"Tihko," Chane replied.

Toret's voice became urgent. "Has it found something?"

"In a moment, we will know."

Pulling aside the curtain, Chane flipped the latch and the two halves of the window opened inward like the doors of a portal. He opened the outer shutters as well and, right before him, a large black raven landed upon the windowsill.

Shifting from foot to foot, flexing its wings, it tilted its head. Chane reached out the back of his hand, and the raven hopped onto his wrist.

"What did it see?" Toret asked.

"One moment, master, if you please." Chane turned his full attention upon the bird.

Its name meant "silence." With Tihko close, Chane felt tingling warmth from the small brass urn hanging upon its chain beneath his shirt. He closed his eyes, blotting out all awareness as he cleared his thoughts. Tihko's return signified that his familiar had accomplished something of the task given to it.

The bird's feet tightened on Chane's wrist.

Chane felt the air rush around him, and in the dark of his closed eyes, a slowly moving vision came into sight. He forced Tihko's small mind to focus until a glimmer in the shadows of its memory began to appear.

Seeing through Tihko's eyes was still novel, though a bird's memory was not particularly organized or clear. Bela always looked so small from above. Soaring over the night-shrouded rooftops, Chane watched the empty roads and streets through Tihko's vision. There were few people about, and even so, he looked down from a great height that rendered them as little more than isolated spots of color and movement among the pools of light from street lanterns.

Recognition…

The city lunged upward toward Chane and his stomach lurched.

He floated in the soft breeze at twice the height of the tallest building. In his mind, Chane saw the central castle walls upslope and to his left. It was enough for him to know he glided over a lower-southside merchant district inside the middle ring wall.

From above, he saw pale hair, too pale for that of most humans. Chane's field of vision passed above the figure striding down the street. There was a golden tint to the figure's skin, and it was male. The man lifted his hands and began tying something around his head that hid his hair from view.

The vision lurched, and Chane's view pointed briefly toward the starlit night sky before leveling off again into the northern distance of the city. This was all Tihko had seen and why the bird had returned.

Chane opened his eyes, and Tihko shifted fitfully on his arm.

"Well?" Toret asked. "Did it find anything or not?"

"Perhaps," Chane said quietly. "It may be the half-elf, or perhaps another full-blood. Their kind are scarce in the land, but there is an elven ship moored on the harbor's far side. Perhaps this one came with it. Nothing is certain, other than that it was a male with elven blood."

"Where was he?" Toret insisted. "What was he wearing? What was he doing?"

Chane shrugged. "In the lower-southside merchant district. The man was walking down a main street. I did not see where he came from or was going, or what he was wearing. He tied something around his head, perhaps a scarf, and that was all Tihko saw."

Chane watched Toret walk aimlessly about the room, the brow of his slightly wide head furrowed. He suddenly stopped and passed one hand lightly over the side of his chest as if feeling for something.

"It has to be," Toret muttered. "That damn half-breed… but how did they know I was here?"

"How did who know?" Chane asked.

For a moment, Toret seemed not to hear, and then he looked up at Chane.

"I'll explain," Toret answered. "But right now, get that bird back out there before dawn, and have it find where that half-blood is sleeping."

Chane opened the window again and settled Tihko on the ledge. The bird cocked its head, watching him with one eye. Chane focused his thoughts into its mind, reinforcing the image of the white-haired man and urging the bird out again to find and, this time, watch until dawn drew near.

Tihko lifted from the ledge in a black flutter of feathers. Chane barely resecured the window when the clop of pouting footsteps came from the parlor's archway.

"Well, I'm changed," Sapphire exclaimed. "Now will you take me out of here?"

She now wore lavender silk of a plainer cut, and though the bodice was not cleaved quite as severely as before, there was still an ample display of elevated flesh. Toret hesitated as if he could not tell whether the change was an improvement.

"That's better," he finally announced. "But you'll have to wait. Chane and I have work to do, and neither of us can escort you right now."

Sapphire's mouth dropped open. Before she could screech another word, Chane cut in.

"Perhaps if I acquire a coach," he suggested, "to take her directly to a chosen place, Mistress Sapphire could take her ease." Chane turned a firm glance toward Sapphire. "Provided she does not leave the establishment until we join her later."

Toret appeared about to disagree.

"We must focus on the task at hand," Chane interjected. "And the mistress cannot assist us."

He raised one eyebrow with intent, hoping his master had enough wits to take the hint.

Toret looked confused for a moment and then hesitantly nodded. "Yes, I suppose that's all right."

Sapphire lunged across the room to drape herself around Toret, but she cast Chane a coy glance.

"The Rowanwood. I want to go to the Rowanwood," she said as she bit gently on Toret's ear, though her gaze never left Chane.

Chane returned a curt bow of his head. One dull wit at a time was enough to deal with.

As Toret sat upon the cellar's dirt floor holding the palm-sized brass urn Chane had placed in his hands, a constant, subtle shiver ran through his small frame. It wasn't the cold, nor the large gray wolf that lay muzzled, bound, and chained to the floor in front of him, nor even the impending spell, ritual, or whatever Chane would perform upon him and the animal. Clinging to his own new existence made him quake.

Somewhere in the city were the half-breed and that pasty-skinned bitch of a dhampir.

He was certain of this, regardless that Chane's familiar hadn't gotten a clear look at the white-haired man. But what could have possibly led them to Bela to hunt him down? He'd been careful, though Sapphire was sometimes hard to restrain. She was still young in this afterlife and would learn in time. He was sure of it. And Chane was far too exacting and elitist to have done anything to attract attention. Now the hunter and her companion had come to track him down and send him into dust and ashes with Teesha and Rashed.

He wouldn't run again, as he had from Miiska. He had too much to lose. It'd been over two moons since his last fight with the half-elf, and still he felt the lingering bite of a broken stiletto blade cutting away at his insides.

One good turn for another.

Toret remembered the sharp thrust of thin metal at both his sides, as the half-blood's blades jammed up into his chest cavity. He felt and heard the snap of his own ribs, as both weapons were wrenched downward and the right one broke off inside his body.

"One good turn for another," Toret whispered.

"What was that?" Chane asked. He was grinding something with a mortar and pestle.

"Nothing," Toret answered. "Let's finish this. We have more preparations to make."

After Sapphire's departure, Toret had explained to him the nature of these people for which the raven now searched. Chane listened carefully to every word. Toret tried to impress upon him the dhampir's strength, the dog's savage nature, and the cunning of this half-blood with his hidden blades.

The cellar was as wide and almost as long as the house above it. To one side were stone steps leading up, and the opposite supported the weapons rack for training. Beside this, they'd removed masonry and excavated a passage directly into the city's sewers. At the cellar's back wall behind him was the door to Chane's private room. Toret's tall servant preferred this lower, dark and dank quarters to either of the free rooms on the second floor.