Garadin went to arrange transportation while Piaras and I waited hidden behind a stack of crab pots awaiting repair. Drake’s Landing was home to the majority of Mermeia’s fishermen, and was bustling and noisy as the boats were coming in from a night of fishing. There was more than enough controlled chaos going on to hide a pair of newly fugitive elves.

The sunrise was still hours away. I had seen the sunrise yesterday and had hoped to avoid being awake for it today. Now I was just grateful to be alive.

“Some of Maira’s sugar knots would be nice right now,” Piaras said wistfully.

From his uncertain glance, food wasn’t all Piaras had on his mind. He just wasn’t sure how to bring it up.

I had a pretty good idea what he wanted to talk about.

“Sugar knots would be good,” I agreed, looking out over the harbor. Part of me was perfectly willing to wait for Piaras to bring up the subject in his own time; the other part just wanted to get it over with. I didn’t know what to tell him. I didn’t understand what had happened to me either, so I certainly wasn’t qualified to explain it to anyone else. But once we got out to the Fortune, I was going to be explaining it to Garadin, or at least trying to, so I might as well start practicing now.

Piaras beat me to it. Patience wasn’t high on the list of teenage virtues. It wasn’t at the top of mine, either.

“Are you all right?”

His voice was quiet and the question tentative, as if he already knew the answer, but didn’t really want to hear it. He wasn’t inquiring about my health. He wanted to know if the Raine who had come out of The Ruins was the same Raine who had gone in. It was a good question. I wished I knew the answer.

“I don’t know.”

He just stood there, looking at me with those big brown eyes, and in one terrible moment, I thought he was going to cry. Psychotic goblin brothers, Khrynsani shamans, various creatures of the night, even Sarad Nukpana—those I could take. What I could not take was Piaras going to pieces on me. At this point, I’d probably join him.

I waved my hands frantically. “No, no. Don’t cry.” I blinked back misties of my own. “If you cry, I’ll cry, and I don’t want to cry.”

Piaras didn’t cry, but he took a shuddering breath, which was just as bad. “It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t gotten myself caught, none of this would have happened.” His voice was on the verge of breaking. “We’d both be home right now, and you wouldn’t have had to use…” He gestured vaguely and helplessly at where the beacon rested beneath my shirt. “…that thing, and…”

I was going to put a stop to this right now, before the salty sting in my eyes went any further.

“That thing’s the reason we’re still alive. I don’t know what happened to me, but it’s not your fault. It’s nobody’s fault, except maybe a nine-hundred-year-old dead Guardian who couldn’t keep track of his own necklace. But he’s not around for us to yell at.”

Piaras sniffed, then wiped his eyes on his shirtsleeve. I resisted the urge to do the same.

He swallowed, and took a deep breath, steadying himself. “What are you going to do?”

“The only thing I can do. Contact Mychael Eiliesor and find some way to give him this thing. If he wants it, he can have it. Guarding the Saghred is his job, so I’m going to help him get on with it.”

“Do you think you can trust him?”

“I can’t trust any of the others who think they should have it. They all want me dead, or worse. He doesn’t seem to. It’s not much, but it’s a start.”

Piaras sniffed. I sniffed.

I heard Garadin’s low whistle. I peered around the crabpots. The Fortune’s dinghy was pulling up to the dock.

Saved by the boat.

Two of Phaelan’s crew rowed us out to the Fortune. The dinghy had a section covered by a tarp. Piaras and I slipped under the tarp unnoticed by the fishermen and unseen by any goblin.

The short trip out to where Phaelan’s ship was moored gave me a few minutes to think. Those thoughts kept coming back to the Guardian. Mychael Eiliesor could have forceably taken the amulet from me as soon as he’d found us in The Ruins, and in my condition, there wouldn’t have been much I could have done to stop him. He didn’t. What he did do was put himself between me and Piaras and the danger of Sarad Nukpana and told us to go. He wanted the amulet, but he wasn’t going to endanger our lives to get it. In short, he was being the perfect paladin and gentleman. I felt a little smile coming on. It wasn’t what I’d expected, but it was something I could definitely get used to.

We got out to the ship without incident.

For the first time tonight, I felt safe. As with most of his possessions, Phaelan didn’t bother with flash—with the Fortune, fast and nimble was all he wanted. She delivered both. She also delivered forty guns, and men and elves who knew how to use them.

Aeryk Galir, Phaelan’s first mate, met us as we boarded on the port side. It faced the barrier islands, well away from any curious eyes.

“The Captain doesn’t get many visitors at this hour,” Aeryk said, grinning as he helped me over the side. “He was surprised to hear you were coming aboard.”

“This wasn’t exactly planned. I won’t be staying long. It wouldn’t be safe for me or anyone else here.”

“Whatever trouble’s after you, ma’am, we can handle it.”

“Right now I can’t handle the trouble I have after me, and I’m not going to make my problems anyone else’s. I plan to be gone before anyone knows I’m here.”

Aeryk shrugged, then nodded. He’d had firsthand experience of the trouble I occasionally managed to attract, and he wasn’t going to give me any arguments.

“The Captain asked me to have you all join him in his cabin.”

We went below. Phaelan was at the table in the center of the cabin, the remains of some kind of meal in front of him. With Phaelan’s night owl tendencies, who knew which meal it was supposed to be. I crossed the cabin in three strides and greeted my cousin with a big hug. Phaelan wasn’t the touchy-feely type, and normally I respected his personal space, but things hadn’t been normal for days so I felt entitled.

Piaras had to duck his head to get through the door, and my cousin’s smile vanished when he saw the young elf’s bruised face. The color hadn’t faded, but at least the swelling had gone down.

“What happened?” Phaelan’s voice promised many bad things for whoever had caused that bruise.

“Nothing good,” I told him. My voice suddenly sounded as exhausted as I felt. I think it was the sight of somewhere to sit, and no one standing between me and there, waiting to kill me. I pulled up a chair and sat down, my muscles tight and protesting from a night of running and other less healthy activities. “I should probably start from when I left home yesterday morning.”

Phaelan ordered food and clean clothes brought for both of us. Mine were still more or less in one piece, but the smell left something to be desired after the dunking in The Ruins’ pond, so I took my cousin up on his offer. When I’d changed, I told them all about my day—starting with my talk with Janek at Nigel’s townhouse, then to my spotting of A’Zahra Nuru and subsequent meeting with Tam. I finished with Ocnus’s setup and how Piaras and I had spent our night.

By the time I stopped talking, Piaras had excused himself from the table and stretched out on Phaelan’s bunk. He was now sound asleep. I was hard pressed to keep my own eyes open.

Garadin had his elbows on the table, his forehead resting against the palms of his upraised hands. It was a thinking position he used when there was more of a problem than information to solve it. Glad he agreed with me.

“In a twisted way, it being a beacon makes sense,” he said. He lifted his head and leaned back in his chair. “It would certainly explain its popularity—and yours.”