Revealing my relation to the drake had a salutary effect on the elves. They seemed both unnerved by my command of a predator out of legend, and proud of me, and these feelings existed simultaneously within them… somehow. I was glad of it, if only because they marched more quickly, and even now and then some sang: long chains of melodies that somehow evoked the blood ladders, divine music bound by mortal throats. I wiped my eyes and made as little of my reaction as I could, fearing that among these refugees were too many villains, and to have my heart sore on their account would lead only to grief if they proved themselves unworthy of it.

There I found the difference between folk tale and reality. In those stories the choices were as clear as an angel could make them. Would that we all owned such clarity—but then, if we did, what use living here? Heaven would be more fit for us then.

I thought often of the genets, even with Emily gone. Kelu riding alone on her horse brought me back again and again to the fate of her race. They had not deserved what had been done to them. How could I make it right? How could anyone?

She did not sleep with us at night, though I made the invitation, and yet her presence remained in her observation about my heart. I missed Ivy, but it was good to sleep against Amhric’s back again. If now and then I said a prayer for Sihret, who too had once held a king in his arms, then perhaps it was unavoidable, given the circumstances. The course I’d set us upon felt inevitable, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t end in violence. Life was precious and fleeting.

We moved through the Archipelago’s bright sun, endured the occasional tempestuous afternoons, slashed with hot rain and speared with lightnings, which I observed less with fear for ourselves and more in hopes that the drake was far distant from any such similar storms. The days passed, and we found ourselves at last approaching Nudain.

“Ready?” Kelu asked me in Lit.

“I was wondering the same of you.”

She snorted. “I’m just your spare teeth. You’re the one about to get us all into trouble.”

“And you are surprised. Have I ceased since the moment you met me?”

She glanced at me, by now an accomplished enough rider to shoot me askance looks without confusing her mount with shifts in balance or unconscious tugs on the reins. “You’ve been making trouble for me since before I met you.”

“Of course. All the trips to the mainland.”

Kelu blew her forelock off her eye. “At least it got me away from the elves.”

“You’re welcome.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Don’t get too cocky, elf. They won’t be impressed by it in Nudain.”

“Fortunately for me, I have a rather more persuasive display of my power planned.”

She laughed. “Your power. Right.”

I grinned at her. “They won’t know the difference until it’s too late.”

“Probably, yes.” She shook her head, the sun flashing off the silver ink inside her ears. “I’ll say this for you, Morgan. It hasn’t been boring.”

“God forfend I ever bore you. You bite me enough when I’m not. I shudder to think what you might do to entertain yourself for lack of any better way to spend your time.”

She laughed. “Ugh. Go away! Ride up there,” waving a hand toward the front of the column, “and be leaderly.”

“That’s for Amhric to do,” I said. “But I will keep him company.” As I rode forth, I cast over my shoulder, “I hope you are prepared for more adventure!”

“Have I mentioned how annoying you are?”

I laughed all the way to my brother’s side.

I had hoped that the drake would arrive just as we crested the ridge for the dramatic impact, but Serendipity’s timing was far more serendipitous than that. When we spotted Nudain, the drake was already perched on one of the building’s roofs, and the shadow of a waiting scout vanished at the sight of us. So it was that we were greeted, and this was for the best, for had not Chester already been there to speak for us I thought we would have been met with ambush rather than welcome.

As I’d said to Kelu, it was not a good plan, merely the best of many bad alternatives.

But Chester was awaiting us, with a silent Ikaros and angry Diantha, and all their genets who wanted only to see Amhric. Ivy was there as well, and my Black Pearls… and several strangers, who were later introduced as Jonthil, the new head of Ekadet’s sovereign human populace, and a man I recognized instantly: “Davor?”

The former steward of Suleris hesitated. “Is it you, then? Your friends said so, but.…”

“You shipped me off to serve the Fount before Thameis took too great a liking to me,” I said. “It is me, and I remember you.” I bowed, and startled he returned it.

“You really were an elf all this time. And yet—”

“And yet,” I agreed, quieter. “But you did save me, sir, and through your intervention I found my brother and freed him. For that you have my gratitude.”

“His gratitude is pretty useful,” Kelu added.

Davor glanced at her, then chuckled. “The thanks of an elven prince? Who knows a little of what it is to be human among them?” He considered me, then nodded. “Perhaps I may nourish hopes now that I did not before.”

This interaction was not lost on Ikaros, I saw.

The last cluster of three enfolded me before I had time to look at them, but I knew them by scent somehow, and by the reflection of sun off dark curls. Galen and Basilia, Kemses’s beloved human brethren, the latter embracing me in greeting and the former with a hand on my arm. Past their effusive gladness I espied a stranger: not human, but elven, a maid with skin the warm yellow of a topaz, but without the febrile glitter of the enchantment to render it unbearable. But I had wondered if the unlikely hues that graced some elven heads were a result of immortality’s paintbrush, and did no longer, for her hair was braided into a crown as green as new leaves, streaked through with vein-gold yellows. There was something in her face that reminded me of Kemses: perhaps the kindness in her eyes, or their color? So when she offered her hand and curtseyed after I’d captured it, her introduction did not surprise me. “My lord prince. I am Iset e Sadar, Lord Kemses’s niece. I have come with Galen and Basilia to speak for Erevar.”

“We are glad to have you at the table,” I said. “I make known to you the king, Amhric.”

Her curtsey this time was deeper, and Galen and Basilia repeated it.

“Well,” I said to Ikaros. “I see you’ve met my deputies, and I have kindly arranged for the powers that be—so far—to sit at the table. Shall we do so?”

“After we’ve had something to eat and a chance to wash off,” Kelu added.

“Your hospitality as hosts of our conference would be welcome,” I agreed.

Ikaros eyed me, and I could see in him the warring impulses: resentment at my high-handedness, amusement at the absurdity of the situation, resignation that it was going to happen, will he, nill he. At last he chuckled. “All right, Prince Locke. You’ve arranged it all to a fare-thee-well, so who am I to gainsay you. Do, come into Nudain. Make yourselves comfortable. We’ll meet after lunch.”

I nodded. “Before I may sit to eat and refresh myself, however, I would like to see Tchanu.”

His mouth twisted, but he restrained himself from uttering whatever it was that wanted egress. Behind him, Diantha wasn’t much happier. But at last, he said, “I’ll have someone lead you to her directly.”

On the way to the cells, Kelu muttered to me in Lit, “Who is he to gainsay you.”

“Who indeed.”