Between Their Worlds

Chapter 8

PAWL A’SEATT CROSSED the small front room of his scribe shop, the Upright Quill, and locked the door for the night. The space was neat and sparse, with only an old counter across the room’s back and a few wooden display stands supporting open books with ornate examples of the shop’s script work. He flipped the counter’s folding section to step behind it and checked that everything beneath it had been stored away in orderly fashion. Finally, he turned to head through the right door behind the counter and into the workroom.

The rear of any scriptorium was quite different from the outer room for customers. That of the Upright Quill was filled with tall, slanted scribing tables and matching stools, along with one large desk and a chair.

Although it was halfway to night’s first bell, lanterns still hung about, filling the space with saffron-colored light. Stacks and sheaves of blank, crisp paper and a few of the more expansive and traditional parchments were piled on shelves lining all the walls, except for the space where there was a heavy rear door. There were also bottles of varied inks, jars of drying talc and sand, binding materials, and other sundry tools and supplies. Everywhere lay scattered quills, blotting pads, bracing sticks to keep a scribe’s hand off the page, and trimming knives.

It was rather chaotic compared to what patrons saw out front.

Most of Pawl’s staff had gone home for the night, including his master scribe, Teagan. But he still awaited the return of two apprentices—Liam and young Imaret—sent off on an errand. He never sent anyone out alone after dark.

Pacing the floor of the workroom, he ran a hand through his shoulder-length black hair. Although a few strands of it appeared grayed, his face looked young. Glancing down, he noticed a smudge of chalk on his charcoal gray suede jerkin, but he didn’t try to rub it off. He was too preoccupied.

Spring had edged in and the nights were growing warmer, but Pawl had been trapped in the same stalled state since last autumn. Two seasons past, his shop—along with four others—had been almost overwhelmed by work from the Guild of Sagecraft. The guild had undertaken an enormous translation project. Pages upon pages of translator’s notes from a wild array of ancient tongues were sent out for transcription into more legible copies. Later came final transcription to finished pages. But the languages didn’t matter, for all materials were written in the sages’ Begaine syllabary, a script that few nonsages could fathom.

Though no one knew it, Pawl was one of the exceptions. A number of pieces he’d read had left him shaken.

He’d read every page that passed in and out of his shop, but there were too many gaps and disconnections. Likely the guild’s premins had purposefully made sure that no one shop, no one scribe, worked on any lengthy, contiguous passages.

Though Pawl had remained stoic and self-possessed, he had grown frantic for more information, as the pieces he’d seen didn’t answer his questions. His mind had churned with an urge he’d put aside so long ago. Then, two sages carrying back finished work from his shop to the guild had been murdered in an alley.

Everything changed—worsened—after that.

Before all of this, pages sent to varied shops were always mixed. Pawl had pieced together only a little of what he did read and much of it was incomplete. But after the murders, the Premin Council decided to have all transcription work completed inside their grounds, and only one scriptorium’s scribes were to be brought in to continue transcription.

Pawl a’Seatt made certain his scribes were the ones chosen, but it had cost him to make it so. Unfortunately, even then, his access to the work became more limited.

While on guild grounds, his scribes were individually cloistered. None of them saw what the others worked on, and none had the gift of memory that Imaret did.

Pawl himself was cut off almost completely.

On occasion, he was allowed to check on his scribes on the pretense of reviewing the quality of their work, but he was always watched. He could never pause too long at the shoulder of one of his people or it would be obvious that his attention was on the content and not the quality of those sheets.

He closed his eyes, and unwanted memories came ... or fragments more disjointed than those snippets of ancient writings sent out for transcription.

Had it truly been a thousand years—or was it less or more? Like so many among the fearful masses of nations long forgotten, he had gone to war, or tried to. Had he been compelled by a father, a conscription agent, or a tribal elder? Or had it been his own choice? Memories were sketchy things, like the simplistic renderings of a historian who hadn’t experienced the events he recorded.

Pawl remembered hints in the lengthy shadows of time that he’d gone south along the western coast, like so many other young men. He had no memory of actual war and comrades-in-arms. He did know that he never made it that far. But he remembered a white-faced woman.

Her shiny black hair hung in wild tendrils almost to the waist of her oddly scintillating robe. That fabric, like silk or elven shéot’a, was covered in swirling patterns of flowers. It covered her small, lithe body, shifting over her diminutive curves. That full wrap robe or gown was like no attire of any people he’d ever seen. Had she come from somewhere far away, perhaps beyond the western ocean? And her eyes ...

He would never forget her eyes.

Almond-shaped and slightly slanted, they were not those of an elf perhaps suffering under some paling illness. She was far too short for that race. Her irises, seemingly black for an instant, had changed to something akin to clear crystal. Cold and uncaring as they fixed on him, they held hungered obsession as she had stepped closer on the rocky shore.

Pawl could no longer remember if he had touched her. He remembered only awaking beneath the surf, his lungs filled with saltwater.

Even beneath the water, in the darkness, his eyes could see, except for the cloud of blood floating around him. He choked in panic at first, and the chill water rushed in and out of his chest as he tried to breathe while clawing for the surface. When the breaking surf tumbled his body onto the stony shore, he was still trying to breathe ... and didn’t need to. He rolled onto his hands and knees and heaved out seawater in his lungs. Air rushed in to replace water, but it did not matter.

So much could be forgotten, and the longer one existed, the more one lost. Only those memories most precious, most horrid, lasted until they alone remained, disjointed and disconnected among newer memories that replaced the ones fading again and again over centuries.

And where was this woman he had seen only once on the night he’d awakened as from drowning ... with his throat torn open, his body cold to the core?

Pawl opened his eyes in the back room of his scriptorium. If he still existed, so must she. He had seen names in those scant sheets for transcription from the guild. Was she one of them? Could that be possible?

He ran his hands down his face. No matter the hatred and need that clung to those few, unbroken pebbles of memories, his responsibilities here came first. He had his existence, in his city, to attend.

The world he’d created here for himself was his best protection. He never lost sight of this, and he glanced at the unlocked back door, its stout iron bar leaning beside it. What was keeping Liam and Imaret?

Despite the guild having both slowed and altered the project, they still provided his shop with a good deal of other work. A journeyor in the order of Sentiology had recently returned from his first year’s assignment. Premin Renäld had engaged Pawl’s scriptorium to transcribe the young man’s journals for the guild’s archive. The deadline was today.

Upon arriving at the shop this evening, Pawl had found that his scribes weren’t finished. He sent Imaret and Liam to assure the premin of completion by tomorrow at closing. As a matter of principle, he kept all patrons fully informed. A one-day extension should cause no concern.

Hopefully it wasn’t Imaret who kept him waiting.

The first two sages murdered last autumn had been friends of hers—one of them in particular. The pair had another close companion at the guild, Nikolas Columsarn, who’d later been attacked. Naturally, shared loss had brought Imaret and Nikolas together, and the young sage had begun spending much of his free time at the shop. Imaret used any excuse possible to go visit him.

For all his quiet, nervous nature, Nikolas possessed a sharp, curious mind. More central to Pawl’s curiosity was the boy’s interest in history. Something about Nikolas Columsarn pulled at Pawl. It wasn’t pity, but rather a driven need to ... protect what was his.

Pawl grew more anxious and wary after each of Nikolas’s visits, lingering longer each night as they pored over papers and books brought from Pawl’s own home library. Attachments of any kind were a danger, and he already had enough of those in managing the shop and its staff, and especially Imaret.

And she still kept him waiting.

He stepped to the back door, reaching for his broad-brimmed hat and black cloak on a peg beside it, preparing to step out and look for the girl. But the back door flew open, and he stopped it with one hand before it struck him.

Imaret nearly fell inside, breathing hard, and cried, “Master?”

She looked about wildly, and Liam followed her in, appearing equally unsettled. Pawl startled both of them as he stepped from behind the door and closed it.

“What is it?” he asked immediately.

Small for her age, Imaret had her mother’s dusky skin and mass of slightly kinky black hair. Liam stood a full head taller than her, and had reddish hair and pale blue eyes. Pawl guessed them to both to be about sixteen years old, although he’d never asked.

“The guild is locked down.” Imaret panted. “It’s under guard. City guard!”

Pawl froze for three of Imaret’s fast breaths. “Slow down ... and explain.”

“We didn’t even get to the courtyard,” she rushed on. “The portcullis was down, and the Shyldfälches are walking the walls, and Nikolas is trapped inside!”

Her words left Pawl anxious, though likely not for the same reasons as her. She wasn’t making sense, and he turned his hard gaze on Liam.

“We weren’t able to deliver our message properly,” Liam added. “We refused to leave, insisting we would stand there until a guard sent word that we were waiting ... and we kept on waiting. We thought they’d let us in, but it wasn’t Premin Renäld who finally came out. It was Domin High-Tower. He didn’t care about the journeyor’s work we should’ve completed, and he said all work on the translation project has been suspended. You’re not to send any scribes until further notice ... from him. And then he just walked off!”

Imaret was still panting, and her face was distraught. Pawl had no time to reassure her, for Nikolas was the least of his concerns. Something drastic had happened if Sykion had halted all work on the translation project. But what would cause her to call in the city guard?

Pawl was now completely cut off ... indefinitely.

“Did High-Tower or the guards give any reason for why this has happened?” he asked.

Both apprentices shook their heads.

“Nikolas hates being locked in,” Imaret said. “He hated it when he was ... when it happened last autumn.”

Nikolas had been assaulted, like several other young sages. Unlike them, he had survived, just barely. He had spent more than a moon in convalescence, and even now was not fully recovered—perhaps never would be.

Pawl could not squelch a flash of pity. Imaret was afraid for the only friend she had left, and he could not let this impede her valued skills. She was more than just a gifted scribe in training. Even at her young age, he had come to depend on her for artistic assignments.

She could reproduce anything she read from memory, character for character, whether she could read it or not.

“Liam, take Imaret directly home,” Pawl instructed. “No deviations. And then do so yourself.”

He looked down at Imaret and placed his wide-brimmed hat on his head. He slung his cloak over his shoulders and began to tie it. She hadn’t argued, but she looked up at him, as if barely restraining an urgent plea.

“I will go to the guild myself tonight,” he told her. “Tomorrow, I’ll tell you what I learn.”

Her dusky little face flushed with relief, and then: “Couldn’t we wait here, until you—”

“Home now,” he said sharply, and then calmed, looking for a rational way to dissuade her. “I already risk censure from your parents for keeping you this late. Both of your families will soon begin worrying.”

Imaret blinked at him, and Pawl had a strange feeling she might argue—not with his reasoning or his instructions, but with something else he had said. She glanced back at Liam and turned away in resignation.

“You’ll ask after Nikolas?” she said, reaching for the door’s handle.

“I will try,” he answered, not willing to make a promise.

Once Pawl had seen off both apprentices, he headed in the other direction—toward the guild’s castle. He moved quickly through the dark streets, wondering if perhaps Imaret and Liam had overstated the situation. Emotion and personal concerns often narrowed the perspectives of the young. Soon he found himself heading up Old Procession Road, and the inner bailey gate lay just ahead. But as he opened the gate, he saw that Imaret’s emotional outburst had been no frightened exaggeration.

The portcullis was closed, and a Shyldfälche in a red tabard peered out at him through the thick, upright beams. Pawl spotted another one heading off along the bailey wall’s southern half.

He approached the portcullis, greeting the guard inside with only a nod. The man was very large, with a shaved head and an overly affected grimace.

“Can I help you, sir?” the guard asked, though his tone hardly suggested interest in doing so.

“I am Master a’Seatt from the Upright Quill,” Pawl said, intentionally pitching his tone to slightly haughty and annoyed. “My scriptorium is engaged in several projects for the sages, yet two of my apprentices were sent away earlier tonight. Please tell Domin High-Tower I wish to speak with him ... now.”

The guard’s expression didn’t change, and he merely answered, “Domin High-Tower has given instructions that he’s not to be disturbed. Come back tomorrow.”

All the bald guard did was stand there, arms crossed, staring out through the portcullis beams.

Pawl stared back in a silent moment of indecision. The guild grounds indeed had been locked down. The work for his shop was the most immediate practical concern, but he had also lost the means to fulfill his own desire. Pressing the matter here and now might only prolong such loss or even make it permanent.

He finally turned back out the bailey gate and up Old Procession Road. But he kept remembering the names he had read in those mixed fragments sent for transcription at his shop.

Vespana, Ga’hetman, Jeyretan ... Fäzabid and Memaneh ... Uhmgadâ, Creif, and Sau’ilahk ... Volyno and Häs’saun ... and Li’kän.

Was she among them?

Patience was a benefit of a long existence, but like anything else, it could be worn thinner than the finest paper.

Magiere allowed Leanâlhâm to help hold her up as they waited in a cutway between two buildings. Chap and Leesil were flattened up against the wall nearer the street, keeping watch. Leesil had managed to retrieve their travel chest, and it rested on the ground beside him along with their packs.

The building at Magiere’s back was some form of tall, three-story inn. Osha had gone around to the front to enter, make his way to the back, and let them all inside, out of sight. But in waiting, Magiere looked down and cupped Leanâlhâm’s face with one hand.

“What are you doing here?” she whispered.

As the question escaped her lips, Leanâlhâm’s eyes widened. She quickly put her hand over Magiere’s mouth and shook her head for silence.

When Magiere had last left Leanâlhâm, the girl had been safe at home in the elven forest of the eastern continent, living with the elderly healer Gleann, Leanâlhâm’s so-called “grandfather.” Leesil’s mother, Nein’a, had gone to stay with them as well. Magiere could only imagine the girl’s grief, as well as Gleann’s, upon hearing of the death of her “uncle,” Sgäile. Although Sgäile had been related to the girl and the old healer by blood, Magiere had never quite understood elven familial connections. Titles like “grandfather” and “uncle” were likely a bit too simple.

What could have possessed Brot’an to take Leanâlhâm away from such a peaceful life? Magiere jerked her head away from Leanâlhâm’s hand. “Why aren’t you at home with your grandfather?”

Leanâlhâm didn’t answer and looked away toward the cutway’s back end, but Osha hadn’t appeared yet.

Magiere could no longer see Leanâlhâm’s face inside the girl’s hood. She began to suspect something more than fear of being overheard by their enemies caused the girl’s silence.

“Leanâlhâm?” she whispered, more gently.

The girl instantly cringed, almost as if the word were a blow, and then suddenly she straightened and pulled on Magiere’s arm.

Osha was leaning around the inn’s back corner, waving all of them to follow him.

Magiere looked back the other way. “Psst!”

Leesil glanced back, as did Chap, and she waved them into retreat. They followed as Magiere hobbled down the cutway toward Osha, with Leanâlhâm’s help. Around back, Osha opened a back door that had been left cracked and ushered them inside to the nearby stairs.

The effort and agony of making the climb did little to distract Magiere, for Leanâlhâm was still too quiet.

Leesil wasn’t surprised to find that Brot’an had chosen a room on the top floor. Anmaglâhk had a penchant for coming and going via rooftops. But in the moment, he didn’t much care. Once he’d put down their belongings, he took hold of Magiere’s arm, quickly unbelted her falchion, and then helped Leanâlhâm get her settled on the room’s one narrow bed. After the madness of this night, he and Chap had finally gotten Magiere locked away in at least the illusion of safety.

“Are you in much pain?” he asked.

As Magiere leaned back, Leanâlhâm pushed a blanket-covered pack under her shoulders and head. Magiere finally shook her head in reply, but Leesil knew she was lying.

Her pale features were strained, and her jaw was clenched. He wanted to give her a few moments before they tried to remove the arrow. The pain was going to get much worse.

Leanâlhâm knelt on the floor at the bed’s other side as Leesil glanced about, spotting a small pile of travel gear in the corner—water skins, another blanket, and two more packs. Besides these, there was only a small table big enough for one person’s needs, two stools, and a tin pitcher and basin near the door. He couldn’t tell how long Brot’an had been staying here.

Chap padded to the filthy window. He rose, and with his front feet on the sill, he huffed for attention as he pawed the open slide bolt where the window’s two halves closed together. Then he growled, glancing back at Leesil.

“Lock that up,” Leesil said, looking to Osha. “At least then we’ll hear anyone trying to get in.”

Instead, Osha unslung his quiver and then viciously pulled the slipknot of another cord across his chest. He caught the long and narrow cloth-wrapped bundle sliding down his back and tossed—nearly threw—it into the corner atop the other gear.

Osha shuddered once with a grimace, rubbing his shoulder, as if the burden were heavier than it could possibly be. Leesil wondered what was wrapped inside the cloth, but this was not the time to ask.

Chap dropped down from the sill and backed up as Osha stepped to the window. Instead of locking it, Osha opened one half partway and peered out into the night and upward toward the roof. When he closed it again, he didn’t bolt it.

Chap growled softly and looked at Leesil, but they both knew what this was about: Brot’an. Osha expected the shadow-gripper to come in from above. Chap’s jowls wrinkled as he stalked toward the door and lay down to watch the window and the whole room.

Leesil turned his attention back to Magiere.

Just across the bed, Leanâlhâm was already examining Magiere’s wound.

“What are you doing here?” he asked her with one quick glance at Osha. “Either of you ... why aren’t you with Gleann ... and my mother? Leanâlhâm?”

Leanâlhâm tensed but remained fixed on splitting Magiere’s pant leg from around the protruding arrow. Leesil saw one of her strangely green eyes twitch.

“I must work on this,” she answered.

Her Belaskian was better than Osha’s. Likely, that had been through Sgäile’s tutelage, though Gleann had also spoken it quite well. Wynn had worked with Osha a bit, but like Leesil himself, Osha had little talent for any language but his own.

Leanâlhâm suddenly rose and went to dig in a pack among the gear in the corner. She pulled out several pieces of white cloth and a box large enough that she needed to hold it with both hands. Returning to the far bedside, she set her items on the floor where Leesil couldn’t see them. Leanâlhâm further widened the tear in Magiere’s pant leg, using one of the cloths to wipe away blood so she could better inspect the wound.

“What’s in the box?” Leesil asked.

“The tools of a healer,” Leanâlhâm answered. “It was my ... grandfather’s.”

Gleann was a renowned Shaper among his people, the an’Cróan, or rather a healer who worked on the wounded versus guiding the shaping of living things, such as trees grown into homes for their people. Perhaps like him, Leanâlhâm was gifted, and he had trained her. But had that old, owl-faced an’Cróan given up his work? Why else would he hand over his wares to his granddaughter?

“The arrow missed the bone,” Leanâlhâm said. “But the shaft is lodged against it. The protruding head can be snapped off, but I will have to widen the wound a little to get the shaft out cleanly.”

Magiere elbowed up from her reclining position. “Don’t bother,” she said, but her words sounded muffled.

Leesil’s gaze flew to her face. He’d warned her earlier about letting her dhampir nature out to mask the pain.

Magiere’s brown irises flooded to black, and Leesil panicked. He knew what she was about to do. As she reached under her leg and snapped off the arrow’s head, he shouted at her.

“No!”

Before he could grab her wrist, she ripped the shaft out of her thigh.

A grating cry of pain or rage erupted from Magiere’s widened mouth. The arrow shaft snapped in half in her clenched fist as Leesil scrambled up on the bed to pin her down. Leanâlhâm gave an involuntary cry, grabbing a piece of cloth to staunch the blood flow.

“No!” Magiere snarled and pushed the girl’s hands away.

Leesil saw Magiere’s eyes flood nearly black as her irises expanded. Through the pain, she clenched her teeth, and her lips parted. Her teeth had begun to shift and change. Leesil threw himself on top of her, pinning her down as he shouted, “Chap!”

Chap wasn’t fast enough. By the time he latched onto the back of Leanâlhâm’s cloak and pulled, the girl’s eyes had gone wide. She twisted away across the floor, ducking behind Osha’s legs as he rushed in.

Osha looked horrified but not surprised. He’d seen Magiere change more than once, both in the Elven Territories and while fighting beside her in the ice-bound castle when they’d gone after the orb. He had seen Magiere’s dhampir half, but never like this.

All Leesil could do was hold Magiere down and hope she didn’t lose control.

Every one of her muscles was rigid beneath him, and he looked to the tear in her pant leg. This ability to just call up her inner nature was new—and how she’d learned to do so in the northern Wastes wasn’t something anyone else should know about. He lay atop Magiere as Chap watched them both, standing by and ready to lunge in. Leesil grew numb and couldn’t even look at Magiere’s face anymore. He just kept looking down at the blood-soaked rent in her pant leg.

The blood wasn’t flowing anymore. He couldn’t be certain amid the mess, but he knew the wound would begin closing.

Magiere whimpered and went limp beneath him. Osha and Leanâlhâm still watched as one last exhausted exhale escaped Magiere.

“What ... what ... ?” Leanâlhâm, now on her feet and peering around Osha’s side, stammered.

“It’s all right,” Leesil said, his voice flat. “She’ll need water and food soon.”

Leanâlhâm remained there, hiding behind Osha.

Leesil swung his head back to see Magiere’s face. Her eyes were closed, but her mouth was slack enough for him to see that her teeth had returned to normal. She was covered in sweat, and he reached for the scrap of cloth Leanâlhâm had dropped to wipe Magiere’s face.

“It’s all right,” he whispered gently in her ear, not knowing what else to say.

Then Chap began growling.

Leesil looked over to find the dog staring toward the window. He felt the smallest breeze and quickly rolled over on the bed’s edge and reached to his thigh for a blade.

Brot’an’s head hung down in the open window. One arm followed as he grabbed the upper edge of the window’s interior, squirmed through, and dropped lightly to the floor.

Leesil didn’t let go of his winged blade’s handle.

Brot’an rose to his feet, glancing first at the bed and then at Leanâlhâm, who still cowered behind Osha. When he took off the wrap, a frown already covered his face.

“Why does she have no bandage yet?” he demanded.

“I ... I could not,” Leanâlhâm stammered. “She is no longer—”

“I’ll deal with it,” Leesil shot back, suddenly angry but uncertain at whom. “Leanâlhâm, get some water.”

“You find ... them?” Osha asked in Belaskian, turning on Brot’an. “Find hiding ... place?”

Still half focused on Magiere, Brot’an shook his head. “No.”

Osha turned away, bent down, and picked up the tin pitcher. He placed it carefully in Leanâlhâm’s hands. She started out of her frightened trance and turned for the door, but her wide-eyed gaze remained on Magiere until the door closed after her.

Leesil had had enough and stood up.

“Osha, what are you all doing here? Why have those other anmaglâhk come all the way here after Magiere? And don’t tell me ‘not now’!”

Something about Osha had changed since Leesil last saw the young elf more than a year ago. His feelings, sometimes even his thoughts, had always been so plain on his face, but not anymore.

“Protect you,” Osha finally answered. “Protect you from them. Most Aged Father ... he send—”

“I was against his strategy,” Brot’an interrupted.

“Against?” Osha spit out, and wheeled on Brot’an. He cut loose with an angry stream of Elvish.

Brot’an spit out one harsh word in Elvish, and Osha fell mute. There was no awe left in the young elf’s expression for the elder of his caste. In spite of their outbursts at each other, Leesil wasn’t letting any of this drop.

“Protect us?” he nearly shouted. “From your own kind? What do they want?”

Nobody needed to answer.

Leesil wasn’t even sure why he’d asked. Most Aged Father had sent some of his caste after them when they went to find the first orb. Sgäile died defending them and killed one of their shadow-grippers—like Brot’an. Most Aged Father wanted the orb, or at least to know what they had and where it was. None of that decrepit old elf’s assassins had ever seen it.

That still didn’t explain why Brot’an, or maybe Osha, had dragged Leanâlhâm along. The girl could hardly be of any use to “protect” Magiere. Worse than that, Leanâlhâm was in danger because she was with Brot’an—and now with Magiere.

Leesil glanced sidelong at Chap. He knew exactly how to get some solid answers—or, rather, how to make sure Chap got them. But the dog wasn’t watching Brot’an.

Chap was staring at the long, wrapped bundle Osha had tossed in the corner. Anything that held Chap’s concern more than Brot’an’s presence began to worry Leesil.

“Chap,” Leesil said.

Chap didn’t look up.

Chap barely heard Leesil. He became vaguely aware of the others when Leanâlhâm returned with a full pitcher of water. Even as the girl crept hesitantly toward Magiere’s bed, his thoughts were elsewhere. He had been trying to understand the consequences of what he had heard in Osha’s Elvish rant just before Brot’an silenced the young elf.

Brot’an had tried to kill Most Aged Father.

The implications were too varied to even guess, but had Brot’an started a war, this time among his own kind, between dissidents and other anmaglâhk loyal to Most Aged Father? Had he done this on purpose? Oh, yes, even failure could be an intentional tool for that deceiver.

And as much as the Anmaglâhk had come after Magiere for the orb or its whereabouts, without actually knowing what it was, this situation was also about Brot’an. It was about them getting to Magiere before Brot’an did. That much Chap could deduce.

Now that deceitful butcher stood in the same room with her.

If only Osha had stood up to Brot’an, kept arguing, then Chap might have learned more. But he had also picked up something confusing connected to the bundle Osha had tossed in the corner.

A fleeting memory had flashed through the young elf’s mind. It seemed to take place only a moment after Osha’s memory of the dark, searing-hot cavern. Chap recognized that place, as he had once been there. It was where Sgäile had taken Magiere, Leesil, and him before they had headed south from the Elven Territories in search of the orb.

Osha had knelt on ragged stone somewhere still dim and dark but not quite as hot. Perhaps it had been in one of the outer passages leading into the cavern. Osha’s hands shook as he held a hiltless blade, a sword made of the same white metal as anmaglâhk stilettos. The same metal as the winged punching blades Leesil now carried. The same metal as the burning dagger Magiere wore on her hip opposite her falchion.

The Chein’âs—the Burning Ones—had somehow called for Osha and given him a sword like none Chap had ever seen.

Anmaglâhk did not use swords, so what did this mean?

The last glimpse Chap saw in that memory was a flicker of Osha’s face reflected in the sword’s metal. Looking at the blade, his long features twisted in overwhelming grief, as if he had lost someone precious to him.

That blade was now in the cloth-wrapped bundle in the room’s corner.

Chap wheeled around as he heard Brot’an take a step. As soon as Brot’an reached the bed’s foot and looked down at Magiere, tension filled the room to the rafters. This close to Magiere, the tall elf once again had Chap’s full attention as he crept in on the bed’s near side.

Why were Brot’an and Osha dressed as traveling civilians—humans?

“Is she all right?” Brot’an asked.

Leanâlhâm was cleaning the blood from Magiere’s leg. The more she removed, the more her fright grew, for there was no wound—not even a scar. She did not answer Brot’an.

“She’ll be fine,” Leesil cut in, just as attentive and watchful as Chap.

Osha was not the only one who seemed different to Chap. Back in the an’Cróan homeland, Leanâlhâm had nearly fawned over Leesil. He was the only other elf of mixed blood she had ever met—ever even heard of. Now she barely spoke to him or to anyone. Perhaps Leesil noticed this, as well.

“Leanâlhâm,” Leesil said softly. “Where is Gleann?”

Chap glanced at the girl just in time to see her wince at her own name. A long pause followed before she answered quietly.

“With our ancestors ... with Sgäilsheilleache.”

For the span of a breath, everyone in the small room went still. Gleann, the kindly old healer with biting humor who had taken in three humans and a wayward majay-hì was dead.

Osha whirled angrily and rushed toward the window. He stopped and looked back, as did they all, at the sound of a whisper.

“Oh, Leanâlhâm.”

The girl froze as Magiere tried to sit up and failed, and then reached for Leanâlhâm’s hand on her leg. Leesil came out of his shock.

“Gleann, dead?” he breathed. “How can he be ... where is my mother?”

“She is well and safe,” Brot’an answered instantly, but even he appeared unsettled by the turn of this discussion.

Leanâlhâm’s gaze drifted to Leesil, and all of her fright of Magiere had drained from her expression. Chap waited for what else the girl might say.

“We cannot tell you more for now,” Brot’an said, staring hard at Leanâlhâm. “Your mother is safe with her kind, Léshil.”

Chap suddenly wondered who had taken on the painful task of telling Leanâlhâm that Sgäile was dead. Had Osha been the one? She had loved Sgäile, worshipped him as a hero. He had been highly honored by their people and respected by all factions of his caste—even Most Aged Father.

Osha suddenly took a few steps at Leesil, still angry.

“You ask question,” he growled. “I ask question. Where Wynn? Why she not here?”

That was all they needed with everything else so complicated. Osha’s feelings for Wynn were no secret. Still, Chap was surprised it had taken this long for the subject of Wynn’s whereabouts to come up.

“Trapped in the guild’s keep,” Leesil answered tiredly, perhaps reeling in relief that his mother was safe. Or perhaps hoping—as did Chap—that answering Osha’s question might gain some answers in turn.

“We’re not sure why,” Leesil added, “but we’ll get her out.”

“Then perhaps we can help,” Brot’an said.

Yes, Chap thought. I’m sure you would.

“Osha speaks the truth,” Brot’an went on, and looked at Magiere. “We are here to protect you. To protect ... what you carry.”

They were not carrying the orb—orbs—anymore. Chap took some satisfaction in that, though he wondered if Brot’an knew anything more than the other anmaglâhk about what they had been carrying. Chap had insisted on hiding both orbs in a place neither Magiere nor Leesil knew of. That decision now appeared more important than ever.

None of the Anmaglâhk—not even Brot’an—would ever find those orbs or learn their whereabouts.

“Magiere should rest,” Leanâlhâm said quietly, and her fear had waned, for she held Magiere’s hand. “Léshil says she will need food. Can we not eat and rest for one night? Not speak of these things?”

The girl dropped her head.

Leesil’s expression became shadowed for an instant. As badly as Chap wanted answers, cueing Leesil with memories to ask the right questions would not get him anywhere in this moment.

“I will take first watch on the roof,” Brot’an pronounced. “Everyone else ... eat and rest.”

He pushed past Osha, and an instant later, he was gone out the window. Another awkward silence passed until Osha announced flatly that he would go in search of food. As Leesil settled on the bedside, Leanâlhâm retrieved a blanket to cover Magiere.

Chap went to lie in the corner near Osha’s hidden sword. He had no intention of going to sleep. It was simply the best place from which to watch the door ... and the window for Brot’an’s return.

As Chane made his way through the dark streets toward Nattie’s inn, he could not escape his numerous worries. Every time he blinked, he saw an image of Wynn on the backs of his eyelids. She must be asleep by this time, or so he hoped. But she would wake in the morning to face ... what?

It troubled him—no, it ate at him—that he would lie dormant all day while events closed in on her. Even if she found a way to send him word, he would be beyond receiving it until dusk tomorrow night, unless ...

Once Chane reached the inn and his room, he opened the door slowly to let Shade see that it was him. She wrinkled her nose and growled softly, but appeared more frustrated than hostile. Likely she needed to be fed and let out for her “business,” as Wynn called it.

He realized he had to start paying more attention to Shade’s needs if she was to remain his somewhat unwilling ally. His only ally, as of yet, and he would need her help. Perhaps she could even advise him on his notion.

Chane dropped his second pack from his shoulder—the one Wynn would always think of as Welstiel’s pack—and set it down.

“Shade,” he began, and then faltered, for though she comprehended spoken words, he was uncertain how much. “Outside, and then food. But first ...”

He hesitated, and Shade tilted her head, watching him. There was only one thing he could do: show her. He dug into his second pack.

Chane pulled out a long velvet box and opened it to reveal the six glass vials that had carried a noxious violet concoction deadly to the living. It served another purpose for the undead, one that he had painstakingly—and painfully—unraveled for his own need. He was now running low on this concoction.

The ingredients to make more were almost impossible to acquire, but one dose, less than a third of one vile, could stave off his dormancy for several days. Still, he hesitated to use it, for the side effects were horrible. He would remain awake during the day but trapped inside by the sun unless he donned his cloak, face mask, and the eyeglasses that could block out sunlight’s worst effects. Even then, he could tolerate direct sunlight for only a brief period, and he would be dressed like some abhorrent executioner. Anyone who saw him would stop and stare—and not forget the sight.

The thought of being awake, trapped by the sun, locked in this shabby room all day was a torture Chane would rather avoid.

“In here, I have a method ...” he began, looking into Shade’s watchful eyes. “A way that will let me stay awake in daylight; but I still cannot go outside. Should I use it?”

She glanced at the pack, at the door and the curtained window, and then back to him. Though she could be more expressive than any animal Chane had ever known, he could not tell what she was thinking.

Shade huffed once for “yes.”

“Very well,” Chane said, and he rose to open the door. “First we go out for food and ‘business’ ... and be quick about it.”