Paxon glanced over at Avelene. She seemed undecided, staring at the scene below. “What do we do?” he whispered.

No response. Then she looked at him wordlessly and stood up. Together, they began walking toward the boy and his attacker.

It took only a moment for the man to see them. A knife appeared in his hand, and he pressed it to the boy’s neck. “Where is he?” he screamed at them.

Both Paxon and Avelene slowed, confused. “Dead,” the Druid answered. “They’re all dead. Let the boy go.”

The man looked around wildly, noting the giant’s body and dismissing it. “Not them! The sorcerer! He’s not dead! Are you blind? Where is he? You answer me! You want this one’s throat cut, do you?”

He pressed the knife blade harder against the boy’s throat, but the boy didn’t even flinch. He just stared into space.

“Look down!” Paxon shouted at him. He pointed to the charred rocks and bits of tattered robe that lay almost at the man’s feet. The man glanced them and gave a shrill, wild laugh, as if this was the funniest thing he had ever seen.

Avelene kept moving forward, drawing Paxon with her. “Your fellows are all dead!” she called out. “You have nowhere to go. Let the boy go, and I will give you your freedom!”

The man spit at her. “You’ll give me nothing. You’ll do what I say or I’ll kill him right in front of you! You stay where you are.”

Avelene slowed, but not by much.

“How stupid are you, woman? You think the sorcerer dead? Just like that? Quick and simple, a flash rip does the job? Dead? He’s got nine lives and then some! He’s waiting us out—all of us—just to see who lives and who dies. Those that die quick are the lucky ones. But I’m not fooled because I see things you don’t!”

Paxon experienced a flash of uncertainty. Was he right? Was Arcannen still alive? But if so, then who had the flash rip explosions torn apart?

He knew the answer before he finished asking himself the question. Magic. The sorcerer had used magic. It was an image the flash rip had destroyed.

He separated himself from Avelene by a few steps, searching for a way to disable their adversary. If he could get close enough, it should only take a moment to render him senseless. But it would be tricky, and he would only get one chance. He hesitated, glancing at Avelene. She was continuing her own advance, white fire flaring at her fingertips, tense resolve mirrored on her narrow features.

“Wait,” she whispered at him.

The man continued backing away from them, working his way toward a gap in the ruins that would give him access to the coastline. “I’m not so stupid as these others, Arcannen!” he shouted at the ruins about him. “Not Bael Etris! I see you. You can’t hide yourself from me, witchman!”

The mist was shifting in front of him with such frequency that he was disappearing into it every few seconds. Any attack would be semi-blind in these conditions. But Paxon knew they had to do something.

“You want this boy dead, Arcannen?” Bael Etris screamed suddenly. “Show yourself or he’s meat on the—”

An explosion of smoke infused with a brilliant crimson light cut off the rest of what he intended to say, flooding the whole of the ruins surrounding Etris and the boy, completely enveloping both. At first, Paxon thought Avelene had caused it, but when he glanced over she was down on one knee, shielding her eyes from the glare. Throwing caution aside, knowing there was no time for it, he charged into the swirling miasma, the black blade of his sword alive with movement, its emerald light flaring in bright streaks against the crimson of the haze.

If he could just reach the boy …

But it was the girl he found instead. Blinded by the smoke and groping futilely for direction, she stumbled out of the gloom and collapsed at his feet. Kneeling beside her, one eye on his surroundings in case the next person to appear happened to be the one with the knife, he pulled her up and held her, whispering that she was all right, that she was safe.

She grasped at him in response, her words urgent, grateful. “Reyn, are you all right? I saw what happened to you! You used too much again, tried too hard! I warned you …” Then she stopped abruptly as she looked into Paxon’s face. “No! Where is he? What … ?”

Abruptly she realized he wasn’t the boy and pushed him away violently. She leapt to her feet in an effort to escape, but she wasn’t strong enough to free herself from his quick hands, and he brought her down again with a rough yank.

“Whoa, hold on!” he said. “Not so fast. No running away until I find out what’s going on.”

She struggled for a moment and then gave up. To her credit, she didn’t cry or whine. Instead, she faced him squarely. “You have to let me go! I have to find him! You don’t understand what’s happening!”

“I’ll give you that last part,” he replied, pulling her to her feet, one hand firmly clasped about her wrist. “So let’s go have a look and see if we can change things. What’s your name?”

She glared at him. Her delicate, beautiful features had turned hard and tight. “Lariana.”

“Sharp eyes then, Lariana. Don’t let us get caught by surprise.”

They advanced cautiously, but no one else appeared until after several long minutes a crouching Avelene materialized almost on top of them. Her appearance was so sudden that Paxon barely managed to stay his sword arm from striking out at her.

“Calm down, Highlander!” she snapped at him, flinching away. Her narrow features took on an ironic look. “We’re on the same side, remember?”

He exhaled in relief. “Can’t see anything in this stuff.”

“Why don’t we get out of it then, give the winds a chance to blow it away? Who is this you have with you?”

“Lariana. She hasn’t told me more than that, so far.”

Wordlessly, the Druid led them away from the ruins and the mist and out onto the rocky flats where the air was still clear. Paxon glanced over his shoulder and was surprised to see that the crimson haze wasn’t dissipating. It was hanging motionlessly above the rocky terrain, almost as if anchored in place, its weight enough that the sea winds couldn’t budge it.

Avelene came close to Lariana, eyes fixing on her. “How do you come to be here?”

For a moment, it looked like the girl wouldn’t answer. It seemed to Paxon as she hesitated that she was making up her mind about something. There was an air of desperation to her that issued in part, no doubt, from her concern for Reyn Frosch. But he thought something more was at work, too. She was young and beautiful, and she was out in the middle of nowhere. That couldn’t have happened by accident, so there was a story waiting to be told and she was trying to decide how to tell it.

Or at least how much of it she wanted to reveal.

“If I tell you, will you agree to help me look for Reyn?” she asked.

She was looking at Paxon, but he held his tongue. It wasn’t his place to answer. “The boy?” Avelene asked. Lariana nodded, and the Druid shrugged. “Of course we will.”

The girl took a quick breath. “I was brought here by Arcannen. He took me out of Rare Flowers, a school for young women in troubled circumstances, and brought me with him to this place. On the way, we picked up Reyn. This was no accident. Arcannen knew who he was. I was to help persuade Reyn to use his magic, to practice with it. He never told me why. Then these men came, trying to kill Arcannen. But he disappeared, and Reyn had to face them alone. I tried to help him, but then … well, you saw. The man with the knife knocked me down, and then that mist swallowed everywhere and the man disappeared and so did Reyn …”

“What was wrong with Reyn?” Paxon interrupted. “He didn’t do anything to try to help himself. He seemed almost unconscious.”

Lariana glanced at him and shrugged. “He must have been frightened. I don’t know.”

Paxon was reminded suddenly of how his sister had looked after she had first used the wishsong’s magic and gone catatonic. The boy had worn a similar look, and he didn’t think the cause was simply fear.