Sidon frowned. "Ghosts?" he asked. "Do you mean...like the spirits of those who have passed on? Who have...died?"

Something crept into him just then, something hard and unpalatable that made his stomach clench. His eyes lifted, almost unbidden, toward the statue at the middle of the courtyard, and he swallowed down the lump that had formed in his throat.

"Or, I suppose," he added, trying to dance around a thought, "in the case of the dragon, spirits that have ceased to exist in the current realm for..." And now his eyes traced up the mountain looming over them, "...whatever reason..."