Dimly lit colored glass tubes, mortars and pestles, small burners, and tin plates covered tables made of stone resistant to dangerous substances. Aging books lined high shelves about the workbenches running along both side walls. Perhaps she spotted the stairs to the sublevels, where the alchemical furnace sat, built like a massive barrel of charred steel mounted to turn and spin as needed. Plates of thick crystal were embedded in its walls, allowing a view of the interior to monitor any work in progress.

"I haven't come this way in a long time," Wynn said.

Shade, on the other hand, drew nervously closer to Wynn as they traveled up a switchback staircase at the passage's end.

Il'Sänke stopped before a door on the second level. He preferred to keep this locked the old-fashioned way—to avoid questions—and took a key from around his neck.

"What's in the lenses of these glasses?" Wynn asked suddenly. "What makes them darken?"

"The glass was infused with a thaumaturgical ink while still molten," he replied. "Nothing complicated, and not the best lenses to look through. I later discovered that they react to sharp changes in heat as well as light. Keep aware of this unexpected side effect."

He opened the door and let Wynn and Shade inside.

Only once they were alone in his study did he feel at ease. A faded wooden couch with cushions was pushed against one wall. On the other side, his desk was a mess of parchments and quills and charcoal sticks. The floor was dusty around the edges where no one walked, and two walls were lined with half-filled shelves. He had brought only a few of the texts from home. The rest were either there when he arrived or had been borrowed from the library. Another door at the back led into the guest bedchamber he used during his stay.

Wynn glanced over the desk, the spectacles still in her hand. Her expression filled with disappointment. "It's so—"

"Ordinary?" he finished for her.

He was in no mood to discuss the state of his quarters. Anything he did not wish others to see was always kept locked away—one way or another.

"Many things that appear ordinary are not," he added. "Your tall friend, for instance, is one of your walking dead."

Wynn stiffened, and Ghassan tried not to smile or laugh.

He could count off the notions running through her head—without even trying to touch her thoughts. First denial, then came reticence to confirm his statement, to be followed finally by resignation.

Wynn flinched, but Ghassan felt no pity. He had picked up nothing, not even stray thoughts in Chane, which seemed impossible. Then again, he had never had a chance before to try such on an undead.

"Yes," she finally answered. "A Noble Dead… a vampire… but he would never harm a sage."

"And why is that?"

He already guessed, but the longer he prodded her guilt, making her feel as if she had betrayed his confidence, the better it served him.

"I just know," she said tiredly. "What else do you wish me to tell you?"

"My interest lies most in what you might tell others. Much in the texts implies warnings, maybe even predictions, though I have seen little of the material. Knowledge of their content can never leave these protected walls—not in any form. Can you grasp that much?"

Her young eyes seemed so weary as she nodded. "Yes, I think I can."

"Then sit," he commanded, pointing to the old couch, "and start from the beginning. Tell me everything concerning this lost library of an ancient undead. Tell me what you found today in the translations… and in the scroll."

As a last emphasis, he held up her journal, taken from the floor of her room, and slapped it down upon his desk as he sat.

Shade hopped up beside Wynn, curling up on the couch and taking most of its space.

Wynn's tired brown eyes fixed on the journal, as if it were the end of a long tale unto itself. She began, softly and slowly at first, telling him what she'd learned in the Elven Territories concerning Most Aged Father, the Anmaglâhk, and fear of a returning Ancient Enemy.

She told him of the long sea journey down the elven coast, and another by land into the rugged Pock Peaks. And then of the nearly mute white undead called Li'kän, who could no longer remember the sound of any voice or her own name. Wynn had found no clues to whatever became of the white one's missing companions, Volyno and Häs'saun.

She told him of events in a cavern below the castle, either ones she had witnessed or those later learned from her companions. He heard of the hundreds of calcified remains of servants, not all human, like statues kneeling with heads bowed for eternity in their burial pockets of stone. And he learned of something called an "orb," and the chaos in a hot and humid cavern when it had been accidentally "opened." She told him how she and Chap, a Fay-born canine like Shade, had chosen the texts she brought back.

But when she came to the translations seen this day, there was little he did not know already. At her mention of the Eaters of Silence, as opposed to the Children or the Reverent ones, he kept silent, though at that mention, his grip tightened on the chair's arm.

Much of what she had read contained passages he had worked on. She had few conclusions that he had not guessed at as well. When she wound down, all her words spent, they sat in silence for a while. She glanced at him now and then, expecting him to say something—anything—though not about a "wraith."

Yes, he had caught that term from her very thoughts. Along with her deep fear that it would be far worse to deal with than the vampires, the ones she had thought were the only Noble Dead. Now one of them, Chane, and a wayward majay-hì had come to her.

Ghassan had his own concerns about this black-robed undead mage. He was uncertain that even he could deal with it on his own. And for this alone, he could not harm Wynn just yet. Not because of growing fondness for her; that was irrelevant.

She knew much of what he had already suspected was the truth—too much. And he knew she had to be silenced for the safety of the world.

One life for thousands—tens of thousands—was a sacrifice he could live with.

Except for this thing she called a "wraith."

Wynn finally yawned, shyly covering her mouth, as if she worried about disturbing his silence. He got up, taking a heavy cloak from a hook near the door.

"Lie down," he told her. "Sleep. You are safe here."

"We can't let the wraith get more folios," she whispered, but her eyelids were already closing. "And tonight it came inside the guild."

"I know."

"Rodian tried to set a trap for it, but he failed," she murmured.

"I know."

Ghassan glanced at Shade, snapped his fingers, and pointed at the floor. The majay-hì leered at him but jumped down, and Ghassan pushed Wynn sideways by the shoulder. She flopped upon the couch, and he pulled the cloak over her.

"Tomorrow night," he said, "we will set a trap of our own."

Until then, he still saw a need for her.

As she settled into sleep, Ghassan slipped into his bedchamber and closed the door.