replied. “It would look just like you.” Taff stopped saying “simulacrum” after that. It was Kara’s hair that, more than anything else, worried Mary Kettle.
