"I didn't stop by for a social call," she said abruptly. "You either know something, or think you do, about the murders and disappearances in this town. My tavern was attacked last night and one of the caretakers is dead."

He nodded slightly. "I know. I have heard."

"Already?"

"Word travels quickly in Miiska, especially if you know what to listen for."

"Don't play coy with me, Welstiel," she snapped, stepping farther into the room. "I'm not in the mood."

"Then stop denying what your own eyes see and begin accepting reality," he answered back, just as harshly.

"What does that mean? What does any of this have to do with me?"

He put the book down and leaned forward, pointing at her neck.

"Those amulets hidden beneath your clothes and the falchion you usually carry are telltale signs. If I were a vampire, I'd hunt you down the moment you set foot on my territory."

She blew a breath out her nose. "Don't start all that again."

But her voice pretended a confidence she no longer felt. If she truly believed that nothing unnatural was happening in this town, then why had she come to Welstiel, who spoke of such things?

He studied her face as if it were the cover of one of his books, hoping to catch a hint of what lay behind it.

"You can't escape this. They see you as a hunter and will therefore hunt you first. Take the battle to them."

She no longer had the strength nor inclination to argue and sat down slowly on the foot of his bed.

"How? How do I find them?"

"Use what is already available to you. Use your dog and the facts you've gathered. Use the skill of your half-elf and the blacksmith's strength."

"Chap?" she said. "What can he do?"

"Do not be dense. Let him hunt. Haven't you at least figured that part by now?"

He was mocking her, and she felt a sudden edge of hate for his superior manner. How could he possibly know so many things that she did not?

"If you know so much, then why haven't you hunted these creatures down?"

"Because I am not you," he answered calmly.

She stood up again, pacing. "I don't even know where to look. How do I start?"

Without warning, his expression became closed, as if he were a living book suddenly tired of producing information. He got up, went to the door, opened it, and repeated, "Use the dog."

Her fear concerning her fate threatened to emerge once more as the tangle of coincidences grew more entwined. How did Chap fit into all this?

Welstiel's opening of the door announced the end of her visit. Besides, he was apparently strong willed, and any further pushing on her part might lead to alienating the only outside source of information she'd found so far. She stepped into the hall and then turned back to him. "How do I kill them?"

"You already know. You've practiced it for years." Without another word, he closed the door. Magiere made her way quickly back up the stairs, and hurried through the lobby, glancing once at Loni on her way out of the foyer. For all Welstiel's cryptic discussions, only two points truly bothered her. First, to the best of her knowledge, Welstiel had never even seen Chap, but he knew a great deal about the animal. And second, he either knew or pretended to know aspects of her past that she did not. Though that last issue troubled her some, she'd never really cared about her past. There was little worth remembering.

In the years before Leesil, all she had was loneliness, which turned to hardness, which turned to cold hatred of anyone superstitious. A mother she'd never known was long dead, and her father had abandoned her to a life among cruel peasants who punished her for being spawned by him. Why would she want to remember such things? Why would she want to look back? There was nothing worth concern in the past.

As she walked quickly toward home, she noticed the sun had dropped a bit lower. She suddenly felt an urgency to get back to Leesil. For all his cryptic words, Welstiel was right about one thing. They had to give up their defensive position and go after their enemies-and they had only a few hours to prepare before sundown.

Sitting on his bed in his room, in complete solitude, Leesil decided that he hated uncertainty more than anything else, perhaps even more than sobriety. At the moment, he was as sober as a virtuous deity, and that condition gave him clarity-another distasteful state of affairs.

Unlike Magiere, he'd neither bathed nor slept and the odors of blood, smoke, and red wine permeated his nostrils. He knew he should go downstairs and wash, but something kept him here in his room.

Brenden had left the tavern for his home, promising to return soon with appropriate weapons. Caleb had taken Rose into their room several hours ago so he could speak with her. He had closed the door and not come out. Chap still lay by Beth-rae's body, which Caleb had carefully cleaned and laid out in the kitchen in case anyone stopped by to pay respects. And Magiere had disappeared sometime during the afternoon.

Leesil was alone and sober. He was not sure which of those conditions he disliked more.

He went over to a small chest Caleb had given him for storage. Since Constable Ellinwood's examination of the murder scene-or lack of it-Leesil had taken a few private moments to remove Ratboy's dagger from under his clothes, clean Chap's blood from the blade, and store it away. He now pulled it from the chest, careful to grab it by the blade and not the handle. Even while cleaning it, he'd been careful not to wash the handle, for that was the one place he could be certain Ratboy had touched. He would have need of any lingering trace of presence the dusty little invader had left behind.

And once again, uncertainty gnawed at him. Dropping to his knees, he pried up two floorboards that he'd loosened the first night they'd arrived. A long, rectangular box lay inside where he'd hidden it. Even touching the container made him shiver with revulsion, but he never once in his life considered throwing it away. He pulled out the box and opened it.

Inside lay weapons and tools of unmatched elven craftsmanship, given to him by his mother on his seventeenth birthday. They were not what any boy would have wanted as a gift. Two stilettos as thin as darning needles rested beneath a garroting wire with narrow metal handles. Alongside them was a curved blade sharp enough to cut bone with minimal effort. Hidden inside the lid behind a folding cover was a set of thin metal picks that in his hands could unlatch any lock. Just inanimate objects, but the sight of them almost drove him down to the wine barrel and his cup.

He closed his eyes and breathed deep, long, and hard for several moments. Drunk, he was no use to Magiere. But the close proximity of these items and his current sobriety allowed in a rush of memories he'd fought for half his life to keep at bay. Eyes still shut, he could feel the pain.

Rich green shades and the enormous trees of his birthplace appeared. So beautiful. Magiere had never traveled north as far as Doyasag, his place of birth, and he'd never bothered describing it to her. Joining the game with her had been the start of his new life, his erasure of past deeds. He'd left it all behind the night they met.

The fresh smells and scenery of his homeland were merely a painted canvas that hid a mass of power-hungry men who struggled for domination. Instead of being ruled by a king, the country was held by a warlord named Darmouth, who saw treason all around nun. Warlords who rule need spies and other hidden servants, and Leesil was fifteen years old and nearly seven years into his training before realizing his father and mother did not simply work for Lord Darmouth. Darmouth owned them.

Leesil's mother's tan skin and golden hair, her exotic elven heritage, made her a useful weapon as she created the illusion of a tall but delicate girl or a rare foreign beauty. His father, for his part, could blend into the shadows as if made of dust in the air, and his passing left no mark and made no sound. They betrayed whomever they were told to betray and killed whomever they were told to assassinate. And they taught Leesil everything they knew. It was the family craft and art, and he was the family's only inheritor.