In the morning I sent out the decree: we were leaving. I revealed that plan to my personal party while we broke our fast, over an hour after I’d sent the elven servants to distribute the news.

“Leaving?” Emily asked. “All of us?”

“All of us, and every elf,” I said. “We’re heading for Nudain. As Ikaros patently did not expect us to succeed he didn’t explain what proof he’d accept of that success. Therefore, we are bringing him the most irrevocable proof I can provide.”

“You want to traipse into Nudain—which I remind you is full of homicidal humans with grudges—with an entire train of elves who were lately killing them.” Kelu’s ears were splayed; she obviously couldn’t decide whether I was mad or stupid.

“I do, yes,” I said. The Archipelago’s bread was unleavened and soft, and at breakfast it was served with gem-like marmalades derived from tropical fruit. “If there is to be any hope of this working, Kelu, the remaining humans have to see me as an authority over the elves, and a power against which they should probably think twice before defying. Openly, at least.”

“I think it’s crazy.”

“So advance me a better plan.” I poured Ivy chocolate and myself water.

“I can’t think of one,” Kelu admitted, grumpy. “If you leave all these elves here someone new will elect himself leader and since Amoret left no one alive with the spine to stand up to her, the person who’d succeed her would be a panicked prey animal whose reaction to any threat would be to either cower or attack all out. Thinking through the options would be the last thing on his mind.”

I didn’t interrupt. It seemed impossibly long ago that Almond had suggested that Kelu served the role of advisor-to-the-prince. Kelu had dismissed the idea, but as usual, Almond had known us better than we’d known ourselves. Kelu made a superlative advisor and she probably didn’t realize it.

“They’d die,” Emily offered. “If we left them here. Some humans would come and kill them, without Amoret to make them vicious.”

“Maybe,” Kelu muttered. “Probably.” She rubbed her head, disheveling her hair. “So why don’t you just take a few?”

“I don’t know,” I said, innocent. “Why don’t I?”

Kelu eyed me, ears flattening. I waited her out, and she said, “Because if you only took a few Ikaros wouldn’t believe you when you said you spoke for all of them.”

I nodded. “It’s not that I like the choice I’m making. Only that I believe it to be the best of many bad choices.”

Kelu snorted. “Fine. I’ll give you that. But I’d like to see how you prevent a bloodbath once we arrive.”

I would like to see how I managed it myself, but it was, as I’d noted, the best of many bad choices.

From my new southern elven nation—what remained of it—I received surprisingly few complaints. Either Amhric had won their hearts, or Amoret’s death had left them casting for any direction, but whatever their motivation they followed us. I was not glad to see it; while I abhorred what the Archipelago had made of elven culture, I knew it had once been proud and beautiful, and I knew it could be so again. This nadir had been as much humanity’s doing as the elves’, and we both had much to answer for in it. Seeing the column trudge out of Amoret’s manse, I renewed my resolve. There was no separating elf from human in all this. If we were both to find our way, it would have to be together... because it was together that we had pushed one another off the path.

I reined in my horse and sent it racing back up the field to the front of the line where my own awaited me. It would be a long journey with so many of the elves on foot, but I felt at last that there was an ending in this: not to the story entire, but to an ugly chapter in it.

With a sigh, Kelu said, “I guess if you’re going to gamble, this is the best gamble to take.”

“Truly,” I said, “my predecessor would be proud.”

She snorted and turned her horse toward Nudain, and I let her lead.

We were halfway through our journey when Emily, shading her eyes, said, “I don’t think there are any birds that size on the islands....”

Following her gaze, I started. “That is no bird!” And dismounted before the approaching drake could startle it into carrying me away. Ivy and Amhric joined me and together we waited for the silhouette to swell into that welcome shape, and then the drake was running off its momentum, great wings sweeping down with a sound like an enormous drum struck and vibrating. Folding its pinions, it lunged for me and I laughed, wrapping my arms around its nose. “Gently! You are not so small anymore, you will bowl me over! Great heart, good friend. You have been missed!”

“And what about us?” Chester called from the drake’s neck. “We are poor seconds, I see!”

“Never,” I said, grinning, reaching an arm for him.

He laughed. “But ladies first!” He let go of Serendipity, who’d been buckled into the saddle in front of him—a true saddle now, and made to the drake’s measure if my eye was any judge—and the genet scrabbled down its side onto the ground. Once she reached it she bounded for me and squealed. “Master! Master, I can do magic!”

“What’s this now?” I asked, holding her. “Say again!”

“Magic!” She leaned back, her lambent eyes bright. “I can do it!”

“It’s true,” Chester said, joining her. He looked wintry pale beneath a tropical sun, but happy. “We thought it a fluke, but a little experimentation has made it clear she has a talent.”

“I find things!” Serendipity said, grinning. “At the right time!”

“You always have,” I said gravely.

“I know! But now I know that I do and I can make it happen.” She nodded. “I was the one who found you! Just now! Chester said we might not be able to, that the drake would end up flying for months trying to figure out where you were. But I said, ‘no, I can do it!’ and he said, ‘all right, let’s try,’ and it worked!”

“The first genet mage,” Chester said. “Can you imagine it?”

“I can,” I said, and laughed, hugged him. “It is good to see you. And not behind bars!”

Chester snorted. “For what I did to Roland and Powlett? Not a chance. They were apparently killed in the confusion of the undead attack, if you will. Ivy, so good to see you.” He kissed her hands, inclined his head to Kelu and paused at the sight of Amhric. Amhric ignored that hesitation and hugged him, as I had, and he accepted this with humility. Once he’d stood apart, he continued, “I was far more like to be entrapped by the political mess. Locke, that professor of yours... you have no idea!”

“No,” I said, grinning. “I haven’t. What did he do?”

“You can imagine the First Minister wasn’t pleased with the prospect of an entire new race appearing out of the past to use up our northern border,” Chester said. “That was until Eyre pointed out that all the countries bordering us now are capable of magic, just as we are... but only we had access to people who could train us to use that magic effectively. At which time, as you imagine, it became absolutely imperative that the elves prefer to ally with Troth than with Candor or Help-on-High. Save that, naturally, the ambassadors of those nations became embroiled in the matter and are now making their own overtures....”

“God!” I exclaimed. “Poor Kemses!”

“He’ll live,” Chester said, amused. “I am more worried about Du Roi and Douglas, who never expected to be dragged into the councils of the wise and powerful. Du Roi’s uncle is in transports; he never expected his nephew to follow his footsteps, and here Guy is hobnobbing with the First Minister himself?” Chester shook his head, chuckling. “We haven’t been able to pry him free with a lever since. Poor fellow is about ready to climb the walls for want of a willing woman and a drink.”

“And Radburn?” Ivy asked.

“Wants a willing woman or a willing man, he’s desperate enough for either. Of the handful of us, he has the most military background and there’s not a person who doesn’t want his personal opinion on how the battle against the dead was accomplished. The Vessel’s men among them.” He grimaced. “That has been a bad business, I’m afraid. You know the Church made it habit for us to burn our dead—”

“Yes,” I began, and then halted. “Oh, how clever!”

“It would have been, yes, had they disinterred the dead of previous centuries and burned their remains as well,” Chester said. “Unfortunately, all over the country the burial rites have been a mélange of customs and habits, and there were enough left over to have made terrible work. In the small towns in particular; outside of Troth it was even worse, where the Church has not spread so densely. The Vessel has been a busy woman, and not in a fashion she enjoys.”

I winced. “I imagine not.”

“And you?” He glanced past my shoulder and fell silent. Looking over it, I did as well, for our elves, rather than continuing to trudge past us, had stopped and were now staring.

As if sensing their regard, the drake arched its neck and spread those wings, and if they were not as vast as the dragons of old, still they cast long shadows, not just on the grass, but into memory. Had not the dragons whispered to me in hallucination? The elves had hunted and destroyed them. Had apparently trammeled their bones into at least one such creation.

“The elves that remain,” I said in Lit. “There has been an uprising.”

Chester’s brows lifted. “I see. And now you have the far more difficult task of negotiating the end of a war.”

“No,” I said firmly. “You have the task of negotiating the end of a war. Because Serendipity, as always, has arrived at just the right time.” I bowed to her, to her delight. “You two, and Ivy, I will ask you and Emily to go as well. Will you go to Suleris and Erevar for me? Find the current leaders there and ask them to come. We will be having a summit at Nudain.”

Serendipity bounced on the balls of her feet. “I knew we were supposed to be here!”

“And that you would get yourself and Chester and the drake here!” Emily studied her twin admiringly, then hugged her. “You really are the first genet magician!”

“I have a title,” Serendipity said smugly.

“Wait, when did we decide that I was leaving?” Ivy asked, folding her arms.

“Or me?” Chester added. “I have only just arrived!”

“I am bringing the remains of the elven nation—or at least, the largest concentration of living elves on the Archipelago, given the size of the remaining isles—to a redoubt claimed by humans with very little desire to parley,” I said. “And if it becomes a contest between myself and the current head of Nudain’s human enclave, then the battle will be personal and intimate and very little will prevent it from becoming a duel. But if we bring other powers to the party, then we have some hope of playing the personalities off one another and securing a truce.” I sighed. “A peace will have to wait. Perhaps decades. But a truce so that we can build that peace… that I think we might accomplish. If we are bold. And if—” I glanced at Serendipity and smiled, “—a certain genet can bring you all back just as we arrive. I think it will do some good for my reputation to be able to summon a dragon to my cause.”

“You haven’t returned to the topic of my leaving,” Ivy said.

“I want you to go because I need to send humans,” I said. “And frankly, I want them to be outnumbered once they’re riding back with you. Also, because you are charming, my dear, and the fact that you need a translator will confuse them into pondering whether you might be telling the truth about your provenance.”

“I don’t want to be parted from you,” she murmured. And sighed. “But I think you’re right. The more humans like us they see, the better.”

“And now you may tell me why you believe I should be doing your work?” Chester said.

“Because I can’t,” I said. “Do this work. It needs a human, Chester. Further, it needs a human who can speak the Gift as well as Lit, so it can’t be Ivy, Radburn, or Guy. Or anyone else, really, unless you wish to import a Church scholar… and I suspect you don’t.”

He hesitated.

“Do you?” I pressed, brows lifting.

“I do find the prospect…” He paused. “...diverting.”

“Mmm,” said I, noncommittal, until he dissolved into laughter.

“All right, fine, I find it exhilarating, but only if you’ll be present. If this is a process that must be begun by a human, it cannot be ended without elves.”

“I’ll be there,” I said firmly.

“Then I suppose we are for the drake again,” Chester said. “And you have only just brought us here, Serendipity! I hope you know the way. All these places are but names to me.”

“We know the way,” Emily said, serious. “We would never forget the way to Suleris.”

“But if they do,” I said, resting my hand on his shoulder. “Go south. Erevar is a city on the southern coast near the midpoint of the island. Suleris is on Kesina, and owns all of it, so if you fly south you will eventually find it.”

“South,” he said with a nod. “That I can do.” He embraced me again, and against my ear added, “I see you managed to remain whole this time. Contrive to continue, if you please!”

“I would not dare risk your censure,” I said, amused, glad of him. This, I thought, would be his life’s work, and better suited to him than supporting Princess Minda and her parents. His talents would have been wasted in the management of a trade network. Giving him a country seemed meet, even if neither he nor the country knew what I was about yet. “I will see you soon.”

Ivy stepped into my arms as soon as he’d left them, tucking her head under mine. I sighed and murmured, “And you, stay safe, and come home to me.”

“Isn’t that the woman’s to say, usually?”

“Perhaps some other woman, and some other husband, and some other life,” I said. “But we are as we are, and I would have it no other way.”

“Flatterer.” She went on her toes to kiss my nose, and then allowed me to distract her lips on the way down. She smiled against my mouth. “You stay whole as well. No glass blades, you hear?”

“Not on my flesh,” I said. “Or at least, not unless by accident.”

She tugged at the chain holding her grandmother’s ring. “Not even by accident.”

“My lady commands.”

“She does!” Another kiss and then she left me, joining the two genets and Chester on the back of the drake. There disposed I saw a good chunk of my heart, preparing to leave me. Kelu had told me too truly: I loved many, and too well, and as I’d said to Ivy, would have it no other way.

“Godspeed!” I called. “Come back to me!”

“With your errand discharged,” Chester promised, and then the drake was on its way.

I could not be long bereft with the hand that lit on my shoulder, though I missed them. Turning to Amhric, I said, “I find I have unexpected hopes for the future.”

He smiled up at me, eyes bright. “Strange. I find I do as well.”

“Don’t even try,” I said, laughing. “You have always had hope.”

“Well. Perhaps.” He smiled. “God is good.”

“I suppose He must be,” I said, and followed him toward the horses. But seeing Kelu there, awaiting us, I wondered.