Between Their Worlds

Chapter 21

THE FOLLOWING NIGHT, Wynn sat on the floor, tearing roasted mutton into small bits for Shade. Chane refused to let anyone leave the room, since only he had been seen around the inn. He brought back prepared food for the rest of them. Strangely, Ore-Locks ate little. Well, little for a dwarf.

Wynn had slept much of the day in the bed with Shade, as they were both exhausted. Ore-Locks had merely laid out a cloak in the corner of the room on which to rest. Fortunately, he didn’t snore much. Once, when Wynn had stirred, perhaps in the midafternoon, she’d glanced over the bed’s edge at Chane lying dormant directly in front of the room’s door.

She couldn’t help feeling there was something odd about him. He didn’t appear quite so ... dead, as he lay there. She’d then noticed his hand shift slightly where it rested on the hilt of his dwarven longsword still sheathed and laid out beside him. She’d never before seen Chane move in dormancy, not even slightly.

She was already awake again before sunset, as was Shade, who also glanced at Chane more than once. The moment it became almost fully dark at dusk, Chane sat up, rose, and went to wake Ore-Locks.

Shade wasn’t even startled. However, Wynn was.

She’d looked at Shade resting with her head on her paws. Although Wynn had nothing to base her suspicions upon, she couldn’t help wondering if Shade knew something about Chane that she didn’t—a silly thought. Of course, she didn’t ask either of them about this. What could she ask?

Then Chane had stepped out to see to the food, and the evening had moved on.

Shade wolfed down a whole pile of mutton bits in one bite.

“Don’t eat so fast,” Wynn scolded.

She didn’t care for mutton, but there were roasted potatoes, goat cheese, and dark forest bread to choose from. Chane stood at the window, looking down into the street, as Ore-Locks sighed and fidgeted in the corner.

“Do you think she’ll come?” Wynn asked.

“She will come,” Chane answered. “If the message reaches her.”

It was still difficult for Wynn to believe that Premin Hawes was willing to help. Though she kept such doubts to herself, a tiny part of her worried this might just be a way to track her down. But Chane seemed convinced, and he had a penchant—an actual gift—for knowing when someone lied, if he could focus on such detection.

Chane lifted the canvas curtain’s edge with a fingertip, and a streetlamp outside lit his pale features. Wynn studied his clean, long profile.

She’d always liked it, from the first night they’d met back in Bela at the shabby guild annex she was trying to help establish. Standing there in the dim light, he looked like the young nobleman she’d first taken him for, before she knew ... what he really was. But he wasn’t the only one who now filled her thoughts.

Wynn was still stunned by the ache that stabbed her inside when she’d seen Osha. All else had flushed from her mind. She thought only of his companionship in the long journey into the Pock Peaks in search of the orb. More had happened after that.

Days after Magiere and Leesil’s wedding, when they’d all reached Bela, the capital of Belaski, Osha had to leave early from the inn. One of the an’Cróan’s living ships, a Päirvänean, lay in wait up the coast to take him home. She’d followed him to Bela’s bustling docks, not yet ready to lose him—though another part of her reason was to give him a journal she’d written of certain events to pass on to Brot’an.

All along the journey out of the Pock Peaks, Magiere had warned Wynn about any intimacy with an an’Cróan. It was a warning that had once been given too late to Magiere concerning Leesil, who was a half-blood.

An’Cróan bonded for life, and some were unable to survive the loss of a mate.

Even when Osha said good-bye, turning up the busy waterfront through the crowd to head north out of the city, the way he’d looked at Wynn made her ache. He didn’t want to leave her, and she hadn’t been ready to let him go. Any warning was forgotten as she ran after him.

Wynn had shouted for him, though he hadn’t heard her until she’d almost caught up. When he did stop and turn, she threw herself at him, grabbing for his shoulders to pull herself up.

“Do not forget me,” she’d whispered as his arms closed around her.

Wynn lifted her head, clumsily thrusting her mouth against Osha’s. Then she’d turned and run, fearing to even look back. Until last night, that day on the docks had been the last time she’d seen him.

Chane was not the only one who had followed her across the world, and Chane was not the only one who had stood as her guardian.

Chane turned from the window, gazing down at her.

“Thank you,” he said.

“For what?”

“For coming back to us. For not staying with them.”

Wynn felt like she might burn to cinders inside and come apart.

“Chane, what did you think I was going to—”

Shade growled, and Wynn jerked around. The dog kept growling at the wall just to the left of the bed.

A dark-sleeved arm emerged out of the wall’s old planks.

“Wynn!” Chane rasped.

Ore-Locks rushed around the bed as a shoulder and the skirt of a robe followed the arm. Chane was right above Wynn, but he didn’t step around her or try to pull her back.

Amid Wynn’s fright, she noticed that neither of them appeared alarmed—only intense. Then the full outline of the dark robe was inside the dim room, and it wasn’t black.

The light of her cold-lamp crystal on the bedside table clearly showed a deep, midnight blue. One narrow hand reached up to pull back the cowl.

Premin Hawes looked down at Wynn with two sparkling hazel eyes in a face almost elfin in its narrowness of chin. She stood there, looking about at the others. A canvas pack hung over one of her shoulders, a wrapped parcel under that same arm, and in her other hand ...

At the sight of the sun-crystal staff, Wynn almost stopped breathing.

“Would it not have been easier to use the door?” Chane asked dryly.

“Footsteps upon the stairs or a knock might be heard,” Hawes answered. “I have no wish to be noticed here.”

She set the parcel and pack on the bed and held out the staff.

Wynn was still sitting on the floor, wondering what had just happened.

“I thought you might like these possessions returned,” the premin said.

Wynn recovered enough to scramble up and grab the staff. She still couldn’t catch her breath for a thank-you, though she’d have done anything to express her gratitude.

“The book you asked me to bring is in the pack,” Hawes said, “though I read passable Sumanese.”

Wynn wouldn’t let go of the staff and fumbled to open her pack with one hand. And then she stopped, taking stock of the contents.

Aside from an old lexicon or dictionary of Sumanese, there was her journal—the one she’d encrypted with notes from all of the others she’d burned. However, in the message she’d sent to Hawes, she’d risked giving detailed instructions regarding both her location and needs for a reference on the oldest Sumanese dialects. Given Hawes’s choice of guild order, it did not surprise Wynn that the premin knew some Sumanese. Languages were part of all sages’ schooling, though primarily that of cathologers. But many of the recovered secrets of metaology had come out of the Suman Empire.

“Nikolas had no trouble getting the message to you?” Wynn asked.

Hawes raised one eyebrow. “Master a’Seatt delivered it.”

“A’Seatt?” Chane hissed.

Wynn was taken aback, as well, and as if reading her reaction, Premin Hawes let out a slow breath.

“It might clarify much to tell each other everything,” the premin said, “if we are to be of assistance to one another.”

Wynn had already concluded that, but there was something else in the premin’s response. Hawes hadn’t just offered assistance; she expected something in return. What Wynn needed was beyond price, and she’d learned not to trust gifts. Perhaps it would be best to make the premin go first.

“Agreed,” Wynn said, and rushed on. “Why are those wagons coming into the guild every night? What are they bringing?”

Hawes was quiet, though Wynn couldn’t tell if this was caused by indecision, reluctance, or something else. The premin’s expression, or lack of it, offered nothing.

“Supplies for an expedition,” Hawes suddenly answered.

“Expedition? To where?”

“To the castle where you found the ancient texts. According to your report, you retrieved only a small fraction of what is there.”

Before Wynn uttered a word, Chane beat her to it.

“They must not!” he rasped. “Did they not read of what is trapped beneath that castle? Premin, you have to—”

“Making a plan is still far from executing it,” Hawes cut in.

“Then why do they already amass supplies?” Chane countered.

Hawes remained fixed on Wynn as she answered. “Assembling a group with even a slim chance to reach that place—should your accounting of the route be detailed enough—will take time. Even should they have a chance to succeed, the effort and what might be gained may prove pointless ... or unnecessary, in comparison to immediate concerns.”

Wynn didn’t like the way Hawes studied her.

“I have answered your question,” the premin said. “Do you have something to share with me?”

Wynn looked at Chane. He nodded and pulled the old scroll case from inside his shirt.

She reached into the pocket of her robe and pulled out a wrinkled sheet of paper as they both settled upon the floor. Chane pulled the lid off the case and unrolled the ancient leather scroll with its blacked-out surface.

An alliance with Hawes would be all or nothing, and they’d just chosen all. The premin crouched, frowning in puzzlement at both paper and scroll.

“This is what we’ve translated so far,” Wynn explained, spinning the wrinkled paper around so that the premin could read it.

Wynn went on. “The Children were the first physical manifestation of the Noble Dead—vampires—somehow created by the Ancient Enemy ... thirteen of them. The ‘anchors’ are the orbs, and you can see from the poem that there are five—one associated to each of the classical elements. At the war’s end, the Children split into five groups and scattered to hide the orbs.”

“You said you translated this?”

“Some of it, but Domin il’Sänke corrected much of it for me.”

“Il’Sänke?” Hawes repeated with a subtle bite in her voice.

“The poem itself is in an ancient Sumanese dialect ... Pärpa’äsea, I think he said.”

The premin peered between the paper and scroll. “What poem? What does this blotted-out scroll have to do with any of this?”

Wynn realized how much more she’d have to reveal about herself if they were to continue.

“The poem itself is written in the fluids of one of the Children ... beneath a black coating of ink.”

Hawes raised only her eyes, and Wynn felt like she’d just alerted some sharp-eyed predator to her presence.

“How did you read what was written therein?” Hawes asked quietly.

Wynn glanced at Chane.

“The short version,” he said.

Wynn ignored whatever criticism he implied.

“I made a mistake a few years ago,” she began. She described how she’d ended up with mantic sight, able to see traces of the Elements—or at least Spirit—in all things.

“You dabbled with a thaumaturgical ritual?” Hawes asked. “What irresponsible fool taught you that? And yes, I know the particular one you used.”

Wynn didn’t want to go farther down that path. “The taint of it remained stuck in me, and now I can call up mantic sight at will.”

“But not end it,” Chane interjected.

“Trouble,” Ore-Locks muttered. “Nothing but trouble.”

Wynn ignored them both. “I am able to see—”

“The lack of Spirit within the characters beneath the coating,” Hawes finished. “Because the words were written in the fluids of an undead ... fluids taken from a body that no longer had the potency of true life ... and something even beyond a lack of Spirit.”

Wynn fell silent. Domin il’Sänke wasn’t the only one who’d underestimated the premin. It hadn’t struck Wynn before how much Frideswida Hawes truly knew, but it made sense. No one of lesser ability could’ve become a master, and then a domin, let alone a premin of metaology.

“Yes,” Wynn confirmed. “But I can’t maintain the sight for long, or it overwhelms and sickens me.”

“You are fortunate it hasn’t been the death of you ... in mind, if not body,” Hawes uttered. “Had I known, I would have removed—”

“No!” Wynn cut in. “It’s all I have to get at what we need.”

“And how did you learn to call it up at will?” Hawes demanded.

Wynn hesitated.

“Il’Sänke!” Hawes whispered. “That deceitful ... What else did he teach you?”

Wynn had never seen the premin so unguarded in her emotions. “He tutored me on how to control the sight—that and how to ignite the staff.”

Hawes appeared to calm, though her demand left Wynn puzzled and worried. She wondered what else the premin thought Ghassan il’Sänke had taught her. She had long suspected there was no affection between the premin and the Suman domin, and il’Sänke’s underestimation of Hawes’s thaumaturgical abilities seemed to be at the core of it.

Had she been wrong? Was there something greater than that between those two? However, none of it mattered now.

“We’ve recovered three of the orbs,” Wynn explained. “There are—”

“Three?” Hawes repeated.

Wynn closed her mouth. Explaining all this was taking more time than she’d imagined.

“Yes. You know of the first found in the castle through my journals of the Farlands. There are still two left to locate. If I call up my sight and copy more of the poem, can you help decipher it?”

Hawes looked down at the translated poem and the first stanza.

“That was the ‘anchor’ of Water, in ‘exalted and weeping stone,’” she whispered, as if speaking to herself. “And you found the next in Bäalâle Seatt, the one of Earth, which ‘consumes its own.’”

Wynn grew frightened. No one but those who’d gone with her to Bäalâle should know that. She looked quickly at Ore-Locks and found the dwarf carefully watching the premin.

“Where was the third found?” Hawes asked.

“In the Wastes, up north ... perhaps in the ice, though I haven’t learned much more about it.”

“In other words, someone else—not in this room—found it. Perhaps even one of your trio of evening visitors that were ejected.”

This was getting to be too much, and still Wynn could do nothing but wait.

Hawes studied the poem again. “‘That which snuffs Flame’ is obviously for Fire, and ‘water that never flows’ is obviously the ice of the Wastes ... hence your third orb. What remains are Air and Spirit.”

Wynn only nodded. Though she’d already guessed which three orbs they’d acquired, having these conclusions confirmed—and knowing for certain which two were left—provided some needed certainty. But to have Hawes say so, reading it here and now, as if the conclusions were so obvious ...

Wynn worried about how much the guild had gleaned from the ancient texts.

“And every metaphor describes the destruction of an Element,” Hawes murmured.

Wynn had thought so, as well. Much as she agreed, something more now seemed missing by the way Hawes stared at the translated parts of the poem.

The first orb Magiere had carelessly opened, and Leesil and Chap had described all of the underground cavern’s clinging moisture raining inward into the orb’s light. The memories of Deep-Root in ancient Bäalâle Seatt that Wynn gained from the dragons had hinted that the orb of Earth was used to tunnel in under that seatt.

“I’ve suspected they were five tools for such use,” Wynn said. “I’d imagined they could be used as weapons, each of the five.”

“No, not weapons,” Hawes whispered. “Not five ... but one ... altogether.”

Wynn was immediately lost, even as the premin looked up at her.

“Reason it through,” Hawes instructed. “What would happen to any target as the focus of all five orbs, as each one obliterated an elemental component?”

Wynn realized the answer but couldn’t speak it.

“The target would cease to exist,” Chane whispered for her.

“A’ye!” Ore-Locks added in shock.

“In theory,” Hawes confirmed, lowering her gaze to the paper once more. “Think of what power was required to create them. It is ... unimaginable.”

Wynn heard Shade begin to rumble, but she didn’t need that warning. She watched Hawes as the premin rambled on, seemingly lost in thought.

“Among the oldest fragments that the guild has recovered concerning the war, there is no record of these ‘anchors,’ let alone such a use for them. If this was their intended purpose, and they were not put to that unknown use, then the question remains: what was the intended target?”

Wynn’s burdens, ones she would now heap upon all others in the search, grew tenfold.

“The target does not matter,” Chane rasped.

Wynn took a quick glance and found him watching Hawes.

“All that matters is that they are never used,” he added.

Hawes didn’t respond, and Wynn felt more trapped than ever in having asked for the premin’s assistance.

“Do you have any idea what the other two stanzas mean?” Wynn asked. “Any notion about locations or areas to look? Or if I call up mantic sight and try to copy more from the scroll, can you help decipher it?”

Hawes tightened her mouth. “I should do so myself. You have no training for this, regardless that you’ve toyed with some ability you should not have.”

“No,” Wynn said. “This isn’t the only way the sight has served me.”

“Wynn!” Chane whispered in warning.

“I don’t care what the sight costs me,” she continued. “I’m not giving it up! I need to see those words for myself.”

Hawes pierced her with those hazel eyes. “You do not trust me?”

Wynn bit her tongue as she heard Ore-Locks inhale and hold it. There was no safe answer to that question. She wasn’t certain she trusted Hawes at all—not now—and there was nothing to do about it.

“Will you help me?” Wynn asked, and a moment of silence followed.

“These anchors ... these orbs you’ve found,” Hawes finally said. “Are they well hidden, so that nothing of the Enemy might find them?”

“Yes,” Wynn answered.

Chap had hidden Water and Fire himself, and Ore-Locks had hidden Earth with the Stonewalkers. The orbs were as far beyond the reach of the Enemy’s minions—and the reach of anyone else—as they could be.

“Oh, troublesome girl!” Hawes breathed in resignation. “Yes, I will help you.”

A day passed, night came again, and not one of Rodian’s men had caught a glimpse of the tall and black wolfish dog, let alone one missing sage. Wynn and Shade were nowhere to be found. Now at his desk, having turned over guild security to Branwell, Rodian stared at a map of the city’s districts.

He had only three more days.

In all honesty, he wasn’t certain Prince Leäfrich could make good on his threat, but even an attempt would prove beyond embarrassing. Rodian didn’t know what he would do if he actually found Wynn. But he had to find her at any cost now that the prince had blindsided him with this ridiculous abduction story.

The abrupt change was likely Sykion’s doing, incited by his insistence that she either make a formal charge or drop all notions of incarcerating the young sage. No doubt Sykion would spread word that he’d allowed a young female sage to be “stolen from her bed.”

The whole situation made Rodian’s stomach ache.

But still, for more than one reason, he had to locate Wynn. If he had a chance to speak with her, no doubt she could at least refute the premin’s story. There was no knowing what would happen after that, for it all depended on what, and how much, Wynn was willing to say.

An expected knock sounded on his office door, and he immediately called out, “Come.”

The door cracked and Lúcan stuck his head in, steel gray hair dangling into his eyes.

“Anything?” Rodian asked.

“No, sir,” Lúcan answered too quietly, perhaps wishing he had better news. “I’ve placed a man up the block from the Upright Quill, and two are sweeping all ways near the guild. A score are out searching the streets, but it’s as if the sage is gone ... perhaps already fled the city.”

“No.” Rodian shook his head. “She put up with a lot to remain on guild grounds for as long as she did. Whatever she needs is in there, and she’s not the kind to walk away.”

Lúcan swallowed hard. “So far, we’ve had no cause to enter any buildings.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“Well ... perhaps a general search order from the High Advocate. We could start knocking on doors and going through inns tomorrow.”

Rodian stood up. Permission for invasive searches without evidential cause was rare. It had been granted only twice in his memory: once for a missing foreign dignitary, and the second time for the assassin who had later killed the same. But if his men could search every inn in Calm Seatt, they might find something to help. Or, at least, when rumors spread, it might flush Wynn out. She had to be holed up somewhere.

And since Rodian had been ordered by a prince of the realm to find a sage kidnapped from her bed, amid the outrage of the guild and the royalty, the High Advocate might be swayed.

“First thing in the morning,” he said with a slight smile. “A very wise ... cunning ... suggestion, Corporal.”

Lúcan matched that smile as he nodded and stepped out, closing the door.

Rodian sank into his chair. Chances were still slim, but perhaps he might still find the journeyor within three days.

Wynn sat cross-legged on the floor with the blackened scroll before her, as she prepared to call up her mantic sight. She never looked forward to this sickening process, and it was difficult to stop once it started.

Chane brought her quill with the white metal tip, an ink bottle, and a blank sheet, and set them on the floor beside the scroll. He also prepared to steady her hand, if need be.

“From the stanzas so far, the rest will likely be just as veiled,” Hawes said, “and there may not be more concerning locations. In the main ascendancy dialects of Sumanese, look for rúhk for ‘spirit’ and shàjár or sagár for ‘tree.’ ‘Life’ would likely be hkâ’ät. ‘Air’ is háwa or hká’a, which are also used for ‘wind,’ though sometimes that is hawä. Since your time in this state is limited, scan quickly for any words you can sound out as similar to these.”

Wynn nodded. Shade sat off on her left, and neither Shade nor Chane approved of what she was about to do. Both were silent nonetheless, knowing this was the only way to gain what they needed—they hoped.

Ore-Locks had never seen this, but he watched intently from out of the way.

“Are you prepared?” Hawes asked.

“I guess ... I mean, yes,” Wynn answered.

She lost sight of the premin as the woman stepped around behind her. Then Wynn heard a whisper close to her ear.

“Begin.”

Extending her index finger, Wynn traced a sign for Spirit on the floor and encircled it, and she heard Hawes whispering something more, something unintelligible behind her.

At each gesture, Wynn focused hard to keep the lines alive in her mind’s eye, as if they were actually drawn upon the floor. She scooted forward, settling inside the circle, and traced a wider circumference around herself and the first pattern. It was a simple construct, but through it, she shut out the world as she closed her eyes.

Wynn felt for that thin trace of elemental Spirit in all things, starting with herself.

As a living being, in which Spirit was always strongest, she imagined breathing it in from the air. She imagined it flowing upward from the wood of the floorboards ... from the earth below the inn. In the darkness behind her eyelids, she held on to the first simple pattern traced upon the floor. When that held steady, she called upon the last image she needed.

Amid that pattern before her mind’s eye, she saw Chap.

As she’d once seen him long ago in her mantic sight, his silver-gray fur shimmered like a million silk threads caught in the glare of a blue-white light. All of him was enveloped in white vapors that rose from his body like slow-moving flames.

Moments stretched, and mantic sight still didn’t come. The ache in her knees threatened her focus.

Wynn clung to Chap—to the memory of him—burning bright behind the envisioned circle around the symbol of Spirit. Vertigo suddenly threatened to send her falling into the darkness behind her eyelids.

“Wynn?” Chane rasped.

She braced her hands on the floor. As she opened her eyes, nausea lurched from her stomach, up her throat, and seemingly into her head.

Translucent white, just shy of blue, dimly permeated the wood planks beneath her hands and knees. She raised her head slowly, carefully, and the first thing she saw was Shade. Wynn knew what to expect, but foreknowledge didn’t help much.

For the first instant, Shade was as black as a void. But beneath her fur, a powerful glimmer of blue-white permeated her body—more so than anything else in the room. Traces of Spirit ran in every strand of Shade’s charcoal fur. Her eyes were aglow, burning with her father’s Fay ancestry.

Wynn had to look away.

“Chane!” she called through gritted teeth.

“I am here. Work quickly.”

Only then did she feel a hand resting lightly between her shoulder blades, but it wasn’t Chane’s. Through it all, she kept hearing those soft, indistinct whispers behind her from Premin Hawes.

Wynn half closed her eyes as she turned her head, looking for Chane as the only normal image in the room. For while Chane wore the brass ring, even her mantic sight couldn’t reveal him for what he was.

He appeared exactly the same, unchanged, as before Wynn had called her sight. He was her anchor.

Taking in a deep breath, she finally looked down at the scroll. Its surface was no longer completely black ... to her.

The coating of old ink, spread nearly to the scroll’s edges, had lightened with a thin inner trace of blue-white. Whatever covered the words had been made from a natural substance, and even after ages, it still retained a trace of elemental Spirit.

Within that space, pure black marks appeared, devoid of all Spirit.

“Wynn?” Hawes asked.

“I see the words now,” she whispered.

Those swirling, elaborately stroked characters weren’t written as in the other texts. Short lines began evenly along a wide right-side margin. Written from right to left, they ended erratically shy of the page’s left side. The lines of text were broken into stanzas of differing length.

“But the dialect is so ...” she whispered.

“Sound out what is possible by the characters you recognize,” Hawes instructed. “Find anything similar to what you heard me speak.”

Wynn’s dinner threatened to come up as she tried to reach for her elven quill.

Chane grabbed her wrist and guided her hand as she dipped the quill and dropped its point to the blank sheet. Then something halfway down the scroll caught her eyes.

“... and the breath of wind ... sands ... were born ...” she said aloud, but she couldn’t follow most of the writing.

Wynn stopped reading aloud and quickly began copying as much as she could by rote. She had scrawled only a few lines when a sharp wave of vertigo rose inside her.

“Wynn!” Chane rasped.

Almost instantly, she felt the premin’s hand press between her shoulder blades, as if Hawes had felt that wave. Wynn’s vertigo decreased as the premin’s unintelligible whispering stopped.

“That is enough,” Hawes ordered.

“No!” Wynn tried to say, still choking. “I need ... more.”

The quill was suddenly snatched from her grip. A narrow hand flattened over her eyes, blocking out everything, as she heard another whisper, shorter and sharper than the last. The nausea vanished as Hawes pulled her hand away from Wynn’s eyes.

“Try sitting up,” the premin said.

Wynn straightened on her knees, opened her eyes, and turned on Hawes in outrage.

“I barely wrote anything!”

Chane, still crouched close, grabbed her upper arm. “Wynn, that is enough for—”

“No!” she snapped, still glaring at the premin. “Why did you stop me?”

Hawes reached around her for the sheet upon which Wynn had written. “You collected something, but you were growing too unstable. You need instruction before another attempt.”

Wynn only glared, wondering what the premin was up to. She finally calmed enough to ask, “Anything of use?”

Hawes reached out for the elven quill, not even appearing interested in its white metal tip, and began scanning what was on the page. She scrawled and stroked as Wynn waited, unable to see exactly what Hawes wrote.

“‘The Wind was banished to the waters within the sands where we were born,’” the premin read aloud and then paused. “The ‘we’ may be a reference to the Children.”

“How are we to know where any of the Children were born?” Chane asked.

“The war is believed to have begun in the south,” Hawes answered. “Somewhere in the region of what is now the Suman Empire. And likely the ‘empire’ was only separate nations at that time. This line may hint at some place near where the Children were first born, or created as servants of the Enemy. But ...”

Hawes fell silent, frowning slightly as she stared at the page—until Wynn grabbed it from the premin’s hand to look at it. Hawes had scrawled the exact words she’d read in Numanese, using the Begaine syllabary.

“And ‘Wind’ more likely refers to the orb of Air,” Wynn replied. “But the rest makes no sense. The only known desert of ‘sand’ is south of the Sky-Cutter Range. But there are no waters in that region. How could there be, since it’s a desert?”

“You are still missing the full context,” Hawes admonished.

Wynn thought about that for a moment. “You mean time?”

“Yes. What is in this scroll was written a thousand or more years ago ... at an educated guess. What we call the Forgotten History may be even older than that. And how much can a world, or any one region, change in that much time?”

Wynn glanced back at il’Sänke’s translation of the first stanza.

It clearly referred to the orb of Air, but it offered no help in connecting it to the new phrase she had just copied. And neither phrase explained how to find water, let alone a body of such with shallows, in the middle of sand, or any other type of desert.

“How do we ... ?” she began, not even sure what to ask.

Premin Hawes no longer looked at anyone or anything. She appeared to be focused across the room on the blank wall. More disturbing was another rare betrayal of emotion on her narrow face. Her eyes closed to slits exposing slivers of cold gray irises around black pupils. Her features twisted in a blink of revulsion as she spoke.

“I can think of only one person who might decipher such a location—if this new hint is that.”

Before Wynn could press for more, the premin looked at her.

“We have much to discuss,” Hawes said, “and much to do. You will need access to the guild and to me directly.”

Wynn saw little hope in that.

“If she goes back,” Ore-locks replied, “Premin Sykion and the council—your council—will lock her up again.”

“Perhaps not,” Hawes countered.

Chane crouched down beside them. “What do you mean?”

Hawes only looked at Wynn. “I have only one answer, and you may not like it.”

The premin half turned where she knelt, retrieved the parcel she’d left on the bed, and handed it to Wynn. Still lost, Wynn took it and pulled the tie string to unwrap the outer canvas.

Inside was a midnight blue sage’s robe.

Nearly half the night had passed, but neither Magiere nor the others with her had mentioned going to bed. They all waited to hear from Wynn. At the three bells of midnight, Brot’an finally got up to go find out what was keeping Wynn. Chap had immediately risen to follow him, as had Magiere and Osha, much to Leanâlhâm’s alarm. Before Magiere got far, Leesil grabbed her arm.

“Let Brot’an go alone,” he said.

As Magiere tried to pull free, Chap snarled at Leesil. Osha ignored him entirely, but Brot’an stood in his way. Leesil shook his head, hanging on to Magiere.

“Your going at Wynn again isn’t going to hurry her along. Everyone, sit down. And Brot’an ... make it quick!”

Brot’an nodded, slipping out the door before Chap or Osha could follow.

Magiere had turned on Leesil, but he wouldn’t back down.

So now Magiere and the rest waited even longer for Brot’an’s return. Leesil tried to distract everyone with a sketch of the city’s districts that he and Brot’an had made during their scouting trips.

Osha merely sank down below the window as he asked, “Will work?”

“Depends on what Wynn has to say,” Leesil answered, “and who’s going where. But yes, the plan has a chance ... and some flexibility.”

Magiere’s feelings toward Wynn were still too conflicted to agree with Leesil, even after he explained their options in the face of not knowing where to go once they left the city.

“If anmaglâhk split?” Osha asked. “If not to gather, then they—”

He was cut off by a light double knock on the door. Before anyone moved, it opened.

Brot’an stepped in with Wynn and Shade—and a cloaked dwarf carrying an iron staff.

Osha immediately rose and fixed on only Wynn.

Magiere had seen a few dwarves about the city, but none up close—as she had on their journey north into the Wastes. One in particular she had gotten to know a little. Much as this stranger caught her attention, her gaze quickly shifted to the open door as she reached for her falchion leaning against the bed.

Brot’an shut the door, but Magiere didn’t relax. Chane hadn’t come. It should’ve been a relief, but it wasn’t.

Last night, Wynn had been disheveled, wearing a wrinkled gray robe. Tonight, she was dressed in her old elven pants and tunic from their time among the an’Cróan, with an open cloak thrown over the top. She carried the long staff with the odd leather sheath covering its top. Her hair was pulled back into a tail. Chap’s daughter, the black majay-hì, pressed up against the sage, as if anxious at being among so many strangers.

Then Wynn looked at Osha, and her gaze lingered on him. As he seemed about to speak, she looked away, gesturing to the dwarf.

“This is Ore-Locks Iron-Braid,” she said. “He can be trusted.”

Leesil had mentioned the dwarf last night, but this one was nothing like the one Magiere had met in the earliest days of their journey to the northern wastes. Unlike that fierce and boisterous warrior, Wynn’s companion was clean-shaven and wore a simple orange vestment under his cloak. He was quiet, intently watchful, and simply nodded to all in place of any greeting. Not at all dwarfish by what little Magiere knew of these strange people.

“You learn ... news?” Osha asked Wynn.

“Yes,” she nearly whispered without looking at him.

Magiere shook her head slightly over the trouble that remained for those two.

Wynn pulled off her cloak and leaned her odd staff in the corner behind the door. As she stepped closer, standing before Leesil’s sketch on the floor, Shade followed her. She looked down at Magiere sitting on the floor with Leesil and Chap.

“Can we talk?” she asked bluntly. “Can we make plans?”

Magiere waited for Leesil to answer, but he didn’t, and apparently neither had Chap, in his own way. Magiere found herself stuck in the role of peacemaker, something she was never good at and was not in the mood for right now.

Nodding once, she gestured to the open paper map. “Don’t think we have a choice. You’re the only one who knows where to head next.”

And wasn’t that an annoying twist of fate?

Wynn settled on the floor, resting a hand on Shade’s back.

In a happier memory, in what seemed a lifetime ago, Magiere recalled waking in Leesil’s arms for the first time after they’d finished driving Welstiel out of the capital of her homeland. They were preparing for another journey, and Wynn had burst through the door of the little inn’s room, shouting, “I’m coming with you!”

She’d seemed almost a child back then, full of wonder, and nothing like the hardened young woman who now knelt on the floor. This woman solved mysteries and uncovered secrets that others wouldn’t admit existed.

Wynn half turned, looking back. “Ore-Locks, grab a stool and join us. And Osha ...”

She never finished, but Magiere saw her swallow hard, perhaps breathing too quickly.

“So ...” Leesil began awkwardly. “This premin came to you? You have a direction for us?”

Wynn studied him. “Yes.”

Wynn kept as calm as she could, but her heart pounded. It might’ve been the clear rift between herself and Magiere, Leesil, and Chap. Yes, that was most of it: knowing how much they opposed Chane having anything to do with what had to be accomplished. She’d expected them to be opposed but never thought it would fray and tear the ties they had to one another.

Yes, it was all that, but it was also Osha.

She felt him watching her, and she wanted to turn to him. This was not the moment or the place for that. She fought to shove aside memories of the time they’d spent together, up to that final instant on Bela’s crowded docks.

How different he looked now, and it was more than that he no longer dressed like the Anmaglâhk. She desperately wanted to know what had happened to him. Then there was poor Leanâlhâm, of all people, here with the others. Worse, the young girl looked as much changed as Osha in the past two years, perhaps a little taller, and not at all happy to see Wynn. They had at least been friendly in the Farlands, for as little as they’d gotten to know one another. What had made Brot’an bring Leanâlhâm here?

Shade was no help in easing the tension. She pressed in against Wynn, as if everyone here were an enemy.

This was not going to be easy. But with the possible exception of Leanâlhâm, everyone in this room had the skills needed to track and obtain the remaining two orbs. Wynn finally had some real help besides Chane and Shade. She wasn’t about to lose that now.

She steeled herself and looked Chap in the eyes.

“We didn’t decipher much,” she said. “We know the three recovered orbs are for Water, Earth, and Fire. So we’re searching for Air and Spirit.”

You are certain?

Chap glanced again at Shade, who continued to ignore him.

“Yes,” Wynn answered him, and then turned her attention to Magiere. “We were able to decipher that the orb of Air is somewhere in the south, possibly in the Suman Empire or the great desert just north of it.”

“On this continent?” Magiere asked, and all traces of stiffness vanished from her expression. “We’re that close?”

“Close?” Wynn repeated. “Have you seen a map of this continent? Do you know how long it will take to reach the Empire, how large it is, and the desert even more than that?”

“Hopefully you’ve got more to go on,” Leesil said.

Wynn shook her head. “Not exactly, but Premin Hawes has a suggestion. It is risky, but I can’t think of anything else, and we need to move quickly.”

“What is this suggestion?” Brot’an asked.

“I have an ... acquaintance in the guild’s Suman branch, a domin of metaology named Ghassan il’Sänke. He helped in deciphering earlier parts of the scroll ... and in combating the undead.”

The last part gained Magiere’s full attention, and Wynn gestured to her staff leaning in the corner.

“He created that for me,” she said. “The crystal emits light akin to the sun. We know what that can do to Noble Dead, vampires, and others.”

Leesil stared at the staff, both of his white-blond eyebrows arched. “Truly, it can— Wait. What others?”

Wynn didn’t want to get sidetracked into explaining about Sau’ilahk, the wraith.

“I’ve seen other kinds of Noble Dead,” she answered. “We’ll deal with that later. Domin il’Sanke also believes the Ancient Enemy, so-called, may ... will return. Premin Hawes believes that if anyone can decipher more of the cryptic clues we’ve extracted concerning the orb of Air, it might be him.”

Wynn briefly explained about the limited details hidden in the poem versus all the centuries that had passed since it had been written. It was daunting that time itself may have rendered useless what little geographic hints were hidden in the scroll.

“So what’s the risk?” Leesil asked. “It’s not hard to see you’re less than thrilled with bringing this Suman in on what we’re after. Why? Whose side is he on?”

Wynn took a slow breath. How could she explain about il’Sänke?

“From what I’ve seen—learned—he’s as determined as my guild branch’s Premin Council to keep any portents secret from the masses. The difference is that he’s not in denial, at least to me. He knows as much as I do, though perhaps about different details.”

“So your Premin Hawes thinks this il’Sänke may know more?” Magiere asked. “Maybe something specific about where to look for another orb?”

“She does ... and neither of us has a better idea. But we share with him only the clues related to the orb of Air ... and nothing more.”

“Then we go south,” Magiere said. “But what about the last orb, the one of Spirit?”

Wynn looked at Magiere and then Leesil, feeling bleak. Leesil had fallen silent, and stared down at the map. She felt Chap watching her, but beyond his previous brief comment, he had said nothing at all. Wynn had to wonder about the changes in all three of them.

Magiere had always been the one who wanted to be done with all this and just go home. Yet now she was the only one openly pushing forward, while the other two remained silent.

“We’ve learned nothing yet of the last orb, which means ...” Wynn faltered, her voice quavering as she continued. “We’re going to have to separate into two groups.”

She had no idea how they’d take this, and braced for the outrage.

Leesil’s amber eyes only flickered, and he sat up, leaning toward her.

“We already knew that,” he said quietly, “and planned for it. Two groups will be necessary for at least one to escape this city without the Anmaglâhk being able to follow quickly enough.”

Both his manner and close proximity brought Wynn some relief.

“There are loose ends,” Magiere grumbled, and she looked to Chap.

Chap sat rigid beside Magiere. Again Wynn didn’t hear one word from him in her head. She wanted to know what he thought about all this, that he still believed they shared the same goals. Chap liked to be in control, and events were pressing forward right over the top of him.

“There are still preparations to make,” Leesil said. “We’ll need help with some of it, since we don’t know anyone here besides you.”

Confused, Wynn answered, “Yes, of course. But I need to speak with Chap ... alone.”

Leesil scowled in suspicion, but Wynn cut him off before he could speak.

“Talk with Ore-Locks about what you need,” she said, and then got up. “If he can’t come up with something, we’ll figure it out.”

“Wynn ...” Magiere began. “What is this about?”

Wynn headed for the door, for there was one thing she’d learned that no one else should know just yet—no one except Chap. For it to be made clear, she would need to force Shade to face her father.

“Shade, come on,” she called. “And Chap?”

Magiere visibly calmed, looking at Chap and then Shade, as if she’d suddenly understood something. Leesil sighed, rolling his eyes.

“Get going,” he told Chap, “and get this settled before we have to set things in motion.”

Wynn said nothing to correct Leesil and Magiere’s misguided assumptions. She let them believe what they wanted to. What she needed in privacy with Chap had nothing to do with healing the rift between a father and a daughter.

Chap rose and headed toward Wynn, but as he passed too close, Shade sidled away from him. Wynn couldn’t tell if Chap reacted or not; he simply stalked out the door to wait on the landing. Still, Shade wouldn’t budge.

“Now!” Wynn commanded.

Shade rumbled and finally headed out.

Wynn could feel Osha watching her, but she didn’t dare look back at him. She was about to follow Shade and Chap when she heard the first part of a conversation in the room behind her.

“What do you need?” Ore-Locks asked.

“Well, to begin,” Leesil replied, “two wagons, some good-sized trunks, as we’ve a lot to haul with us that will have to be loaded early. And especially a ship to take our cargo and three passengers ... departing at night.”

After a long pause, Ore-Locks answered, “It is possible ... what more?”

Wynn left them to their plans and closed the door, wishing Brot’an had said something—just so she’d know he was occupied. She found Chap waiting at her feet with his head down, and Shade sat two steps down the stairs with her back turned.

She cared for them both so much, but there was no time to deal with issues between them. What she wanted Chap to know she couldn’t risk saying aloud, and that was why she needed Shade.

“Shade, show him,” Wynn whispered. “Everything that happened ... everything that was said with Premin Hawes.”

Chap looked up at her. What is this about?

Wynn put a finger over her lips, for she wouldn’t speak any of it out loud. Only Chap could know what she’d learned. Most especially, it had to be kept from Brot’an, but also from Osha and Leanâlhâm, who were too much under the greimasg’äh’s influence.

“Shade,” Wynn whispered.

Shade swiveled only her head and eyed Wynn, long and hard.

“Please,” Wynn added.

Shade finally turned about, eyeing her father much like she would’ve an enemy or threat. She put her forepaws up one step and stretched her head out.

When Chap looked up at Wynn in uncertainty, she waved him toward Shade. He hesitantly slipped his head against his daughter’s. Wynn wished that touch, the sharing in memory-speak, could’ve been just for them. They needed that, no matter how much Shade resisted, but that wasn’t the reason.

The secret was still only a guess, but even that could be dangerous for what it might mean. Wynn knew the instant Chap learned it from Shade.

He lurched back, spinning on the landing, and his head nearly hit Wynn’s leg. All Wynn did when he looked up was slowly nod. Even before she glanced toward the door and those muted voices beyond it, Chap did so, and his hackles rose.

She wanted more time to talk with him, but that couldn’t be here and now. Even trying to use memory-speak with Shade and have her pass it along to Chap would take too long. The others were waiting, and the longer she remained outside, the less likely they would believe this private moment was about Chap and Shade.

The secret was not about the five orbs, but of five parts to one weapon, or so it had been guessed. The last who should ever know of this, even for all he had done for those Wynn cared about, was the master assassin.

Brot’an was here for a reason: to keep his own kind and Most Aged Father from getting to Magiere and what she’d recovered. What could—would—Brot’an do for such a weapon himself if he learned of it?

It was bad enough that Wynn had sent that journal with Osha to be given to Brot’an. It was the worst outcome of how naive she’d once been. When she looked down again, Chap stood glaring at the door. He began to shake with hissing breaths between bared and clenched teeth. He understood the implications of what Shade had relayed to him and exactly why Wynn had dragged them out into the hallway. Upon reaching for the door, she faltered at Shade’s memory-words in her head.

—I ... understand ... too—

Shade ignored her father, watching only Wynn.

“I know you do,” Wynn whispered.

At that, Chap looked between them, and his ears stiffened. Know what? Was ... is she.... talking to you?

Wynn hung there, still gripping the door’s handle. Shade was talking to her—in a way. It was only by having learned to isolate certain sounds—spoken words—from memories seen inside of Wynn, and also by Shade’s learning what they meant. On the other hand, Wynn could only hear Chap, as a true Fay, in her head because of the taint left in her from a failed thaumaturgical ritual.

Wynn’s eyes widened at a notion. Aside from being a Fay, Chap had been born into a majay-hì body the same as his mate Lily ... and his daughter, Shade.

“Oh ... have I got a useful trick for you,” Wynn whispered, and then smiled.

Chap’s ears fell, flattening in apprehension.

Wynn only giggled. “And it’s going to drive Leesil to fits!”

Back inside the room, as Chap sat with Wynn before the sketched map on the floor, Leesil finally looked up from the map’s other side at everyone.

“Is that clear enough?” he asked. “Any last doubts?”

Chap knew there were—he had plenty himself. Yet no one, not even Brot’an, had offered anything better. Leesil looked at Wynn kneeling beside Chap.

“Can you and Ore-Locks take care of what we need?” he asked.

She, in turn, looked up at the dwarf standing behind her, but when Chap glanced back it was at his daughter.

Shade lay removed from everyone, especially him, lying in the far corner next to the pile of gear Osha had stored there.

“It can be done,” Ore-Locks said with a nod.

“Then it is time,” Brot’an cut in. “I will escort you back to your inn.”

As Wynn rose, Chap got up, as well, turning about for the door. Brot’an was already there.

“No,” he said, shaking his head once. “I alone will take them.”

Chap snarled, stalking straight at Brot’an, and Wynn’s hand dropped on his shoulders. He looked up at her, his jowls still curled back.

You are not to be alone with him.

Wynn frowned at him.

“Dawn will come soon,” Brot’an said, drawing Chap’s attention. “And ... respectfully, you are the hardest to move through the streets without being spotted.”

Chap merely stared in Brot’an’s eyes until Wynn closed her little fingers in his scruff.

“Don’t you have something to say to them?” she asked, and glanced over her shoulder.

Chap knew Wynn was looking at Leesil and Magiere.

“What now?” Leesil grouched.

Chap was not looking forward to this. After the last additional thing that Wynn—and Shade—had shown him outside the room, he already felt shamed ... and stupid. And Wynn had been right.

Once Chap showed—told—Leesil, he was going to throw a fit. Probably a big one.

The instant Brot’an opened the door, Shade hopped to her feet and scurried through. Wynn scratched her fingertips quickly on Chap’s scalp and whispered, “Get it over with.” She followed Ore-Locks out, and the last to leave was Brot’an.

“Chap?” Magiere called. “What’s going on?”

He slumped, hanging his head, and finally turned about. First, without looking at Magiere or Leesil, he snatched up the talking hide in his teeth and dropped it on top of the sketched map. He might need it to help clarify what he was about to do.

Leesil looked at the hide with a frown, but Chap did not start pawing the letters. Instead, he began messing about, as Leesil would say, with all of the memories he had ever dipped from within his lifetime companion. It was not easy to find all that he sought, and Leesil flinched more than once.

“Will you get to the point already!” Leesil snapped, and then suddenly he went flat-faced and held his breath.

Magiere was watching Leesil. As he stiffened all over, she grabbed him and shook him. Still, he just stared back at Chap. Before Magiere could speak, Leesil’s left eye twitched.

“What was that?” he whispered.

Chap did not know if Leesil asked if he had heard right or at all. It was one thing for Chap to call up a series of memory fragments inside Leesil or Magiere to make his intention clear as a communication. It was entirely another matter to call only the sound of voices from those long past moments—and, again, even harder to pick out and raise particular words or phrases arranged in the right order.

Chap was the one who had the headache this time. It went all the way into his eyes and ears. But it appeared he would not need the talking hide after all, and he repeated those fragmented spoken words gleaned from Leesil’s memories.

—not—remember—only hear—my—words—from the—past—voices— ... —I—can ... speak—and you—hear—me—now—

How Shade had figured out how to do this left Chap in dismay. Then again, she had grown up with her own kind, unlike him. She knew only memory-speak, as Wynn called it, from the very beginning. She never had to deal with spoken language until finding Wynn, while he was still not as skilled at memory-speak as other majay-hì.

This new trick with memory-words would be useful, but it was not easy to do.

Leesil’s expression began to darken.

“All of this time,” he whispered, “before we even knew what you were ... could do.... You’ve been messing around in my head.”

Osha finally spoke up. “Why Léshil be angry to Chap?”

Even Leanâlhâm was staring in worry.

Leesil lunged from where he sat, shouting, “Come here, you mangy mutt!”

Chap tried to retreat, but his back paws did not catch. He ended up on his rump as Leesil dived for him with one outstretched hand. Magiere jumped on top of Leesil’s back, pinning him to the floor, as Leanâlhâm scrambled on hands and knees to shield Chap.

“Do not touch him ... speak to him that way!” the girl shouted at Leesil. “You will treat majay-hì with respect!”

“Respect?” Leesil echoed amid frantic breaths. “That deceitful, conniving—”

Leanâlhâm swatted him across the top of his head. “I not warn you again,” she added emphatically.

“Leesil, what’s this about?” Magiere demanded, still holding him down.

Leesil glared at Chap beyond a surprisingly angry Leanâlhâm, and he whispered, “It’s him ... talking at me ... in my head.”

“Well, what did he show you?” Magiere asked.

“Not memories ... words!” Leesil barked, and tried again, unsuccessfully, to get out from under her. “He’s putting words in my head.”

Chap cowered behind Leanâlhâm, even as the girl looked back at him over her shoulder. Puzzled astonishment spread over her face. Osha, too, looked completely dumbstruck.

“Chap talk now?” he asked.

Magiere was watching Leesil, but she glanced sidelong at Chap in suspicion. So far, only Leesil truly understood what was going on, and Chap swallowed hard, waiting for Magiere to catch up.

“Why didn’t you figure this out years ago ... oh, great and wise Fay?” Leesil asked.

That brought back Chap’s spite. He called up Leesil’s own memory of a Chap covered in soot, scratching himself raw, and then added in broken memory words.

—You—not—think of it—either—

Leesil just glared at him.

“Wait,” Magiere said too quietly. “He can talk ... in our heads?”

“Yes,” Leesil hissed.

And Magiere leaned forward atop Leesil, peering down at him. “So he can yammer at us, order us about, anytime he wants?”

Leesil let out a groan, or maybe it was a deep whine. He dropped his forehead against the floor. Magiere let out a sigh as she dropped on her butt beside him.

Chap rumbled and flicked his tongue up over his nose at both of them.

Just before dawn, Brot’ân’duivé took Wynn and her two companions, Shade and Ore-Locks, back to their inn. It was a long, slow process of moving the sage, the majay-hì, and the dwarf from one hiding point to the next as the city began to awaken for the day. But when he left them at their inn, he did not return to where Magiere and the others hid.

There was a task he needed to complete, and best done without the others knowing. He slipped through the shadowed alleys and cutways toward the guild’s small castle.

Although Brot’ân’duivé would not say so, he thought Léshil’s escape plan was as sound as any he could have formulated himself. The half-blood’s mind worked well, likely from his mother’s training, when he was not distracted. He possessed an innate ability to see what others might do and build upon those possible reactions. In spite of this, there was one long-term risk that Brot’ân’duivé wanted removed.

Any contact the anmaglâhk in this city had with Most Aged Father could easily lead to other teams being sent out into the world. In addition, the ones already here might split up if they had the means to remain in contact and coordinate with each other.

At least one of those options had to be removed—especially the second one. And there was a step to add to the plan that the others could not know about.

He wanted all of his enemies following Magiere and Léshil ... and himself. Undead or not, Wynn’s vampire would be a poor match for even a few trained members of Brot’ân’duivé’s cast, though this was not his only reason.

Dawn and dusk were the most common times for agents abroad to check in with Most Aged Father or with others out scouting or on watch. With their numbers dwindling, Dänvârfij would be the one to do both.

A few streets from the guild, Brot’ân’duivé scaled the back of a small shop and slipped from roof to roof, out of sight of those below. He paralleled Old Procession Road from two blocks south, pausing often to watch the city’s skyline. Something moved on a rooftop two blocks north, where Old Procession Road met Old Bailey Road, right across from the castle’s bailey gate.

Brot’ân’duivé shook his head once. They must be spread thin, and have grown desperate, to put a scout in such an obvious position. It would be so easy to eliminate one more of them.

From his crouched position, at first he could not identify the one. He did not know all who traveled with Dänvârfij and Fréthfâre, even after following them for a year. The one suddenly scuttled to the roof’s edge and hung its head over.

Brot’ân’duivé rose a little, wary of betraying his own presence against the city’s skyline. Almost immediately, the one on the roof returned to the side facing the castle. Brot’ân’duivé did not need to know more. He took off north across the roofs, running in plain sight.

Someone else had passed by in the street below, checking in with the watcher on the roof. When he reached the last roof’s side over Old Procession Road, he flattened as he peered over the edge.

A slender, tall form walked away in the early dawn. It wore a plain cloak, but that hid nothing from him. He saw its soft leather boots, dyed forest gray, and pant legs that matched. The way the figure moved, each step planted in a silent, flat step, was unmistakable.

Brot’ân’duivé watched Dänvârfij slip along the northwest run of Old Bailey Road, heading for some side street. She peered up toward the other one still on top of the roof.

Brot’ân’duivé could now see that the other figure was male. When that anmaglâhk shifted on the roof’s edge, on hands and knees, the male kept his right knee off the roof’s shakes.

Brot’ân’duivé realized it was Eywodan, likely the oldest member of the anmaglâhk here in this city. Years ago, Eywodan had assisted flood victims of Brot’ân’duivé’s own clan. Eywodan’s knee had been broken by rushing debris when he had waded into the swelling river. Brot’ân’duivé had carried him to a healer.

Brot’ân’duivé pushed away that memory and any sickness it brought. Eywodan was now the enemy, as well as Dänvârfij, Fréthfâre, and all of Most Aged Father’s loyalists. Any who still followed that twisted, maddened patriarch could no longer be seen in any other way. But Brot’ân’duivé lingered, for an enemy was sometimes made so by the actions of another—by his action. One mistake made in fury and hatred had led to all of this, though it had been spurred by Most Aged Father’s fanaticism.

Brot’ân’duivé had made that mistake. There was no changing it now, and he would not succumb to regret.

He watched until Eywodan looked the other way in scanning the guild’s castle and the loop of street around it. With the street below clear and empty, Brot’ân’duivé dropped over the edge to land silently upon the cobblestones. He ran through the alleys and cutways, searching for a vantage point to catch sight of Dänvârfij. When he spotted her around a street corner in the early, dim dawn, he stalled.

She had doubled back beyond the castle and was heading south.

In scouting ventures with Léshil, Brot’ân’duivé had discovered there were not many inns or way houses in the southern district. That area did hold one of the city’s landside exits. Could Dänvârfij simply be checking on another sentry? Had she placed someone to watch that exit?

It seemed unlikely, unwise, to spread their numbers so thin and still search for Magiere. Or had they given up the search and now merely waited and watched?

The sun had fully crested the rooftops in the east when Brot’ân’duivé finally watched Dänvârfij walk along a city thoroughfare and out the city’s southern exit. He waited but a few moments and then followed, lingering inside the great gate’s arch.

She only traveled a short way before stepping off the road into a grove of fir and pine trees.

This was what Brot’ân’duivé had hoped for. He waited until she was out of sight for three breaths, and then he walked out of the city before drawing his blades, keeping them under the folds of his dangling cloak.

Dänvârfij sank to her knees before a tall fir tree, its lowest branches high enough to hang above her bent head. She dreaded making this report, and yet she longed for guidance. Reaching inside the front of her forest gray tunic, she withdrew an elongated oval of smooth, tawny wood no bigger than her palm. She reached out and pressed the word-wood against the tree’s trunk and whispered.

“Father?”

I am here, daughter.

Most Aged Father’s voice filled her mind with welcome calm. She should have reported sooner and not let shame keep her from him.

“I have much to report,” she said. “The white woman is here. We have seen her, and she has seen us, but we have not captured her yet.”

What is the delay?

Dänvârfij closed her eyes. “Brot’ân’duivé now protects the woman and her companions. He has taken Wy’lanvi and Owain from us. Counting Fréthfâre, we are now six. I have allowed the others only a quarter day or night of sleep between search or watch duty. But we are spread thin in a human city of such size.”

She did not wish to sound as if she were making excuses for their lack of success. She simply wished him to know the true situation. No immediate response came, though she had not expected one. The loss of two more at the hands of the traitor would strike him hard. Even the thought of a greimasg’äh killing other anmaglâhk was so unthinkable.

So he is still there, in the city?

“And another,” she answered, though this part was not something easy to tell him. “The faltering one, Osha, is with him. There is also the last survivor of Sgäilsheilleache’s family ... Leanâlhâm.”

Osha ... and Leanâlhâm ... in a land of humans? What are they doing with the traitor?

His tone was so shocked that Dänvârfij wished she had not been the one to deliver such news. The rent in her caste was deepening. It had become more than just a few among the people sympathizing with dissidents both inside or outside of the caste. Osha was no longer anmaglâhk, and Leanâlhâm was just an orphan, and yet both had stepped into this civil war.

Dänvârfij ached, thinking of her people and wondering how much worse things had become since she had left home. She could not ask.

Do you have a plan?

The abrupt shift caught her off guard but was welcome.

“Of a kind. Our quarry has been trying to reach the sage, Wynn Hygeorht. That woman may hold something of importance. She has been imprisoned by her own kind, and it is my hope that Magiere and Brot’ân’duivé will try to free her before fleeing the city. When they come for the sage, above all else, Brot’ân’duivé will die, and we will capture the others.”

You have sentries on all city exits?

“No, only on the port and the guild’s castle. The others are sweeping the city, trying to gain a location.”

Pull in everyone. Focus on the guild and all ways out of the city. You will not find Brot’ân’duivé until he chooses to show himself. Wait, and take your quarry in the open, once they are encumbered with too many to protect. This is the only way to keep the traitor from slipping away.

“Yes, Father.”

His guidance made her settle at ease once more. Perhaps now was a chance to ask how he was, how efforts at home progressed ... but a shadow shifted among the branches around her arm.

Dänvârfij’s heart hammered as a shimmering white stiletto thrust through the branches for her heart. She twisted out of its path at the last instant. A booted foot shattered the branches and smashed the side of her head.

She rolled blindly away, trying to regain her feet. In her blurred sight, she saw a glint and kicked out as she rose on one knee. Her foot never connected, though that spark on white metal vanished.

Lunging backward and up to her feet, she reached for her own blades. She knew whom she faced even before her sight cleared, and she could not help being afraid. The very shadows of the fir’s branches appeared to cling and glide over a tall, broad form like a second cloak as it—he—stepped out from between the trees.

Brot’ân’duivé, the traitor, stood fully in the dawn’s light.

This was the first time in the long, dark journey from Dänvârfij’s homeland that she had seen him face-to-face, seen those scars that skipped over his right eye. She was no match for him. Another greimasg’äh might not have taken him.

Brot’ân’duivé took another silent step, not even disturbing the leaves and needles on the earth.

She jerked out her stilettos and almost instantly realized her failure. As much as the traitor had been killing her brethren, killing her was not truly why he had come, for she held a stiletto in both hands.

Dänvârfij had dropped her word-wood at the tree. That was what he had come for.

Her life would be only a secondary gain next to that. She had lost even before she had a chance to strike at him. Her thoughts raced to scavenge anything from this moment.

Dänvârfij did not fear death; she feared failure of purpose, of her people ... of her beloved patriarch, Most Aged Father. What was life to her other than service in silence and in shadow?

She quickly backed all the way to the open road and stood there in plain sight of any guards at the city gate. Even dull-witted humans would fix on a fight on the open road. Brot’ân’duivé would never call such attention to himself.

The greimasg’äh followed only to the last tree off the road and came no farther into the open.

Dänvârfij grew sick inside for her loss but sheathed her weapons, jerked off her face scarf, and pulled her hood back. With her face fully exposed, like any other visitor to the city, she turned and walked slowly toward the gates.

For a moment, she almost expected to hear a blade spinning through air.

It never came, and one military guard merely smiled at her as she passed through, into the city.

Now there was only Fréthfâre’s word-wood, and it had to be guarded. Without it, they would be cut off from Most Aged Father and lost alone in this foreign land far from home.

Brot’ân’duivé watched through a tree’s branches as Dänvârfij slipped back into the city. Killing her would have been an additional advantage. He did not admire her wisdom of retreat. He noted only that she was after all an anmaglâhk; she knew when, where, and how to cut her losses.

Turning back through the trees, he crouched beneath the branches of that one fir. There upon the needle-coated ground at its base lay the tawny oval of word-wood. He picked it up, prepared to destroy it, and then hesitated. There had been too many times in the past year when he had failed within himself, as he did so now when his spite and fury rose.

Brot’ân’duivé pressed the word-wood against the fir’s trunk.

“Do you hear me, old worm in the wood of my people?” he whispered. “One day, I will come for you ... again!”

No voice entered his thoughts, and after the longest moment, he was about to pull the word-wood from the bark and crack it.

Unlikely ... but if ever, then I will be waiting again, dog ... in the dark.