“We had already said our farewells,” Danica added.

“I thought I had reached the end of my life, and that was acceptable to me, for I had fulfilled my duty to my god.” He paused and looked at Jarlaxle curiously. “Are you religious?” he asked.

“The only deity I grew up knowing was one I would have preferred not to know,” the drow answered.

“You are more worldly than that,” said Cadderly.

“No,” Jarlaxle answered. “I follow no particular god. I thought to interview them first, to see what paradise they might offer when at last I have left this life.”

Danica crinkled her face at that, but Cadderly managed a laugh. “Always a quip from Jarlaxle.”

“Because I do not consider the question a serious one.”

“No?” Cadderly asked with exaggerated surprise. “What could be more serious than discovering that which is in your heart?”

“I know what is in my heart. Perhaps I simply do not feel the need to find a name for it.”

Cadderly laughed again. “I would be a liar if I told you I didn’t understand.”

“I would be a liar if I bothered to answer your ignorance. Or a fool.”

“Jarlaxle is no fool,” Danica cut in, “but of the former charge, I reserve judgment.”

“You wound me to my heart, Lady Danica,” said the drow, but his grin was wide, and Danica couldn’t resist a smile.

“Why haven’t you left?” Cadderly asked bluntly. It was that question, Jarlaxle knew, that was the reason he’d been asked to join the couple. “The road is clear and our situation seems near to hopeless, and yet you remain.”

“Young man …”

“Not so young,” Cadderly corrected.

“By my standards, you will be young when you have passed your one-hundredth birthday, and young still when you have spent another century rotting in the ground,” said Jarlaxle. “But to the point, I have nowhere to run that this Ghost King cannot find me. It found me in the north, outside of Mirabar. And as it found me, I knew it would find you.”

“And Artemis Entreri?” Danica asked, to which Jarlaxle shrugged.

“Years have passed since I last spoke with him.”

“So you came here hoping that I would have an answer to your dilemma,” said Cadderly.

Again the drow shrugged. “Or that we might work together to find a solution to our common problem,” he answered. “And I did not come without powerful allies to our cause.”

“And you feel no guilt in involving Drizzt, Bruenor, Catti-brie, and that Pwent creature in such a desperate struggle?” Danica asked. “You would march them to near-certain doom?”

“Apparently I have more faith in us than you do, Lady,” Jarlaxle quipped, and turned to Cadderly. “I was not disingenuous when I proposed to Bruenor and Drizzt that they would do well in bringing Catti-brie to this place. I knew that many of the great minds of our time had no doubt come to Spirit Soaring in search of answers—and what could provide a greater clue to the reality that has descended upon us than the affliction of Catti-brie? Even regarding the Ghost King, I believe it is all connected—more so now that Drizzt has told us that she is watching the beast in that other world in which her mind is trapped.”

“They are connected,” Cadderly agreed, speaking before Danica could respond. “Both are manifestations of the same catastrophe.”

“In one, we may find clues to the other,” said Jarlaxle. “We already have! Thank your god that Catti-brie was here, that we could discern the truth of the Ghost King’s defeat, and know that the beast would return.”

“If I could find my god, I would thank him,” Cadderly replied dryly. “But you are correct, of course. So now we know, Jarlaxle. The beast will return, whole, angry, and wiser than in our first battle. Do you intend to remain to battle it again?”

“Such a course offers me the best chance to prevail, I expect, and so yes, good sir Cadderly, with your permission, I and my dwarf companion would like to stand beside you for that next battle.”

“Granted,” Danica said, cutting Cadderly short, and when she looked at him, he flashed her a smile of appreciation. “But do you have any ideas? They say you are a clever one.”

“You have not witnessed enough of me to come to that conclusion on your own?” Jarlaxle said to her, and he patted his heart as if she had wounded him profoundly.

“Not really, no,” she replied.

Jarlaxle burst out in laughter, but only briefly. “We must kill it quickly—that much is obvious,” he said. “I see no way to hinder its ability to walk between the worlds, and so we must defeat it abruptly and completely.”

“We struck at it with every magic I could manage,” said Cadderly. “I merely hope to be able to replicate some of those spells—I hold no illusions that there are greater powers to access.”

“There are other ways,” Jarlaxle said, and he nodded his chin toward Cadderly’s hand crossbow and bandolier.

“I shot it repeatedly,” Cadderly reminded him.

“And a hundred bees might sting a man to little effect,” the drow replied. “But I have been to a desert where the bees were the size of a man. Trust me when I tell you that you would not wish to feel the sting of but one of those.”

“What do you mean?” asked Danica.

“My companion, Athrogate, is a clever one, and King Bruenor more so than he,” Jarlaxle replied.

“Would that Ivan Bouldershoulder were still with us!” said Cadderly, his tone more full of hope than of lament.

“Siege weapons? A ballista?” Danica asked, and Jarlaxle shrugged again.

“Drizzt, Bruenor, and his battlerager will remain as well,” Jarlaxle informed Cadderly, and the drow stood up from his chair. “Ginance and some others offered to take Catti-brie away, but Drizzt refused.” He looked Cadderly directly in the eye as he added, “They don’t intend to lose.”

“Catti-brie should have been allowed to go,” said Danica.

“No,” Cadderly replied, and when both looked at him, they saw him staring out the window. Danica could see that he was suddenly deep in thought. “We need her,” he said in a tone that revealed him to be certain of his claim, though not yet sure why.

“Copper for yer thoughts, elf,” Bruenor said. He moved behind Drizzt, who stood on a balcony overlooking the courtyard of Spirit Soaring, staring out at the ruined forest where the dracolich had passed.

Drizzt glanced back at him and acknowledged him with a nod, but didn’t otherwise reply—just gazed into the distance.

“Ah, me girl,” Bruenor whispered, moving up beside him, for how could Drizzt be thinking of anything else? “Ye think she’s lost to us.”

Still Drizzt didn’t reply.

“I should smack ye one for losing faith in her, elf,” Bruenor said.

Drizzt looked at him again, and he withered under that honest gaze, the level of the dwarf’s own confidence overwhelming his bluster.

“Then why’re we stayin’?” Bruenor managed to ask, a last gasp of defiance to the drow’s irresistible reasoning.

Drizzt wore a puzzled look.

“If not for bringing me girl back, then why’re we staying here?” Bruenor clarified.

“You would leave a friend in need?”

“Why’re we keepin’ her here, then?” Bruenor went on. “Why not put her on one o’ them wagons rolling away, bound for a safer place?”

“I don’t believe half of them will make it out of the forest alive.”

“Bah, that’s not what ye’re thinking!” Bruenor scolded. “Ye’re thinking that we’ll find a way. That as we kill this dragon thing, we’ll also find a way to get me girl back. It’s what ye’re thinking, elf, and don’t ye lie to me.”

“It is what I’m hoping,” Drizzt admitted, “not thinking. The two are not the same. Hoping against reason.”

“Not so much, else ye wouldn’t keep her here, where we’re all likely to die.”

“Is there a safe place in all the world?” Drizzt asked. “And something else. When the dracolich began to shift to the other plane, Guenhwyvar fled.”