“I can try,” Giselle replied, and spun up tenuous little tendrils of Air Magic, sending them wafting out into the woods—away from the direction of the ruins—bearing the message that she would like, please, for something friendly to do her a favor in return for another. Meanwhile Rosamund had gotten down on the ground and had placed one hand on the earth, presumably doing some “calling” of her own.

Giselle actually had not expected to get any response, since she had seen absolutely no sign of Air Elementals lurking anywhere since they had entered the deeper forest, but it was she who was answered first.

Not a night-sylph, but three of the smaller, shyer creatures she knew as “wisps.” Not the more dangerous sort, that lured the unwary into marshes to drown, but the ones that could only be seen faintly, at night, at a distance, and vanished if they sensed they were being watched.

Up close, they were tiny, thin, sexless creatures floating in the middle of barely visible orbs of light. They approached her cautiously, and hovered just in front of her face.

?

Not an actual sentence or even a thought, just a general sense of inquiry.

“My friend, the Earth Master, fears there may be dangerous things sleeping in the human ruins,” she breathed, being very careful not to startle them.

Again, the reply she got was not in words. It was more the feeling of, “Of course there are dangerous things. And?”

“Would you stand watch and wake us if one of our humans is in danger from them?” she asked. “I can offer this—” and she spun up a ball of Air Magic for them.

!

They gathered around it, yearning for it, not daring to touch it, glancing from it to her and back again.

And the feeling she got from them was, “Is that all you want? In return for this?”

“Yes, this is all I want. Watch the night through. If any of the humans here are endangered by anything in the ruins, wake me.”

The three little things turned toward her and nodded emphatically. She released the ball of Air Magic to them, and they gathered around it, for all the world like three little moths drinking from a drop of nectar. The ball contracted, then vanished, and all three of them were glowing visibly brighter. They hovered in front of her again, all three bowed at the waist, and then flitted to the top of the vardo, where they took up a posture of watchfulness.