“We need the library’s wisdom,” I said. “Even more, we need people here who represent those elves who are not marauders to greet humanity when it arrives, for—” I glanced at Carrington, “—I pray that the messengers convince their auditors that they are in earnest, and that the peril is real, both from the dead and the elves who would enslave them. For this task, then, I ask... and it is asking, for I will not command... that Kemses and his men stay, and the Vessel and hers. Kemses....” I faced my liegeman. “You must be the face of our allies to those eager to defame us. I can trust no one else with this task, if Amhric and I do not ourselves stay.”

Kemses bowed. “It will be as you say, my liege.”

“Rose,” I said to the Vessel. “I know it galls you to remain, but you alone have the status in our society to have any hopes of convincing whoever leads the human contingent to take up our cause. If you aren’t here I fear that no one will heed Kemses. The counsel of fear and hate will win the day.”

Rose said, between gritted teeth, “You give me nearly an impossible command, my lord.”

“I ask,” I repeated. “I ask, Rose, because without you there is no chance of success. And because when the dead rise, they will rise here, from this place of grief and memory. The Church must be here. This is their ancient charge. I know you will not turn from it.”

A sigh ran from her, and with it her resistance. “It will be as you say, my lord. But we will have words when you return.”

“I look forward to it,” I said, and found I meant it.

To my friends, I said, “I would have some of you stay as well, though it pains me to separate our fellowship.” I smiled a crooked smile. “But someone who can do the work of reading books should be doing it in my absence.”

Guy slung an arm around Radburn’s shoulder and shook the other man affectionately. “We’ll hold the fort. Won’t we, Radburn.”

“Wait, I haven’t volunteered! I won’t cower here alone while everyone else rides off—”

“We’ll hold the fort,” Guy repeated. “Because someone has to. And there’s going to be danger enough, what with being surrounded by resentful academicians hoping we fail.”

“That’s a danger we’re used to, though!”

Guy rolled his eyes. “You complain all the way here about the discomforts of travel and how irritating you find being away from what you find familiar. Now you want to abandon all that you find familiar so you can go back to them?”

Radburn ignored him. “Morgan, I won’t abandon you.”

“You aren’t,” I said. “You think that your part of the task is less important? The fate of elvenkind rests on our ability to free their magic—not just elvenkind at this point, either, for if we fail, and we very well may, the dead will destroy humanity as well. You must discharge your own errand. Someone must, or it will all be for naught.”

Radburn grimaced. Quieter, he said, “It goes against the grain, letting you ride off like this.”

I rested a hand on his arm. “We won’t be gone long.”

Having left him resigned to his fate, I knelt before Emily and Serendipity. “I would ask the two of you to stay as well.”

They glanced at one another with identical looks of puzzlement. Emily said, “Of course, Master. But... why?”

“Because the genets no less than the rest of us are bound up in this.” I could sense Kelu’s burning regard on my back. “And it is in my heart that you have gifts to give to the task. Some of your number should remain and contribute your efforts.”

“We’ll help in whatever way we can,” Serendipity promised, and I hoped they would, and that Serendipity’s gift in particular would serve them.

“That leaves the rest of us to Sedetnet’s trail,” I said.

“I see you’re smart enough not to try to make those of us who’d follow you stay behind,” Ivy said.

“I like to think I have a little common sense,” I said, sliding an arm around her waist and kissing the top of her head. “If we’re all agreed? We should leave as soon as we can.”

“Wait!”

We all halted, for there was Carrington, feet spread and hands fisted at her sides.

“Yes?” I said.

“You don’t truly believe I’m going to let you ride back into Vigil and take it over!”

“Yes,” I said. “I do.”

She hesitated.

“Doctor Carrington,” I said. “You will not allow Vigil to be overrun by the elves who would torture you the way I was tortured at the hands of your colleagues, even if it means allying yourself with elves who wouldn’t.”

I saw her flinch and waited. I had done her a kindness by not accusing her publicly of the cruelties she’d committed against my flesh, and I judged her to be too honest a woman to enjoy my protection, while still acknowledging that it was protection. Not from my partisans, though she might be aware, intellectually, of the danger they posed her... but from Eyre. I guessed her to value his opinion of her still, and if she could believe that Eyre loved me as a student enough to hate her for hurting me....

“They won’t listen to me,” she said at last, quiet, and I saw how much the admission cost her. “I am their colleague only when I agree with them, because it proves to them that I was trained to ape my betters.”

“It really is the way you said,” Kelu said to Ivy.

“I told you,” Ivy replied.

“Does it not please you to return with an argument they can’t refute for fear of their lives?” I asked.

“That’s not how I want to win. That’s not winning at all. That’s subjugation.” She looked away, shoulders tense, then blurted, “Let me come with you.”

“Mary, no—”

“John, my career is done the moment I walk in there with an army at my back. If I go with you I can at least learn something.”

“You can’t let her come with us!” Chester said. “Not when she—”

“Chester!” I said.

“No.” He glared at me, then bared his teeth at her. “I won’t let her. She knows why.”

“And if I allow it?” At his mutinous expression, I said, more gently, “If I ask you?”

“Last charged me with your protection—”

“And I can’t die,” I said. “Not of anything she can do to me. If she’d like to throw her lot in with us, I won’t say no.”

Ivy was watching us with narrowed eyes, and hers was not the only speculative look. I doubted our exchange had been wasted on Eyre, but I hoped his feelings for her would blunt his powers of observation. I might have wondered why I felt the urge to protect her, save that the reason for it was sitting beside me. Amhric would have urged forgiveness had I explained the matter to him. Amhric would have forgiven his every enemy, given the chance, and while I would have found his example an impossible one to follow had it involved the enemies of my friends, I found it somewhat easier to extend that consideration to someone who had, after all, not been able to bear my screams. And it was in me that she was not our enemy... she simply hadn’t convinced herself of it yet.

“You may come with us, if we wish,” I said. “But we go north, and quickly, and into danger. Nor can we take your students. I fear we travel too heavily as it is.”

“Oh, don’t worry about them,” Radburn said. “We’ll take them in hand. They can help us with the research.”

Said students looked mutinous, but the maiden took a second look at Guy and became somewhat less distressed at her exile. She nudged her cousin, who scowled at her, but said, “Whatever you wish, Professor.”

“Then we are resolved?” I looked at my companions and marveled that I had come into so many. How far I’d traveled from the taciturn shut-in who’d been grateful for the four friends willing to suffer his company! “In the morning, then.”

We disposed ourselves to rest or guard as our inclinations and duties required. My own pallet became a matter of debate for amusing cause, for I was determined to guard my brother, and Chester determined to guard me, and Ivy stubbornly refused to be parted from me no matter what our mixed company might think of the proprieties, and of course the genets could not help but wish to be near the Fount. When the drake also stalked close and sat beside my blanket I began laughing. “There is no bed in the world large enough for this sleeping arrangement.”

“And I think proper introductions are in order, anyhow,” Ivy added.

“No,” Chester murmured, watching Amhric. “I think we know one another.”

“I suppose we must, at that.” Ivy shook her head, then said, “There is nothing for it, but that we make some sort of sunburst with our heads in the middle, like children playing in snow.”

And that did serve... on this night, anyway.

In the morning, Kemses and the Vessel took their leave of us, and we made promises to see one another soon. Guy adjured Chester to keep my hide in one piece; I caught Radburn taking leave of Kelu and made certain she didn’t see me noticing. Watching them ride away toward the bridge and the proud spires of Vigil was enough to induce anyone to melancholy, and I wondered abruptly if I’d chosen rightly.

When I turned to see to our own departure, it was to find one uninvited guest.

“Last,” I said sternly in the Gift. “You are away from your post.”

“Forgive me, my prince, but you are incorrect. My lord charged me with your safety, and here you find me.”

“Circumstances have changed—”

“Indeed. They have grown more dire.”

I eyed him. “You have asked Kemses if you might remain behind, haven’t you.”

“As he could not accompany you himself, my prince, he did what he could.”

I chuckled, remembering a minatory lecture from Kemses on the duty of a liege to accept his vassal’s gifts. “As you will probably follow us if I attempt to command you to stay, I will thank you instead for your faithfulness. Mount now, please.”

As the others broke camp, I found my brother and clasped his shoulders, searched his face, which he allowed.

“Can you ride alone?” I asked, soft. “Shall I put you behind me?”

“I can manage.” He smiled for me. “It is enough to be near you again. I feel more whole.”

“I do as well, though I hate to see you so afflicted.” I drew him into my arms. How hard it was to feel the hollows near his spine! It reminded me too strongly of how I’d first seen him. Perhaps he felt the tension in my body, for he rested a hand on the back of my head.

“It is nothing that cannot be fixed,” he promised.

But by whom, I wondered?

We had enough horses for everyone, though Kelu and Almond rode with me on the drake. Our party numbered nine: myself and the genets, Chester and Ivy, Eyre and Carrington, Amhric and Last. I feared that even that was too many, for the more horses we brought, the more chances for a slow one to hold back the pace. But there was nothing for it. These would not be parted from me, and in truth I didn’t want to go alone to face Sedetnet and whatever perfidy he planned.

“We go,” I said, and we did.

The strangest thing about that first day was that I rode through it mantled in joy. Even knowing the urgency of our errand and the likelihood that we would fail, I... I was happy. My beloved, who would marry me did I but ask, rode at one side. The man I trusted as best friend guarded my brother’s flank, and Amhric rode at my other side. My cherished and respected mentor was behind me warded by a warrior I’d won to my cause, and held fast against me were the genets, who had become dear to me. And the drake, whose constancy had endeared itself to me from our very first meeting, had come back to me, and bore me again as tirelessly as the wind scouring the plains. The sky was broad and endless, the breeze chill but the sun high and clear. No one stopped us, and for a time it felt as if no one could.

I could have ridden forever that way.

We stopped for the night in the open, for there was no shelter on the field north of Vigil for miles. The city was visible as a distant silhouette against a cobalt blue sky, and seeing it I wondered how Kemses and Rose had fared. I stared at it until the kindling of the fire behind me washed the scene away, and then I returned and joined my companions. Our meal was reconstituted from a pouch from one of the horses Kemses had packed, and watching it bloom into a fragrant broth I thought of the liegeman who ‘made much of little’ and smiled. Even the pot it had been made in was some clever contrivance that could be folded. No, I could not fear for Kemses’s errand. Between his ingenuity and Rose’s regal obduracy, there could be no doubt of it.

As Chester ladled the broth into the folding cups, Carrington hesitated, then said, “So… you are a king.”

“He is,” I said for Amhric. I took my serving from Chester and could not resist adding, amused, “Our king.”

“Of elves.”

“Of all those who use magic,” I said. “A fraternity—” Ivy cleared her throat and Chester grinned. “I stand corrected. A brethrenhood, if I can coin a term, that now includes humanity… or at least those who are willing to embrace the possibility.”

Carrington glanced at Eyre, who nodded. “Yes. Even me. It exists, Mary.”

“And it’s not demon-spawned,” Ivy added. “No matter what other people have told you. Saint Winifred is responsible for securing for us the capacity, and she did it by petitioning an angel.”

“Saint Winifred!” Carrington wrinkled her nose. “You mean to bring religion into this. Stories—”

“The stories were real,” Chester said, and though his words did not perturb his pouring of the broth one could hear the intransigence in it.

“You could have proof of it if you let Morgan guide you to your own magic. Assuming you have it.” Ivy sipped her broth. “Maybe your ancestors were too good for something common, like religion, and you missed your opportunity to receive the angel’s gift.”

I was about to chastise Ivy for her unkindness when Amhric said, quietly, “She has it.”

Carrington looked up, guiltily, met his eyes and froze.

“That would be the last word on the subject,” Eyre said conversationally. “I wonder how this cup was made? It looks like leather. Or paper? It’s manifestly neither.”

“It’s magic,” Ivy said, unrepentant, and Carrington scowled.

Later that night, I said to her, “You shouldn’t bait her.”

“Why?” Ivy asked. “She invited herself. Chester as much proclaimed that she tortured you—did she? No, you won’t answer that. And now that she’s here, she’s determined to play the skeptic? And about my religion! Which happens to be true! And brought me the second best thing in my life!” She rested her hand on my chest beneath the ring I wore for her. “You’re the first thing, of course.”

“Ivy.” I laughed softly and drew her into my arms. “Ivy, my love. Did not Winifred counsel forgiveness? And redemption?”

She sighed and tucked herself against me. “I’m no Winifred, Morgan. I love you, and she annoys me.”

I grinned against her hair. “I love you also.”

“And she annoys you too?”

Prudently I said nothing.

We resumed our journey, and the joy of it bled away as I concentrated on our destination. I could feel the knot of ugliness and suffering like a weight in my chest, and it drew me like a lodestone… but I knew nothing of how long the journey would take, and even knowing we’d been outfitted by people who knew their business I feared we would run aground on my inexperience and the nebulousness of my route.

“I feel it too,” Amhric said to me when we broke for necessities. He was astride his mount still, shoulders low with exhaustion, but like me when he looked north his face turned and then stopped facing the exact direction I felt the pull. “The inevitability of it.”

“Do you think it’s far?” I asked as the drake sidled up to his horse and nudged my brother’s leg. Amhric put down a hand, stroked the creature’s brow.

“I don’t know. Not far. But how long….” He shook his head. “I follow you, my brother.”

“I only hope you do so in wisdom, and not to folly.”

He reached for my hand and took it, curling his small golden fingers in mine. I sighed and squeezed them, smiled. “We will make shift.”

“Always.”

It hurt to see him so depleted... and yet despite his obvious weakness, there was never an evening that he did not find someone to sit beside, and inevitably those subject to that patient regard found themselves speaking to him. Was that the secret, I wondered? Was the willingness to give someone time and undivided attention at the heart of love?

Watching Eyre in conversation with my brother, I wondered, and marveled, and hoped to find the solution to his affliction as I had once hoped to find mine. Perhaps that was love, also: as simple, and as complex, as a person’s ability to express it. The King-Reclusive listened, welcomed, forgave with an open heart. And I? Apparently led us on merry chases across the continent—God save us all.