She opened her eyes, turning her face toward the sound, but Lily stood blocking her way. Wynn remembered Chap briefly touching heads with the white female. He had somehow told Lily to keep her behind.

"You must let me pass," Wynn whispered, uncertain how to make Lily understand.

Chap had communicated somehow with this dog. With Wynn's new ability to hear him and perhaps even communicate withhim, she wondered if she might do the same with Lily.

She inched forward, trying to pick up any thoughts from Lily. She did not believe Chap could read her own verbal thoughts-when they communicated, she spoke aloud, and he projected words into her mind.

"Lily," she said. "Can you understand me?"

Lily stared at her intently, but the white dog seemed only to be acting as guardian, and Wynn heard nothing in her mind as she did with Chap.

Wynn closed her eyes, this time trying to reach inside Lily's mind. There must be some way to connect and express her desperate need to reach Chap! But she felt nothing and saw nothing. Lily was not likeChap.

They could not speak to each other.

Wynn grabbed for Lily. The dog hopped away and spun about to face her again. Lily's shift was in the same general direction as the sound of chattering branches.

Wynn might not be able to navigate the forest-but Lily could. The dog betrayed Chap's path in every attempt to keep Wynn from following. Wynn tottered forward and grabbed for Lily again.

This time Lily did not hop away. She turned with ears perked to look through the trees. Wynn settled her hand on Lily's back.

A shudder ran through the dog's slender body, but her attention remained fixed toward the sound they both heard.

"Chap," Wynn whispered and pushed Lily forward. Had the dog heard Wynn use that name enough to know it? Wynn repeated it, again and again.

Lily took onestep, her crystalline eyes focused off into the forest, and whined.

Wynn could see Lily was afraid, but she shoved the dog forward.

Lily stepped slowly at first, weaving from tree to tree and peering around each before moving on. Wynn followed the white majay-hi as her only guide.

Chap's awareness sharpened to the presence of his kin. Within leaf and needle, branch and bark, and the air and earth, he felt their presence-their strained anticipation.

He let them wait.

Finally the breeze snapped sharply. The rustle of leaves was laced with the clatter of branches.

The elven mother is not important. Take your charges from here, and keep them in ignorance. Regain your faith in us.

Again no answer for Leesil's concern-and too much denial of Nein'a.

Even if Leesil fulfilled this blind scheme of his mother and her dissidents, why would Chap's kin not want such an Enemy to fall?

In his mind, he found no memory of his kin's concern for Leesil-only for Magiere.

From the moment of Chap's birth, he had known what to do concerning Magiere, and that a half-blood boy would be the means to that end. But he knew nothing of this hidden and evasive concern over Leesil and Nein'a.

Taking flesh was not the cause of this.

It was not the failing of his mortal mind to keep what he would have known among his own kind. Something more had happened in the infinitesimal instant between his place among his kin and being born into this world.

Why will you not speak of Leesil?

Only silence.

Why can I not remember this?

Unseen small creatures scurried among the branches and made dark spaces between them flex like mouths with lips of leaves and needles.

You are flesh, frail and faltering. Your heart and earthly senses weaken your purpose. It is little more than what we feared.

Chap cringed-but not from their admonishment. He remembered the first part of this journey as he had tried to lead Leesil to his mother.

In the deep winter of the Broken Range, in cold and hunger, Chap's kin had ignored his pleas for aid. Only the high-pitched whistle of an unknown savior had led him and those in his care to the caves. His kin had done nothing to save them. Even with Magiere at risk among the elves, thesean'Croan, the Fay had remained silent.

Now they showed themselves only to bar Chap's way to Nein'a.

What better way to keep Magiere from the hands of the Enemy than to allow her to die?

Whether in those mountains or among a hostile people, it would simply be her fate and none of the Fay's doing.

How badly his kin wished to keep Leesil from his mother. Would they allow Leesil to die as well, so long as it served some purpose Chap could not remember?

And why could he not recall the answers? Such vital knowledge could not have just slipped from him.

Chap closed his eyes. His spirit screamed like a wail that shook his body.

Betrayers… deceivers… you took this from me!

His own kin.They had cut his memories like a blade severing flesh and bone. They had ripped out pieces of him, tearing away any awareness they did not want him to have.

All in the moment he had chosen to be born.

Chap opened his eyes and cast his gaze about the clearing, looking for something to rend and tear.

He froze at the sight of Wynn clinging to a tree beside Lily.

The sage's olive-toned face was a mask of horror, and streams of tears ran down her cheeks as she stared at him.

Wynn heard the entire exchange. In communion with his kin, even some of Chap's inner words to himself had chattered softly in her head.

He was supposed to be one of them-a Fay.

Through him, Wynn had come to believe that whatever they truly were, they worked for a worthy purpose. Chap had been sent to save Magiere-and Leesil as well, in some way.

But the Fay had used Chap. They had left him and all those with him to die. Even her, as she dangled over that gorge, half frozen in a blizzard, while the others tried to save her.

The wind died instantly into chilling silence.

Chap's voice rose like a shout in Wynn's thoughts.

Run!

Chap bolted straight at Wynn as the air churned with growing force.

She had been listening-a mortal eavesdropping upon the Fay.

Mulch and twigs swept up to join leaves torn from above in a growing, spinning circle of wind. Debris pelted Chap from all sides, obscuring his sight. He fought to stay on his feet and keep Wynn and Lily in sight.

She is an innocent!

No answer came.

Lily snatched the leg of Wynn's breeches and pulled on the sage. Wynn toppled to the ground, shielding her face as sheared-off branches battered against her.

Chap heard an aching creak of wood and the tearing of earth. Within the crackle of snapping branches, his kin shouted in outrage.

Abomination!

He shook off their malice and then realized it was not aimed at him. A birch tree at the clearing's edge teetered toward Wynn.

Earth around its trunk heaved upward. Deep roots tore free, slinging sod and mulch in the air. The birch tipped and arced downward, ripping through the branches of other trees as it fell directly toward Wynn.

As Chap tried to run toward her, something dark and long whipped at him in the corner of his vision. He swerved and ducked.

Wynn grabbed Lily's neck and scrambled with kicking legs. Dog and sage rolled away in a tangle as the birch's trunk slammed to the earth. The impact sent a shudder through the ground. Lily yelped and Wynn cried out as both vanished beneath the tree's leaves and flailing limbs.

He charged for the downed tree with the wind's roar filling his ears.

Something heavy and hard lashed the whole side of his body. The world flashed in a painful white… and then black.

Chap's vision cleared, and he lay slumped on the ground. Leaves, stripped from the birch's branches in the wind, churned in a vortex that filled the clearing.