Reyn was confused. Worked it out? Arcannen couldn’t have known how the confrontation with those hunters was going to turn out. He couldn’t have known that the Druids would come searching for him in the ruins of Arbrox. So what was he talking about? Worked out what?

“Why didn’t you stay close to me when we went out to face those men? Why did you disappear? Where were you?”

“Searching for you the entire time. Trying to reach you. I managed to get myself turned around in the mist. When the attack came, I was too late reaching you to make a difference. That was clever of you, though—using one of your images to turn those animals on Mallich. What a surprise that must have been! I always knew they’d kill him one day. Those beasts were too dangerous for the amount of trust he put in himself as their handler.”

“Hunting animals?” Reyn asked. “I’ve never seen their like.”

“Fighting animals. Killers. Used in sporting contests and on fugitive hunts. Dangerous beasts just standing still. Impossible to control if there’s blood to be had. You saw for yourself.”

“You should have warned me. You should have been there to help me. You promised.”

Arcannen shrugged. “I told you I might not be available when you needed me and not to be overly dependent. You learned a valuable lesson today. And no harm done. Besides, Lariana was there when you needed help. Wasn’t that enough?”

No, Reyn thought, it wasn’t. He’d had to save his own life and been forced to kill someone yet again. And once again, he had gone catatonic in the process. So while there was no harm done to him physically, he’d suffered more than enough emotionally. Arcannen’s explanation for why he had left him on his own felt weak. Lost in the mist? Turned around? He was seething as he puzzled it through.

“What did you do to the man with the knife?”

“Etris? As I said, I disposed of him. How I did it doesn’t matter. Do you want something to eat? We still have a way to go.”

Reyn rubbed his face again. The sting of the blow was beginning to diminish. “You had time to kill him, but not to save Lariana?”

There was a long silence. “Yes, Reyn. I had time to kill him but not save Lariana. If I had tried, we would all be in the hands of the Druids. Now do you think you can let go of your anger and stop whining about things you can’t change?”

The boy lapsed into sullen silence, hardly appeased, barely able to restrain himself even now. What held him back was what the sorcerer had said about Lariana knowing what to do if they became separated. This bothered him in a way he couldn’t explain. At the very least, it suggested she was privy to information that had been deliberately kept from him. She was the sorcerer’s assistant, but he couldn’t help wondering suddenly if she was something more. She certainly knew things he didn’t, and she had demonstrated this on more than one occasion. He just hadn’t thought much about it before now.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“Now, there’s the question you should have asked in the beginning.” Arcannen flashed him a smile. “We’re going to Sterne.”

Reyn blinked. “Why are we going there?”

The sorcerer turned away. “To finish what we started.”

Paxon and Avelene were shepherding Lariana toward their airship—keeping her between them, still conscious of the possibility she might attempt to flee. They had left their vessel moored out in the mists some distance back from the coast and the ruins of Arbrox, giving their Troll crew responsibility for keeping watch over it while they were away. They had taken time to bring Bael Etris down off the cliff face where he was hanging from that iron rod and bury him beneath a pile of heavy rocks. But the animals that had killed his companion were roaming around somewhere, and there was nothing they could do to prevent them from returning when they got hungry enough and digging up the dead man for food.

“Where are we going?” Avelene asked the girl for the second time, her patience clearly wearing thin. “We want to help you, but we won’t if you don’t tell us what you intend. Where are you taking us? How can you know where Arcannen is?”

Lariana’s young features tightened. “You don’t trust me?”

Avelene rolled her eyes. “Just tell me how you know where to find him.”

Lariana shrugged. “It’s simple enough. Arcannen wants revenge for what happened in Arbrox. He wants to get his hands on the Commander of the Red Slash. What did you say his name was? Usurient? He knew Usurient would send hunters to kill him, so he waited on them and dispatched them. If they failed in their efforts, he believed Usurient would bring the entire Red Slash to flush him out.”

Paxon stared. “All of them? That’s five hundred men and women. Why would he use a force that size?”

Lariana shrugged. “To demonstrate how powerful he is? To make certain that this time Arcannen doesn’t escape him? It doesn’t matter. All that’s changed. Usurient won’t come here now. Not after seeing you.” She paused. “So Arcannen will go after him.”

Avelene nodded. “To Sterne? Where the Red Slash is based?”

“Wouldn’t you, if you were him?” Lariana looked off into the mists. Ahead, the Druid airship came into view. “He told me he could never forgive the massacre of the people at Arbrox. He was there; he saw it all happen. They killed every man, woman, and child in the village. They made no effort to take prisoners. Those were his friends. Arcannen is an odd man. A man with his own idea of what constitutes right and wrong. He doesn’t think like we do. How others see him doesn’t matter. He will do whatever he feels is necessary to balance the scales. To avenge the dead at Arbrox, he will hunt down those he holds responsible. Since Usurient thinks him dead, he won’t be expecting him. So that’s exactly where he will go. He is on his way to Sterne.”

Paxon thought about it. Would Arcannen brave Usurient and the Red Slash in their own barracks? In the city where they had established their home base? There was a symmetry to doing so that would appeal to the sorcerer. They had destroyed his home; now he would destroy theirs. But how would he accomplish this?

“What does Reyn have to do with all this?” he asked Lariana.

“Arcannen says he wants to help Reyn. He says he knows all about his magic and understands how hard it is to have the use of something so dangerous. He calls it a wishsong; he claims it has a long history in Reyn’s family. Reyn doesn’t care about any of that; he just wants to find a way to stop hurting people. He doesn’t always have control of the magic; sometimes he can’t hold it back. When he gets angry or feels threatened it just breaks out of him. But he doesn’t want that. He isn’t like that.”

Paxon found himself thinking again of Chrysallin. His sister had experienced the same phenomenon, the magic exploding out of her unexpectedly in a moment of extreme stress and panic. Like this boy. And he wondered anew if what he had witnessed back there in the ruins when the boy seemed to lose focus entirely was a form of the catatonia that had claimed Chrys.

Yet he hesitated to make the leap. Reyn Frosch had to be an Ohmsford; no one else possessed the wishsong powers. And given there was only one Ohmsford still unaccounted for—his grandfather Railing’s twin brother—Reyn must be descended from Redden. Meaning he and Chrys shared the same bloodline, of twin brothers, but each born to a different one. Nothing about their lives was the same, yet there had to be a link somewhere that explained why the magic would affect each in the same way. Yet the secret behind that link might be found not in their lives but in the history of the magic itself.

“Why would Arcannen take Reyn with him to Sterne?” Avelene was asking.

“I think he wants his help against Usurient. I think that is what he has wanted all along. Arcannen has been teaching him how to manage his magic. He’s been doing this by having him practice with it. He has him create life-like images and then move them around. That’s what he was doing back at Arbrox when he was threatened by those men and their animals.” She hesitated. “But I’m not sure if he’s doing what he says.”