“No, there’s more. But first I want your promise that if I tell you what I know, you won’t take me to Arborlon.”

“We have friends in Arborlon,” Pan pointed out. “If someone wants to harm you, that’s your problem. No one wants to harm us.”

The young man looked disgusted. “You don’t know anything. You don’t even understand what’s happening. I do. Make the promise, and I’ll tell you.”

Pan looked at Prue for guidance. She shrugged. “I don’t believe him. Besides, we have to go to Arborlon. That’s where Phryne is. What happens to this one isn’t important.”

“You heard her,” Pan said to their prisoner. “Keep what you know to yourself.”

He turned away, Prue going with him.

This time their prisoner didn’t call them back.

PAN SLEPT LATE the following morning, not coming awake until the sun had crested the mountains and daybreak was long past. It might have been his exhaustion from the previous day’s flight and subsequent battle or the deep stillness of the meres or even the way the sunlight was absorbed by shadows and gloom as it tried to pass through the thick canopy of the trees that kept him sleeping longer than he normally would. But the result was the same—he was the last to wake and not at all unhappy about it.

He had kept watch while Prue slept deep into the night before waking her to take his place, and she was sitting where he had left her, eyes on their prisoner. The bound man was staring back.

“You’re blind,” he was saying to Prue. “I didn’t see that last night. But how can you be blind? You fought back like you could see me perfectly. You shouldn’t have been able to get away from me, but you did. How?”

The girl ignored him. “Morning, Pan. Breakfast in a few minutes.”

She set about pulling out bread, dried fruit, and a little cheese from her backpack, and then poured them cups of water from the pouch. Pan blinked awake as he sat watching her, yawning. “You should have woken me.”

“I should have done nothing of the sort.”

“You can see, can’t you,” their prisoner called out, unwilling to drop the subject. “You look like you can’t, but you can. Who are you? You aren’t what you seem, I know that much.”

“You aren’t, either,” Prue called back to him. “Here you are,” she said to Pan, handing him his food and water.