Brenden got to his feet. "Well, I should be going, too. You all need your sleep."

"I'll walk you home," Leesil said. "Just let me put the cards away. You should see the profits, Magiere. Everyone was in such a good mood that I fleeced them a little."

"I thought you were tired," Brenden said. "You don't need to walk with me."

"The air will do me good. It's a bit stuffy in here."

Magiere knew Leesil too well to believe he wanted some night air. He must have been watching Brenden's mood as well.

"You both go on," she said. "We'll clean up in the morning."

Brenden looked at her helplessly, as if he wanted to say something, but then he turned and stepped out the door.

As Leesil followed the blacksmith, he paused at the door. "I won't be long," he said.

Magiere merely nodded, and closed the door. Then she was alone with Caleb.

She found the old man in the kitchen, quietly washing the stew pot.

"Just leave that," she said. "Should I carry Rose up for you?"

"No, Miss," he responded. His expression was always so calm and composed. "I can bring her. You should get some rest."

"Are you all right?" she asked, with an unusual desire for a real answer.

"I will be," he said. "You know most of the townsfolk are grateful, don't you? No matter what the cost."

"Yes, grateful," she repeated. "The desperate are always grateful."

He looked at her quizzically, but did not speak.

"How many people knew, really knew their town was a home for a band of undeads?" she asked him. "And how did they know? How did you know?"

Again, he seemed further puzzled by her words. "People don't simply disappear without a trace in a town the size of Miiska, especially people like my daughter and Master Dunction. Before you came, a body with holes in the neck or throat would be found now and then. It didn't happen often. Sometimes a season or two would pass between such happenings. But word traveled quickly. I think most of the townsfolk believed something unnatural plagued us. Wasn't that the way with most villages you served in the past?"

The clean lines of his aging, questioning face pulled at her heart. She'd never had a father to speak with, and a desire to tell Caleb everything suddenly gripped her. But she knew doing so would only hurt him further. His wife was dead, and he believed her sacrifice had been made to help the great "hunter of the undead." He needed to believe that Beth-rae's life was worthy of sacrifice for the freedom of Miiska, so that no one else had to endure the disappearance of a daughter or the loss of a spouse. Magiere would not be so selfish as to destroy his illusion in order to ease her own conscience.

"Yes," she said. "But for me, this is over, Caleb. I just want to run the tavern with you and Leesil now."

A mild gust of air hit them both as the kitchen door banged open against the wall.

"Over?" a near-angry voice said from the doorway. "And why exactly do you think that?"

Welstiel stepped in like some lord invading a peasant's home on his lands. Dressed and groomed, as always, his striking countenance was concerned, almost agitated.

"Caleb," Magiere said. "You take Rose and go upstairs."

The old man hesitated, but then he left the kitchen.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded of her new visitor.

Somehow, this seemed an odd place for a conversation with Welstiel, standing among pots, pans, and dried onions hanging on the walls. Though they had spoken in Brenden's yard, in her mind, she now saw him always as part of his eccentric room at The Velvet Rose, surrounded by his books and orbs. Only two small candles and one lamp illuminated the kitchen. The white patches at his temples stood out vividly.

"I'm wondering if you're truly as much of a fool as all the other simpletons in this town," he answered, voice deep and hard. "I expected that you would be planning your next steps, yet you served ale all night, celebrating some illusory victory."

"What are you talking about?" she asked. "I'm tired of your little half-mysteries and concealing observations."

"How could you possibly assume the vampires here have been destroyed? Have you seen bodies? Have you counted those destroyed?"

A cold trickle of fear ran down her spine.

"Leesil burned the warehouse, and it caved in. Nothing could survive that."

"You are a dhampir!" he said angrily. "You received a fatal wound last night, but now you stand here, whole again. Their bodies heal even faster than yours. They are like the black roaches beneath these floorboards." He stepped closer. "Imagine what they can endure."

Magiere leaned over and gripped the aging oak table that Beth-rae had once chopped vegetables on. She felt fatigue weigh her down until she had to sit on the stool. This could not be happening. It should all be over with.

"I may not have seen any bodies, but you haven't seen any undeads roaming the streets either. Have you?"

The flesh of his cheekbones pulled back. "Look to your friends."

He turned and quickly disappeared out the door into the darkness.

"Wait!" Magiere shouted.

She ran after him through the kitchen door, but the backside of the tavern that faced the forest between the building and the sea was empty. In a moment of crystal clarity, only one thought registered.

"Leesil."

Magiere bolted back through the kitchen to the bar and grabbed her falchion.

As Brenden and Leesil walked down the streets of Miiska in silence, Brenden marveled at what a mass of contradictions this half-elf was: one moment a cold-hearted fighter and the next a mother hen. Leesil wore a green scarf tied around his head which covered the slight points of his ears. He now resembled a slender human with slightly slanted, amber-brown eyes. Brenden wondered about the scarf.

"Why do you sometimes wear that?" he asked, motioning toward Leesil's head.

"Wear what?" the half-elf said. Then he touched his forehead. "Oh, that. I used to wear it all the time. When Magiere and I were on the ga… when we were hunting, we didn't like calling attention to ourselves. She thought it best to blend in until we'd decided to take on a job. There aren't too many of my kind in or around Stravina, so I kept my ears covered. It doesn't matter here, but old habits die hard. Besides, it keeps my hair out of my face."

They talked of such simple, small things along the way. Except for a few drunken sailors, and a guard here and there openly patrolling the streets, no one else was about. Soon enough, the two of them approached Brenden's home.

Leesil finally asked, "Are you all right?"

Answering such a question was difficult for Brenden, but he had no wish to hurt his friend.

"After my sister's death, I was so enraged by Ellinwood's conduct that anger consumed me. Then you came. While we were searching, fighting, seeking revenge, I had a sense of purpose. Now that it's all over, I feel like I should bury Eliza… begin to mourn. But she's already in her grave. I don't know what to do."

Leesil nodded. "I know. I think I've known all day." He paused. "Listen to me. Tomorrow, you'll get up and go visit Eliza and say good-bye. Then you'll come here, open the smith's shop and work all day. At night, you'll come to The Sea Lion, have supper, and talk to friends. I swear that after a few such days, the world will begin to make sense again."

Brenden choked once and looked away.

"Thank you," he said, needing to say something, anything. "I'll see you tomorrow night."

The half-elf was already walking away down the street, as if he too felt a loss of appropriate words.

"If you run out of horses to shoe, you can help me fix that damned roof."

Brenden watched his friend's long-legged strides until Leesil turned a corner, and then he went inside his small empty cottage. Only sparse furniture and decor remained, as he had bundled all of Eliza's things and stored them away. Such items were too painful to see every day. A candle she made last summer rested on the table, but he didn't light it, preferring to undress in the dark. As he began untucking his shirt, beautiful strains of a wordless song drifted in the window and filled his ears.