Then the men saw Feir and both rose. Antoninus called something out, but though he was only forty paces away now, Feir couldn’t hear him.

Feir walked straight to the wall of magic. Whatever clever magic he’d used to get into the Wood, it obviously hadn’t been clever enough. He was alive only by the forbearance of whatever it was that lived here. So Feir walked straight through the magic. It slid around him, and for a moment, he could swear something in the Wood felt amused.

Then he was out.

“What are you doing here?” he asked Antoninus Wervel.

Antoninus laughed. “You escape the Wood, something no mage has done in seven centuries, and you ask what I’m doing?”

“Do you have my sword?” Garuwashi demanded.

Feir was carrying a pack strapped to his back that he hadn’t been carrying when he entered the Wood. “Him first,” he said.

Antoninus lifted his kohled eyebrows, but said, “I came with a delegation from Sho’cendi to recover Curoch. After the Battle of Pavvil’s Grove, the delegation turned back. They were sure that if Curoch had been present in such a desperate battle with so many magi and meisters present, that someone would have tried to use it. No one did, so they decided to backtrack and follow other leads. The truth is, I don’t think Lord Lucius trusts everyone in our delegation. He and I don’t care for each other, but he knows where my loyalties lie, so he released me. So now it’s your turn, Feir. Did you recover Ceur’caelestos?”

The Modaini was too damn smart. Feir could tell that the man had put together Feir, who’d held one nearly mythical sword, with the appearance of another nearly mythical sword and found no coincidence.

Feir opened the pack. There was a note inside with directions and instructions, written awkwardly, as if the hand writing it had been writing in an unfamiliar language. Feir read it quickly and remembered bits and pieces of what had happened in the Wood. Setting the note aside, he pulled a hilt out of his pack—a hilt only, with no sword. It was a perfect replica of the one on Ceur’caelestos, and it would fit Lantano Garuwashi’s sheath perfectly. As long as the sa’ceurai didn’t draw his sword, no one would ever know.

“What is this?” Lantano Garuwashi demanded.

“It’s three months,” Feir said.

“What?” Garuwashi asked.