"One in particular," Sir Jared replied. "What makes our honored guest think Lady Melina won't return home of her own accord when the work on these artifacts is complete? Even if you decide to break your agreement with her and keep all three artifacts for yourself, she cannot complain without ruining her reputation beyond repair. Even her brother the duke is likely to publicly disown her if she makes it known she has been practicing magic. Queen Valora would probably spend half her treasury to avenge the betrayal."

"Are those alone not reason enough for her to not wish to return to Hawk Haven?" Peace asked.

"Maybe," Sir Jared agreed. "But Lady Melina need not say where she has been. Even if someone ratted on her, she could simply look pathetic and claim that someone seeks to harm the Princess Sapphire by slandering her mother."

"Are not the princess and her mother estranged?"

"They are, but that doesn't mean that anyone's forgotten the relationship. Sapphire doesn't wish to disown her sisters and brother..."Peace caught a flicker of distaste pa.s.s over Lady Elise's features at Sir Jared's mention of this brother and made a note to ask Xarxius what history might lie between them.

"... And so she must remain in contact with Lady Melina, for Lady Melina is head of that household and will continue so until her death."

"And Queen Valora's vengeance?"

Sir Jared shrugged. "Queen Valora may be pretty peeved, there's no question of that, but is she willing to risk her very shaky truce with Hawk Haven and Bright Bay over it? Would her people even support her?

Most of them share our heritage and with it our distaste for those who would practice magic. If Queen Valora makes a public issue of why she hates Lady Melina, then her own desire to use sorcery will probably become public. I'd guess Lady Melina would make certain that it did. With that excuse, Stonehold would probably support an effort to retake the Isles. Waterland, too."

From the mildly surprised expressions on one or two of the faces around the table, Peace deduced that the healer was not usually given to such long speeches. He factored that-and the pa.s.sion it implied-into how he framed his own reply.

"So you think that, even with the enemies she has made, Lady Melina could return to Hawk Haven?"

"I do. The question is, what is it you know that makes you so certain she isn't planning to do so?"

With a show of reluctance, Grateful Peace cleared his throat.

"There was something I saw. I alone was witness, but I swear to you by the bones of the first Healed One that I am telling the truth."

Even Lady Blysse was listening now, her pique put aside for the moment.

"I have mentioned to you that when Lady Melina first arrived in Dragon's Breath, Apheros wanted no special honors shown to her?"

"You said something of that," Derian Carter agreed.

"He was actually rather rude," Peace went on almost apologetically. "Lady Melina was refused personal servants and was quartered in rooms we keep for guests. These rooms..."

He paused, as if he was about to give away a great secret. Actually, he was fairly certain that most of those "guests" who were invited to stay within the Earth Spires probably suspected that they were spied upon. Uneasily, he wondered if Lady Melina had as well. If she did, that made her action not merely a private declaration of intent but a challenge.

All this flashed through his mind even as his lips continued to move.

"These rooms," Peace repeated, "have been specially prepared so that little that goes on within them cannot be seen or, at the very least, heard. Lady Melina was given one of the best-one that offers no privacy at all to the dweller.

"I went frequently to watch her. Watching, you see, is my... There is no precise word for it in your language-'job' or 'profession' comes close, but so does 'vocation' and so, in a little sense, does 'honor'

or 'rank.' "

He shrugged. "I am the watcher for the Dragon Speaker-the Dragon's Eye. It is an old and honoredposition, one that predates the current kingdom and goes back to the Founders' time. It is my job to see what the Speaker cannot see, to sit where he cannot sit, to note what he cannot note, to draw conclusions that he is in no position to make. As watcher, I know all the hidden ways through the Earth Spires-if anyone does, that is, but their builders.

"I was fascinated with our foreign guest-all the more so in that she seemed to lose interest in me soon after her arrival. I think it was my good fortune to have her underestimate the importance of a watcher.

Like Lady Elise, she may have made a study of our land, but such a post does not get put into history books."

Elise nodded agreement. "It's the first I've ever heard of it. I don't think we even have an equivalent unless you count scouts in time of war."

Peace noted Lady Blysse's expression of impatience and returned to the matter at hand. In any case, he had no wish to diminish the mood he had been so carefully building.

"Four days past, as I was watching, a messenger came to Lady Melina bearing a package. The package contained a box-a box sealed with the seal of Waln Endbrook, the baron of the Isles whom I had believed dead. The box contained four things: a gemstone, a lock of hair, and what I later realized were two freshly cut fingers from the hand of a child."

He paused, listening for expressions of horror. The perfect silence that greeted him was even better.

"The gemstone was the color of a fine brandy, reddish gold in hue. Lady Melina inspected it and the lock of hair-which was nearly the same color-then turned her attention to the fingers. She looked at these for a long moment, then consigned them and the lock of hair to the fire. When these were ash, she returned to her book. The gemstone was put in her jewel box. Later, I arranged to have it checked by a lapidary. It was a citrine."

"Citrine!" Lord Kestrel was the only one to find his voice. "I say, doesn't Lady Melina have a daughter named Citrine?"

"She does," Derian said, and his voice trembled with either grief or rage. "A daughter she took away when she left Eagle's Nest with Baron Endbrook, a daughter whose location we do not know."

Lady Blysse cried out as if in physical pain and sprang to her feet.

"You said, Derian, you said you thought Lady Melina might have given Citrine as..." She lost the word and stammered in frustration, "As Blind Seer is to me. Did she give her for nothing?"

Derian nodded. "That's what the man is telling us, Firekeeper. That Baron Endbrook thought he could trust Lady Melina to play fair with him because he had her daughter. When he got away, he sent a message reminding her. My guess is he expected her to send some word that she was willing to work with him again."

The redhead had been speaking in carefully measured phrases, as if he did not trust himself to think too closely about what he was saying.

"And," Derian continued, turning to Peace, "you're telling us that she did nothing but burn the fingers?"

Peace nodded solemnly, though inwardly he was rejoicing. He had hoped the news would have some effect, but he had hardly hoped for this level of fury. Indeed, he'd need to take care that the fury did not boil over or that in their anger they did not leave Dragon's Breath with the task for which he needed them undone."Nothing," he admitted, "of which I know. Of late, however, I have come to distrust the reliability of my network of informers. Many that I trust seem to be under the lady's spell.

"In any case," Peace added, as if seeking to comfort them, "only four days have pa.s.sed since she received the message. Baron Endbrook would not yet expect her reply."

"Do you know where he is?" Lady Elise asked sharply.

"I do not," Peace said, "but I am a.s.suming that he is outside of New Kelvin. Soldiers under my orders have searched closely within."

"Then Citrine may still be alive," Lady Elise said. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears, but her voice was steady. "We have time."

"Time only," Peace put in, "if you go to her swiftly. I fear that only one person in New Kelvin may know where the child is hidden."

"Lady Melina," Lord Kestrel breathed. "Of course! We must go to her and get the truth-by force if necessary."

The young lord sprang to his feet.

"There is not a moment to lose!"

Derian Carter pushed Lord Kestrel back into his chair with a firm, though not unkind, hand.

"We'll lose more than time, my lord, if we don't lay our plans carefully."

He glanced at his companions.

"Do we work with this man?"

Peace noted that he did not say "trust."

One by one, six heads nodded agreement. There was no argument, no debate. The only sound was a squawk from the crow, which had been drowsing on its perch.

"Very well," Derian said, turning to Peace. "Let's get on with it. What's your plan?"

Yes, Peace thought as he began to outline what he intended. I am indeed beginning to like these young people. What a pity that if they choose to do as I suggest most of them will probably end up dead.

Chapter x.x.x.

Firekeeper felt a certain thrill when she realized that the hunt would take place that very night.

At first there had been some talk of delaying, of making further plans. The great log in the hearth had split in two and begun to crumble to ruddy cinders as the humans discussed possible ways to achieve their goal.

There were difficulties. Grateful Peace could not say for certain just when-if ever-the research teams left off their work on the three artifacts. Some experiments required hours of observation. These wereusually scheduled to run through the night, and one or two researchers remained to tend them.

Grateful Peace wanted them to go after Lady Melina and to trust him to retrieve the artifacts. No one-Firekeeper least of all-liked this idea, so Peace was forced to abandon it. Reluctantly, the thaumaturge was forced to agree that whatever plan they settled on must include means to achieve both goals.

That simple decision, apparently, made things more difficult rather than-as Firekeeper had thought it would-easier.

One difficulty that the white-haired man with his smell of grease and old silk had solved for them was how to get inside Thendulla Lypella. Grateful Peace knew of a tunnel-a tunnel branching from one of the sewers Firekeeper had already discovered-that would take them beneath the walls and under the complex. From this tunnel they could emerge into one of several cellars.

However, even this didn't solve all their problems.

Using the map Edlin had drawn, Grateful Peace showed them that the building in which Lady Melina was living and the building holding the artifacts were not the same.

Following this revelation, there was much argument over which goal should have priority-for their group was too few in number to make splitting up a realistic option.

Needless to say, Grateful Peace felt that kidnapping Lady Melina should come first. Firekeeper, however, knew her duty-retrieving the artifacts must come first. The others varied in opinion, but gradually one and all were convinced that perhaps kidnapping Lady Melina should come first. After all, she was the only one who knew where Citrine was, and if she escaped...

This last argument won Firekeeper-albeit reluctantly-over. The wolf-woman was fond of the round-faced little girl, remembered their long conversations in the springtime meadows above Eagle's Nest Castle, remembered, too, that Citrine and her cousin Kenre Trueheart had been the first friends she had made on her own. She thought that gave the girl some claim to her energies, a claim that competed fairly with the one held by the Royal Beasts.

After all, Firekeeper told herself when she thought uncomfortably of how the Beasts would react if she failed, it wasn't as if she was choosing to rescue the girl rather than steal the artifacts. She intended to do both.

Her own decision made, Firekeeper grew restless when the planning continued. To her indignant surprise, Blind Seer chided her for her impatience.

"Don't be such a pup," the great wolf growled. "When you lived in the wilds did you dig after a rabbit without first blocking the exits from its hole?"

"No," Firekeeper replied a trace sullenly.

"Here we are hunting not a rabbit but a den of weasels-weasels we must stalk without waking them, weasels we must catch without hurting. Surely that merits a little thought in advance."

"They are thinking more than a little!" she protested.

Blind Seer huffed at her. "You are still such a pup! I tell you, this is more dangerous than any hunt we have ever attempted. My fur stands on end just thinking of it. Rather would I go into a she-bear's den in spring and attempt to eat her cubs than do what we must do here.""But you are with me?" Firekeeper asked anxiously.

"I have sworn before our people to be with you," the wolf a.s.sured her. "But I do not think they knew what they were asking when they sent you out."

To Firekeeper's surprise, Edlin Norwood was the one who halted the seemingly endless cycle of plan, counterplan, and refinement.

"I say," the young lord said, "but isn't it getting rather late? I mean," he went on diffidently, "shouldn't we get a move on?"

"Are you saying, Lord Kestrel," asked Grateful Peace, a touch of astonishment in his voice, "that we should essay this challenge tonight?"

"Well, I do think so, rather," Edlin replied boldly. "I mean, tonight you got out of there, no one the wiser.

Will you be so free another night? What I'm trying to say is that you're at the beck and call of this a.s.s-fellow..."

"Apheros, the Dragon Speaker," Elise corrected quickly, clearly horrified at this lapse in diplomacy.

Edlin didn't seem to notice her dismay. He simply grinned his thanks for the correction and continued speaking.

"Right, Apheros, well, what if he needs you, Grateful Peace, tomorrow night? What if he wants you to do some watching or whatever it is you do? What if there's some big experiment in the laboratories you need to supervise? What if-and don't get me wrong, old chap, but these things do happen-what if Lady Melina gets her hooks into you again? I mean, we know about the way in through the sewers and all, thanks to you, but we don't really know how to get through them right and how to come out right and a dozen other things. I say we go for it tonight-right now. We have hours and hours of darkness left and folks there in the tower will be getting tired and well..."

Edlin trailed off, a bit confused by the flood of his own eloquence.

"Lord Kestrel," Grateful Peace replied slowly, "does have a point. As I told you earlier, I took my fellow Three, Xarxius, into my confidence this evening as the fastest means of learning about you. I trust Xarxius as much as I do any man..."

"And that," Blind Seer muttered, "is not very much at all."

"... But a servant could have pa.s.sed on word of our meeting and conclusions might be drawn. However, I will say that I think it unlikely we were betrayed-my servants, after all, are loyal to me. A much more real threat to our success may occur if Lady Melina chooses to act against you."

"Against us?" asked Edlin, surprise making the words sound rather like a gulp.

"You," Peace agreed. "I recognized her anger when she learned that you were residing in the city. It is not impossible that she might choose to have action taken against you. Something as simple as voiding your residence permit-a voiding based on some minor technicality, nothing that could be traced to her-could force you to leave Dragon's Breath. Even if you were able to hide nearby in the mountains-an onerous task this time of year-our chances for a successful raid would be reduced. If she insisted that you be escorted to the border..."

"She could do this?" Derian asked.Firekeeper noted with some satisfaction that her red-haired friend was clearly worried. If Derian was worried, then it was likely they would move tonight.

"Apheros could, or the Healed One." Peace shrugged. "I can think of a dozen ways that such an escort could be arranged without giving reason for you-or your government-to take offense. Since I believe neither Apheros nor the Healed One are able to refuse Lady Melina anything, it is much the same."

"Then tonight," Elise said, wonder and no little fear in her voice. 'Tonight we must be ready."

"Within the hour I should say," Grateful Peace replied. "I came to you straight from my meeting with Xarxius. We have talked for some hours. Most of the residents of the Earth Spires will have retired. I wish we could know how many are at work in the Granite Tower."

Firekeeper grinned.

"I can have that learned," she said, leaping to her feet. "Elation will fly at night, as will Bold. They can report to us here. I will tell them to look especially for Lady Melina. No need for us to go to her place-her room-if she is with the artifacts."

The wolf-woman felt some satisfaction at Grateful Peace's evident surprise. He hid his reaction well, but there was a momentary widening of his eyes that told her much. The thaumaturge's scent-now that she had learned to separate it from that of his cosmetics-altered, too. She did not need to hear Blind Seer's tail thumping muted applause on the boards behind her to know that she had pulled off a coup.

Still swelled with wolfish pride, Firekeeper woke the birds, explained their task, and promised rewards for swift return and detailed reports.