Traitor to the Blood

CHAPTER FIVE

Wynn sat on the bed in Leesil and Magiere's room while Tomato and Potato wrestled in her lap, tiny paws and jaws struggling for a better grip. Tomato was winning, which was no surprise, though her pudgy brother outweighed her.

Wynn felt overfull of Byrd's turnip stew and warm cinnamon milk. The lingering taste brought memories of communal meals among the sages in the guild barracks at Bela. Perhaps that was why she had eaten too much.

The bed was soft and fitted with a sheepskin cover over a thick wool blanket. The mattress smelled a bit of stale hay. Heat from the common room hearth and kitchen rose up to warm the floorboards. She could not remember the last time she felt this content in her surroundings.

Byrd had given his guests two rooms upstairs for as long as needed and refused any payment. This bothered Magiere, which was no surprise to Wynn. On one hand an incredible skinflint-Leesil's way of putting it-Magiere was habitually averse to being obliged to anyone.

Leesil scooped up a lanky tabby from the room's little side table and carried it toward the door while scooting a stocky gray along with his boot. When Chap got up to assist, Wynn silently pointed a finger at him. He slumped back to the floor with a grumble.

"These two can stay," she said, stroking Tomato's ears. "Chap will not mind."

Chap cocked his head with a whine, then belly-crawled to her pack, where the talking hide was stored.

Wynn ignored him as she scratched Potato's stomach. "We will talk later."

Chap growled and dropped his head on his paws.

"You're right about Byrd," Magiere said where she sat on the floor. "A character for certain, but you didn't mention he could cook.

"Don't let him tool you," Leesil warned. "He's skilled in putting people at ease, as was my father."

"And you," Wynn added.

Leesil glanced at her. He had many faces, and Wynn had not forgotten his blood-streaked hair and empty eyes when he came in from killing at the Stravinan border.

One of Wynn's tasks for the Guild of Sagecraft was recording all she learned of Magiere, the only dhampir known outside of folklore. Wynn had done so faithfully, including what was uncovered of Magiere's bloody heritage at the keep above Chemestuk, deep in Droevinka. She had gone so far as to steal bones from the corpses of the five Uirishg found there. These she included in her last package to Domin Tilswith, as proof that the other three races, besides the dwarves and elves, were more than myth. Somehow one of each had been found and sacrificed to make Magiere's birth possible. What this meant, Wynn could not guess, and Magiere knew nothing of Wynn's careful records. Wynn had no intention of telling her.

But Leesil? Wynn watched him settle on the floor beside Magiere and place one hand on her thigh.

Leesil had been a friend on this long journey. In the nights following Chane's death, he had brought Wynn tea, covered her with blankets, and assured her the world would seem brighter again, someday. Wynn would not forget these small acts-even for what she had seen at the border stream.

He was the only half-elf she had ever heard of. In her own land, the elves were known to mate only among their own kind. Secretive and shamed by his own life, Leesil had told her of himself and his parents in confidence. There were moments she considered recording details of him as well as Magiere, but she did not. It felt too much like betrayal.

Magiere never willingly told Wynn anything and reluctantly allowed her to follow on this journey.

"Do you have thoughts on our first step tomorrow?" Wynn asked.

"What about Byrd's comment?" Magiere replied first, and hesitated as she looked to Leesil. "Why would your parents run for the keep?"

Leesil shook his head, rubbing one temple with a finger.

"They weren't fools and must have had a strong reason, but it makes no sense." He glanced at Chap before raising his eyes to Wynn. "Translate for Chap. He lived with me and my parents long enough that he might know something."

Wynn plopped Tomato and Potato on the bed, pulled out the talking hide, and dropped down to the floor to unroll it.

"You know what I'm after," Leesil said to Chap.

Chap stood and began pawing out words upon the hide.

"Noticed how he's changed since Droevinka?" Magiere said, lifting her chin toward Chap. "He practically threw himself in front of the wagon to stop us from finding my past."

Leesil nodded but made no other reply.

Wynn scowled but kept her attention fixed on Chap's touches upon the elvish symbols. He finished, and Wynn pursed her lips for a moment.

"He does not know why your parents went to the keep, but he remembers the word 'down' that-"

"Yes," Leesil interrupted. "They were seen heading down below the main floor."

"Chap suggests they might have known of something in the lower levels to help them escape." Wynn tried not to sound reluctant. "So, we search another keep?"

Leesil raised his eyes to Wynn with a disapproving glare. "I don't think so! There's no bolt-hole to sneak through, and we'd be dead before we crossed the bridge. Even if it were possible, none of you are going near Darmouth."

"What about Byrd?" Magiere suggested. "Couldn't he seek an audience, then look about the keep as much as is safe?"

"People like Byrd don't speak directly with Darmouth," Leesil answered. "Byrd is one set of eyes among many. Neither he nor Darmouth wants that known to anyone without reason. Besides, whatever informants Byrd has couldn't tell him much, so there's little he'd gain by nosing about himself."

"If he told us all he heard," Magiere added.

"Yes," Leesil agreed. "There is that."

This time Wynn grudgingly acknowledged Magiere's habitual suspicion. "Then we start with any city records we can gain access to. Perhaps military logs of death warrants or…' She bit her lip as Leesil winced. "I did not mean… we must at least look, verify that your parents were not legally executed before we go further."

"Warlords don't care about records," Leesil said, and got up. "Some pretense of protocol exists, simply for justification-or it used to. Byrd might be able to help with that, but I'm too tired. We'll leave it until morning."

This was Wynn's hint to leave. It had been a long day for Leesil and not a hopeful one in the least.

She rolled up the hide, shouldered her pack, and was about to call Chap when she noticed how tangled his fur had become. He was a mess. She had not groomed him since the night before the border skirmish. When she looked at him, she could still hear the buzz of a leaf-wing in memory and saw the image of his blood-covered face as he crouched beneath the table in the Stravinan barracks.

"Come, Chap," she said weakly, then scooped up Tomato and Potato. "They can sleep with us."

Chap groaned as he followed her out.

Wynn set down the kittens in the hallway. Potato dropped on his haunches, staring up at her in wide-eyed confusion. Tomato trotted after her, much to Chap's rumbling distaste, and Potato finally waddled along behind.

As Wynn opened her room's door and the kittens scurried in, she heard voices drift up the stairs from below. One was Byrd's deep baritone, and the other's strange cadence was oddly familiar.

The accent was not right for the Belaskian tongue spoken most places in the north of this continent. The speaker clipped his words and syllables with strange pauses, his speech lyrical and guttural all at once.

Eavesdropping was impolite, but when they had all retired, no one else had come to the inn. Who would come by so late for a chat?

Wynn closed the door, keeping Tomato and Potato in her room, and crept to the top of the stairs. She crouched there to peek through the banister's railings. Chap shoved his head in under her arm, startling her.

Byrd stood by the bar, but unlike his relaxed demeanor at dinner, his shoulders were straight and square. He was tensely poised at the visitor's presence.

His visitor was tall, with a cowled head that nearly brushed the low rafters of the common-room ceiling. Solid in build, he wore a long gray-green cloak that hid his form and features. Only his hands were visible, and they were dark-skinned and narrow-boned.

Again the visitor's lyrical accent drifted up to Wynn's ears.

"My source tells me the lady wishes urgently to see you. Await her behind the Bronze Bell Inn. She will come soon, so do not delay."

Wynn swallowed hard.

The strange accent was one she had heard in her faraway homeland of Malourne.

Byrd's night visitor was an elf.

Chap tensed at the sight of an elf below in the common room. And not just an elf.

He had seen the forest-gray cloak and cowl more than once. The last time was in Bela. An elf called Sgailsheilleache-Sgaile-invaded the sages' barracks, intent upon killing Leesil. Below in the common room was another of their kind.

Anmaglahk. An elven assassin had come to the very inn where Leesil stayed.

"She wants to meet outside at night?" Byrd asked of his visitor. "Alone?"

"One of mine watches over her," the tall elf replied, "though she does not know this."

A flash of surprise crossed Byrd's ruddy features. "You have orders to watch over her?"

At the mention of "orders" a face appeared in the elf's mind. Chap focused on the memory and examined what he saw there.

Aoishenis-Ahare.

Chap knew this was less an elvish name than a title. In his brief time among the elven people, he had seen this face, heard these words-in the memories of others. "Most Aged Father" would be as close as Wynn might have translated it. The race in the visitor's memory was aged and withered, with sunken cheeks that sharpened its triangular shape and made the cheekbones jut outward. Yet the skin was light for an elf, as if not touched by the sun in decades. The whites around the cloudy amber irises were faintly yellowed. His long hair was so white it seemed translucent.

Most Aged Father was patriarch to the elves of this continent, as well as the leader of the Anmaglahk. Along with this face, Chap sensed troubled dissent in the elf standing before Byrd. Even fear. This one was hiding something from Aoishenis-Ahare, his superior.

"Brot'an, really," Byrd said when his visitor remained silent. "This isn't at all how I do things."

The elf's name seemed familiar, though Chap could not recall where or when he might have heard it. Byrd's voice pulled Chap's gaze, and he caught a flickering memory of a younger Leesil from years past that surfaced in Byrd's mind.

Byrd turned his head with a puzzled frown, eyes lifting toward the stairs.

Wynn quickly shoved Chap back and ducked low.

All memory images vanished as Chap lost sight of both men. He heard a rustle of fabric and quick footsteps. By the time he ventured to peer below, as did Wynn, the inn's front door swung shut. Byrd and his companion were gone.

The presence of an Anmaglahk in Venjetz was a complication with unknown consequences. That this first sighting was within earshot of Leesil left Chap deeply disturbed.

Since being given to Leesil as a pup, Chap had met few elves in his life. Most such encounters ranged from uncertain to dangerous. Nein'a, Leesil's mother, had been secretive and guarded, though on a few occasions Chap had seen Most Aged Father's face in her memories-and felt the same discontent in her that he had sensed in this Brot'an here tonight.

Whatever Byrd's reasons for involvement with elves, Leesil should be kept far from them. Difficult at best, since he might have to be told of their presence-but not yet. There was some small hope of brief peace for him, alone with only Magiere for this night.

Wynn scrambled over the top stair and ran down the hall. She reached Magiere and Leesil's door before Chap realized her intent.

He raced after her and squirmed around her legs, trying to block her way. Before he could shove Wynn back with his head and paws, she reached out and pushed the door wide.

"Get up! We must search this place-now!"

Wynn's eyes widened, and Chap groaned in frustration as he looked into the dark room.

What little light filled the space from a single candle exposed shoulders and a back of pale, flawless skin over smooth muscles. Magiere sat naked in Leesil's lap upon the bed, her legs and arms wrapped about him. She turned her head enough to glare toward the open door with one dark eye.

Chap backed up with a hard swallow, and Wynn spun away, eyes clamped shut as she cringed against the hallway wall.

"Damn you, Wynn," Magiere growled. "Not again!"

Chane climbed from the bathtub and used a dressing gown left by the maid to dry himself. Welstiel had procured rooms at the Bronze Bell, reputed to be the finest inn Venjetz offered. The accommodations were decent. Nothing close to the standards of Bela, but the bed was covered in a green comforter and the aged furniture was well kept. His room contained two porcelain oil lamps and a small table and chair.

When Welstiel requested they both have a bath, servants carried tin tubs into each of their rooms, filling them with buckets of hot water. Later, the tubs would be laboriously emptied and removed.

Chane remembered the rooms Welstiel had rented in Keonsk, the luxury of sleeping in a bed, and the fat candles by which he wrote all through the long night. Looking about at his current surroundings, he should have recaptured some pleasure in the finer things, but he felt nothing at all.

He combed his red-brown hair back behind his ears and dressed himself in a pair of spare breeches and a tan shirt. The rest of his clothing had been taken by a maid for laundering. He had not given up his cloak and brushed this out himself. He strapped on his longsword, donned the cloak, and stepped across the hallway to knock at Welstiel's door.

"It's me," he said with a rasping voice.

"Come in," Welstiel called.

Chane found Welstiel sitting on the floor with the domed brass plate before him and a knife in his hand. These were the tools Welstiel used to scry for Magiere's whereabouts. He and Chane excelled at differing methods of conjury. Welstiel was an artificer who created objects to work his magic Chane relied primarily upon ritual, though he used spellwork if urgency required it.

He stepped in and closed the door. "You wish to locate her tonight?"

His companion looked much improved. Bathed, groomed, and properly dressed, Welstiel was a striking figure, distinguished white patches at his temples visible now that his hair was combed back. He no longer wore his black leather gloves, and Chane's gaze strayed to the missing end of Welstiel's left little finger. It bled black fluid from a fresh cut, and Chane saw one dark droplet upon the brass plate's domed backside.

"Only her general whereabouts," Welstiel replied.

Speaking of Magiere was difficult for Chane. Since the night his robin had listened in at the Soladran barracks, his thoughts had become confused concerning Magiere… and Wynn.

"I'm going out," he whispered.

"Out?"

"I'll return by sunrise."

"Be cautious," Welstiel said with a disapproving frown. "Here the city's soldiers appear to do anything they wish."

Chane left without response. The last thing that concerned him was a pack of mortals who thought they had power over their fellow cattle. As he crested the top of the plush staircase, movement in the foyer below caught his attention.

A slender woman in a burgundy gown donned a charcoal cape, fastening it with a silver clasp. Soft black curls hung to her shoulders around a pale throat and face. Her features were small and lovely down to her tiny red mouth. Her expression was calm, but Chane sensed urgency both in her eyes and her controlled movements.

He gripped the railing, and the wood creaked beneath his fingers in answer to his hunger.

In the last village, he'd lured out a woman of similar make. A mere peasant compared to the one he now watched, but both women's features hinted of the one prey he wanted most of all. Before Welstiel had interrupted him behind the hut among the snow-dusted trees, he'd tried to find solace in tearing warm flesh. Even with blood between his clenching teeth, a missing memory left an ache in him he couldn't smother.

He couldn't remember Wynn touching him in the murky forest of Apudalsat… after Magiere took his head.

He must have fallen immediately, prone upon the ground as his head rolled away. But surely it hadn't been so quick that he remembered nothing of Wynn falling upon him in sorrow. Some touch, or just the pressure… and not being able to do anything for her.

All he remembered was the brief pain of Magiere's blade through his throat and then waking among blood and corpses with Welstiel sitting impatiently nearby.

And behind that forest hut, he'd bitten deep into the peasant woman's throat as if digging for a memory lost between those two moments. He squeezed the outcry from the woman's mouth until her jaw cracked under his hand. There was the rush of life filling him, and the distant euphoria it carried in the wake of the kill-and nothing more.

And still there was Wynn's pain… caused by the hatred between himself and Magiere.

Chane forced himself to wait at the top of the inn's stairs and followed the cloaked woman only after he heard the inn's front door close. Outside, he expected to find her heading down the street toward any other place still alive with activity at night. Perhaps to an eatery more suitable to her upper-caste appearance.

But she was gone. He let his senses open wide.

Footsteps. To the left. Resounding from frozen earth.

Chane saw the space between the buildings around the inn's left corner. He slipped into it, stepping softly toward the inn's rear, and glanced around the corner.

His prey stood in the alley with her back turned, and she was not alone.

A man waited for her, half leaning and half sitting on an emptied ale barrel. He pulled his cloak's hood back, exposing a yellow scarf tied over his hair.

Chane held his place, watching two figures of such different social castes meet in the shadows.

"Wynn!" Leesil snapped, more threateningly than he'd intended, and grabbed the blanket's edge. Magiere squirmed in his arms, but he held fast and pulled the blanket up behind her to cover them both.

"That's it!" Magiere shouted. "You're going home on the first caravan out of here! I don't care if I have to sell our horses to pay for it."

Wynn peered hesitantly around the door's frame as Magiere thrashed out of Leesil's lap to a more dignified-and better-covered-position. Wynn did not back away, though her embarrassment made her voice unsteady.

"Byrd was downstairs talking to an elf," she said.

Leesil stared at her. Any brief escape from the world that the sage had interrupted washed away. Even Magiere paused at struggling to reach her breeches lying on the floor.

"They left together," Wynn added softly. "And they seemed well acquainted. They were meeting a woman, and Byrd reacted as if this were a change in some previous arrangement."

"An elf?" Magiere asked. "You're certain?"

Before Wynn answered, Chap reappeared and nearly knocked Wynn over as he bolted into the room with the talking hide clenched in his jaws.

"Wynn, turn around," Leesil said, and grabbed Magiere's clothes from the floor as he retrieved his own.

By the time he and Magiere finished dressing, Chap had rolled out the hide with his nose and paws. The instant Leesil said he was dressed and Wynn turned about to peer in, Chap began pawing at the elvish symbols. Wynn scurried in to watch the dog's movements.

"Anmaglahk, "Wynn whispered. "How would Chap know?"

Leesil sat on the bed, hands planted firmly on its edge. One of his mother's elven caste of assassins was here in the city? And how, for a fact, would Chap know, unless this one dressed the same as…

"Was it Sgaile?" Magiere demanded first, and crouched before the dog. "Was it that butcher sent to kill Leesil in Bela?"

Chap barked twice for "no."

Magiere looked up at Leesil. "You said we could trust Byrd. What's he doing with one of them?"

"Byrd was my father's friend, not mine," Leesil returned. "And I never said we could trust him-any more than anyone in this city."

Leesil's thoughts were too thick with suspicions. Of all places and people, why was it here with Byrd that he ran across more of his mother's kind and caste? He turned his attention back to Chap.

"He was an Anmaglahk?" Leesil asked. "You're sure?"

Chap barked once to confirm this.

Leesil remembered Wynn's outburst when she'd first intruded. Byrd was up to something more than walking a thin line in service to Darmouth. They did need to search this place.

"Start downstairs," he told Wynn. "Look for letters, scrap notes, or anything out of sorts for an innkeeper. Anything that looks like it doesn't belong. If Byrd comes back, say you were hungry and went to the kitchen. Say it loudly, so we can hear you."

Wynn nodded and headed for the door, pausing once. "And I am not leaving on any caravan, Magiere."

Leesil waved Chap out, and the dog went after the young sage.

Magiere's anxious expression told Leesil that she wanted to leave, drag him out of this city and never return. Leesil shook his head slowly, and she sighed.

"Let's find Byrd's room," she said.

Her hair hung down around her ivory cheeks, and Leesil turned his eyes away to keep his emotions in check. Sgaile was the one who'd hinted at Nein'a's fate, that she might be alive. If anyone knew more of her or what had happened to Gavril, it would be the Anmaglahk. One had been right here in the inn, and he'd missed his chance.

"We'll get the answers," Magiere said, and put a hand upon his shoulder, leaning close. "But don't you even think about going after that elf."

She kissed him on the mouth. Leesil pulled away slowly. This place- this city of his first life-was a pit he'd toppled them all into. He couldn't afford another distraction, even if Magiere thought it best he forget for a little while. Leesil dug out his tools from their chest.

They checked each door on the upper floor, and he wasn't surprised to find one of them locked.

"Pick it or break it?" Magiere asked.

Leesil frowned.

It was unlikely that Byrd arranged surprises for anyone snooping about. The risk of a wandering patron stumbling into the wrong place was too great. But when he began studying the door instead of the lock, Magiere backed to the side, understanding his caution.

Leesil started with the hinges and then checked the entire frame before carefully inspecting the latch. Finally convinced it was only a locked door, he took a thin hookwire from the toolbox's lid and slipped it into the keyhole. A click answered his efforts.

Byrd's room was ordinary at first glance. Not much different from any at an inn where someone might settle to stay for a while. The belongings seemed sparse, but Leesil remembered how few possessions he'd had in his life with his parents. Beyond a wide trunk, there was no more in the room than could be taken in flight. This was also the way he and his parents had lived, even if leaving were but a wishful thought.

The bed was made, and clothes were neatly folded inside the large trunk. The small table and chair were solid, with no hollows to hide anything. Leesil found no openings or edifices in the walls or the shuttered window. Magiere paged through leather-bound papers left on the table as Leesil dropped down to study the floor. No cubbies or holes, not even a loose board, were there to be found, but this meant nothing with people like Byrd and his parents. Leesil searched the bed and mattress, though he knew Byrd would never hide anything in so obvious a place.

"Nothing," Magiere said. "Ledgers and stores lists."

And not a thing remained to inspect in the room.

Leesil crouched before the chest and started on it for the second time. He emptied it completely, piling the clothes on the floor and lifting out all the trays within supported by side rails. He fingered the interior sides and then the bottom, which flexed when he leaned too hard on it. He could smell cedar beneath the linen lining adhered to the wood. The fabric was folded and sealed continuously across all edges and corners, leav-ing nothing that could be lifted or pulled away without splitting the lining. And there was no split.

He leaned against the side and stared into the empty trunk.

"There's nothing here," Magiere said. "And I can't see him hiding anything in the other rooms, if patrons are housed there. We should help Wynn downstairs."

Leesil repacked the trunk, got up, and headed for the door behind Magiere. He still felt the lingering flex of fabric-covered wood on his fingers. Magiere disappeared out into the hallway, and he stopped and looked back.

Flexing wood in a stout travel trunk?

He returned to the trunk and began pulling everything out for the third time.

"Leesil?" Magiere called, her voice carrying from the hall.

He was halfway to the bottom when he heard her come up behind him.

"You've done that twice already," she insisted. "There's nothing there."

Leesil reached the bottom and pressed his palm firmly against it. The wood gave beneath the fabric. The trunk's sides were thick and solid, so why the thinner bottom? He placed his other hand on the outside floor. The distance down to floor and trunk bottom was noticeably different.

A false bottom. But how was it opened if the fabric was solid throughout the interior?

"Leesil!" Magiere said, her voice growing more annoyed.

He ignored her and shoved the trunk over backward. The lid slammed on the floor as the vessel toppled. He stared at its bottom, solid and flush to the edges of its side walls. There were six brass knobs that served as legs along the bottom edges, one for each corner, and the last two placed midway along the front and back edge. These were held in place with small brass nails.

He picked at one with his fingernail. It was loose. Magiere crouched down, as Leesil slipped a stiletto from his wrist sheath and began popping out brass nails. Only the front knob legs came off, and the trunk's bottom fell open.

Leesil found himself staring at a pile of flattened parchments. The first depicted the charcoal-drawn layout of a four-towered keep in crude lines. The sheet below this was an interior map of the same structure. He touched it. Part of the rendering smeared slightly, while the rest seemed set and clean. The whole of it was unfinished, with notable areas still blank within the structure's outline.

"Recently drawn," he said. "Or parts of it."

"Is that Darmouth's keep?" Magiere asked. "Why would Byrd have drawings of the keep?"

Leesil paged through more parchments. There were eight, each depicting a different area or level. All were incomplete, with at least three that had almost nothing added within the outline of the outer walls. Two were of the towers' interiors, with inked marks and lines that might indicate paths walked by sentries.

"A better question…" Leesil said, almost to himself. "Why have drawings of the keep and be meeting with an anmaglahk?

Magiere didn't answer but reached out for his wrist. "What are you going to do?"

"Ask him. I'm going to sit downstairs until he returns."

"I'll wait with you," she said, and it wasn't a suggestion.

"He won't talk unless I'm alone. Gather up Wynn and Chap and go to bed. I'll tell you everything I learn."

Magiere heaved on his wrist, jerking him around to face her. For all the rage in her face, he could feel her shaking through the grip on his wrist. Leesil had no patience for a fight over this.

"fust do it, Magiere!" he snapped. "I know what I'm doing-and you don't.

A long silence followed as she stared back. Magiere turned away without a word. Leesil rolled up the drawings, stuffed them into his shirt, and followed her downstairs.

Wynn was stunned when the search was called off. Of course she refused, until Leesil explained that he was going to speak with Byrd rather than tear the inn apart. Something must have slipped into his voice or expression, because she nodded and did as he asked without another word. He didn't show her the drawings, or he'd never get rid of her. Magiere ushered Chap and Wynn upstairs to their rooms, but Magiere never looked back at him.

Leesil turned down the lanterns and settled in the chair near the front wall to watch the door. He unfastened the catches on his wrist sheaths.

His father and mother, contrary to Byrd's acquaintance, had taught him many things in this city. Beyond blood ties-and sometimes those included-there were no friends here. There were only those who hadn't yet betrayed you, and those you hadn't yet betrayed.

Tomato and Potato were asleep on the bed, so Wynn was alone with Chap in her room. She sat cross-legged upon a braided rug, brushing his fur in long strokes to carefully work out his mats and tangles. She could not always read Chap's expressions, but he appeared relieved by her attention. With her hands once again in his silvery fur, she remembered the strange chorus of leaf-wings she had heard while watching him before the battle on the Stravinan border.

Part of her felt guilty for avoiding the dog… Fay… majay-hi… whatever or however she should think of him. He was all of these things, all at once, though this merely made it more confusing. He had also been her constant companion on this journey. One part of her took solace in his presence, but another part was frightened by the mysteries behind his presence. She knew too little of his agenda, and why he had left his existence among the Fay.

Was that what she had heard in her head as Chap grew angrier and more savage before the battle? And how or why had it happened to her, for that matter?

Chap whined and pushed his head against her folded legs. Wynn wrapped her arms around him.

There were moments such as this when he seemed no more than her four-legged traveling companion. He pulled his head back and whined again, then perked his ears in a quizzical expression.

Wynn grew hesitant. There were other moments when his canine form seemed a deception for his true existence-a Fay in flesh.

And everything in Wynn's vision turned blue-white.

Her stomach lurched, and her dinner rose in her throat. The room became a shadowy version of its former state. Overlaying all was an off-white mist just shy of blue. Its radiance permeated everything like a sec-ond view of the room coloring her normal sight. Within the walls, the radiance thinned, leaving shadowed hollows in the planks. The glimmer thickened within the sleeping forms of Tomato and Potato curled together in a tangle of little legs upon the bed's end.

Wynn lurched back, pulling away from Chap, and the sudden movement sharpened her vertigo. She stared at Chap in fear.

Unlike all else in her tangled vision, he was the only thing that was not permeated with the blue-white trails of mist. Chap was one image, one whole shape, glowing with brilliance. His fur glistened like a million hazy threads of white silk, and his eyes scintillated like crystals held up to the sun.

Wynn cringed and blinked.

The room became dull and dim again. Before her was Chap, silvery gray and furry. He cocked his head, staring at her.

Wynn's panic rose until she shook. This had happened only once before.

In a dark forest in Droevinka, she had dabbled in thaumaturgy to give herself mantic sight. A foolish act, and in the end only Chap had been able to free her of the wild magic she could not control. With it, she had seen the elemental Spirit layer of the world in order to track the undead sorcerer Vordana, so Magiere and Leesil might free a town of the monster's influence.

Why had this happened again? Why had she heard the strange leaf-wings in her head when she had watched Chap at the Stravinan border? And mostly, what had been revealed to her that she did not yet understand?

Wynn took long breaths, looking back into Chap's curious eyes, until her shudders faded.

She needed to put aside the form she saw before her, to talk with him, but she hesitated. How could she ask after the nauseating leaf-wing sounds in her head, or tell him of her revulsion at his blood-soaked jowls? She laid aside the brush, pulled the talking hide closer, and unrolled it on the floor with honest purpose in mind.

"Chap," she began. "At the border, before you ran for the field to save the refugees, what were you doing at the city gate? Something happened that we did not see."

Chap wrinkled his snout briefly. He quickly sniffed at her as if check-ing for something, then barked twice for "no." It was low and breathy, like a whisper, and too quick and dismissive.

Perhaps it was that Wynn knew him well, for all the time they had spent together. Or that Chap was not a good liar when confronted.

"I saw you," she said, "and I heard… felt something. It made me sick and dizzy, like back in Droevinka, when you licked away my mantic sight. I heard whispers while I watched you. What were you doing?"

She hoped he would understand-trust enough to help her to understand.

Chap stood on all fours, dipped his head, and then leaned forward to lift his muzzle at her. His eyes locked on hers and a low rumble came up his throat. One of Chap's jowls rose slightly to expose teeth, and his crystal-blue eyes narrowed.

Wynn stiffened and leaned away.

He remained there so long in watchful silence that Wynn's shoulders and back began to ache from clenched muscles. She did not believe Chap would hurt her, but the questions had upset him more than she anticipated.

Chap swung his head down to the hide, his gaze leaving her only at the last instant. He pawed the symbols, and Wynn translated his words in her mind.

What did you hear?

She slowly sat upright. "Not words… and not in my ears, as no one else appeared to hear it. It was like leaves in a swirling wind and a flight of insects buzzing inside my head all at once."

Chap made no response by expression or movement.

"When they fell silent," she added, "a single leaf-wing answered back… What were you doing?"

Chap dropped on his haunches. He cocked his head again, and it remained there at that odd angle, his narrow eyes studying her.

Wynn felt naked under his scrutiny. Was she being judged?

Chap let out a rolling exhale, like a growl without voice. To Wynn, it sounded like a weary resignation. He pawed again, hesitating over the symbols he chose upon the hide. Some part of what he told her now was difficult for words.

Spiord… arn… cheang'a.

"Spirit… one-as-one, or collective… speech-no, communication?" Wynn whispered.

Beyond their differing dialects of Elvish, there was the more frustrating challenge that Chap did not think like mortals. At least not from what Wynn had reasoned out. Sometimes he grew frustrated in trying to express himself, while other times he was just reticent.

Elvish was a language of "root" words to be transformed into nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, as well as other elements of language. Chap now used pure "root" words, and perhaps transforming them could not render his full meaning.

"Spirit… as one of the five elements?" she asked.

Chap huffed twice for "no."

"Then spirit, as in spiritual… as opposed to physical or mental aspects of existence?"

He huffed once for "yes," then quickly added two more. Three total meant "maybe."

"Spirit… collective… communication…" Wynn rolled the terms together in her mind and drew a breath. "Commune? You were communing with the Fay?"

It was the closest meaning she could find. Instead of barking once, Chap nodded, but then pawed two specific Elvish words on the hide-"yes" and "no."

Wynn's translation was close enough but not completely what he meant or what she had "overheard" in her mind. And more realization came to Wynn.

To banish her mantic sight in the Droevinkan forest, Chap had touched her after all the flowing blue-white trails of mist had joined in his flesh. He had touched her while joined with his kin in some way that was even deeper than his communion at the Stravinan border. Something more had happened in that instant that even Chap could not account for.

His expression went flat, and he backed away.

"The mantic sight… it is still with me as well," she whispered. "I saw you a moment ago as I did that night in Droevinka."

Chap did not answer, but his crystalline eyes looked at her with a hint of sadness. Wynn realized that what was happening to her was a mistake that worried him. Still, a weight had lifted from her. She knew what she had heard at the border, and she held out her arms to him.

"I did not mean to… did not know, If you wish, I will not tell anyone of this. I promise."

Chap moved closer. Leaning in, he sniffed again as if testing her scent.

His tongue flicked out across her cheek, and Wynn closed her arms around him.