In another life, another time, could she have been just like Li'kan?

"I need privacy," she muttered. With her dagger and falchion, she shoveled in the floor brazier, pincered a glowing crystal between the blades, and headed for the door. She paused there, looking to Leesil.

"Are you coming?" she asked.

He picked up their coats to follow.

"Stay within calling distance," Sgaile advised.

Magiere headed for the closest opening along the corridor's wall. The door was long gone, and she stepped into a bare room, dropping the hot crystal in the rear corner. Leesil laid out one coat near it and began stripping off his hauberk. Magiere considered stopping him.

She didn't want him dropping his guard in this place. But by the time she finished second-guessing, he'd already slumped tiredly against the wall and reached out for her.

Magiere knelt down and collapsed against his chest. Leesil pulled the other coat over both of them as she shivered, but not from the cold.

Many pieces of an ancient mystery had been unearthed in the last half year. The few that made any sense suggested that this "night voice"- il'Samar-had planned her birth. Welstiel hadn't seemed to know even that much, and certainly not that she'd been made to master a horde of undead and serve as general for the return of an ancient enemy.

But it didn't matter. She wouldn't be pushed onto any path but the one she chose.

And as to the rest, all the fragments of the Forgotten they'd stumbled onto, which Wynn's sages so desperately wanted…

"I know what I saw," Leesil whispered. "Maybe it wasn't real. I mean, wasn't really there… but I couldn't have come up with that out of pure fancy."

Magiere tilted her face up. "I believe you, but something isn't right, especially about Chap's claim."

"I'm sick of it all," he whispered and closed his arms tightly around her.

Magiere closed her eyes and just listened to Leesil's slow sigh, feeling his chest rise and fall beneath her cheek.

Leesil was a different story. His birth and training had been planned by dissidents among the Anmaglahk, so that he might fight this coming "enemy" that Most Aged Father feared. Even the an'Croan ancestor spirits had tried to enforce his destiny.

Unlike her, Leesil refused to even talk about it-but denial wouldn't help.

No one could avoid something they wouldn't acknowledge. That was no better than raising one's eyes to the sky and denying that a chasm lay but a few steps ahead in the path. Leesil had to recognize the forced destiny that others were trying to press on him. If not, it might take him anyway in his blindness. At some point, Magiere had to make him see this, if they were to have any chance at all in going their own way.

But for tonight, he'd been through enough-they all had.

The room was empty but for a high window barely within reach of the hot crystal's glow. The light of Leesil's amulet had faded the moment they barred the library doors to the tunnel. Li'kan's shadow animals never reappeared, as if their presence depended upon hers, or upon the white undead's awareness and focus.

Magiere wondered if some unnatural barrier existed between castle and cavern. How else could this place remain so cold resting above that misty chasm of heat?

How long had it been since she and Leesil had had a moment alone?

"I've been thinking," he said suddenly.

She tilted her head back. "About what?"

"Once we get home, we might add Wynn's herb and lentil stew to the menu… maybe her flatbread to serve with the fish chowder. We'll have to move the Faro table closer to the hearth by next autumn. It's too cold by the front window-"

"What?" Magiere grouched, playing along. "We're not blocking half the patrons from getting near the fire."

"They can sit down and play a hand," he countered. "How else am I going to earn any winnings come winter?"

Magiere closed her eyes, listening to him prattle and imagining home and hearth on nights where the most vexing question was what to offer patrons for dinner and why the latest ale shipment was late. She slipped an arm behind Leesil's waist beneath their cloaks.

The headless bodies of undead still lay in the stairway chamber. Below them in the depths, that ancient white thing still waited, though imprisoned in solitude. And its master had somehow wormed into Magiere's dreams.

But all Leesil wanted was to hold her and talk of their tavern-their home-as if nothing had happened at all.

And she let him.

Wynn finished checking Sgaile's dressing, though he grew impatient with her ministrations. The wound was clean, but she still suspected Welstiel's blade had chipped his collarbone.

"No lasting muscle damage… I would guess," she said, "but it will take some time to heal."

Osha leaned against the wall. She had cut off the hem of her elven tunic and used it to bandage his head, but she could do nothing for his pain. At least he was awake and alert, and this was a good sign. Chap's neck was healing, though she worried about infection, considering he had been deeply bitten by two walking corpses.

Sgaile looked directly into Wynn's face.

"I thank you," he said.

She rocked back from knees to her heels and sighed. "I wish I had salve. If we were back at the guild, I could make a poultice against infection."

Sgaile shook his head. "Do not be concerned. It is a clean wound."

She expected a harsh reprimand for running off and getting lost in the night, but Sgaile leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. Perhaps he was just too tired to bother.

Wynn got up and went to the doorway, peering along the dark hallway. A low orange glow spilled from the next doorway ten paces away. She glanced back to Osha.

"You rest," she told him. "I want to check on Magiere and Leesil."

He started to get up. "You cannot go alone."

Strangely, Sgaile did not even stir. Wynn went to push Osha back down. He did not resist but began to argue again.

"Wynn-"

"Chap will come with me-now rest!"

By the time she reached the door, her stomach rolled slightly.

We should leave Magiere and Leesil in peace.

She looked down to find Chap on her heels. "I know."

Where do you think you are going?

Wynn sighed in exasperation. "I cannot leave here without more answers."

She pulled out her cold lamp crystal, rubbed it sharply, and headed off the other way along the corridor. Chap trotted out ahead and stopped in her way.

"Do not tell me you have not thought the same," she whispered. "We cannot leave without knowing what might lie within reach in the library! Who else here, besides me, could find anything of importance in that place?"

Chap's jowls wrinkled, but he finally turned about and headed down the corridor.

We cannot spend all night searching… and you cannot carry much more when we leave, so be judicious in your choices.

"Domin Tilswith would never forgive me if I did not try to bring some of it back."

With what? You do not have your pack, and I doubt the others will want to return here again before we leave these mountains.

"We are not the only ones who came," she answered, "and others brought packs and gear as well."

Chap slowed but did not stop as he glanced back at her with narrowed eyes. By the time they reached the stairway chamber, Wynn knew he was fully aware of what she had in mind.

Black ichors covered the floor around four headless bodies. On their way to the study, Leesil and Sgaile had tossed the heads off down the columned corridor, thinking it best to separate the heads from the bodies. They had no lamp oil with which to cremate the corpses.

Wynn swallowed hard.

Well… get on with it.

She shot Chap a seething glare and swallowed again.