They had moved off to one side, safely away from their prisoner’s hearing, standing close with heads bent so they were almost touching. The day around them was growing steadily brighter with the rising of the sun, and the meres were shimmering with dampness and shifting mist. Waterbirds called to one another, and in flashes of brightly colored feathers they appeared and then vanished like ghosts in the haze.

“I don’t know,” Panterra admitted. “But I can’t see what lying to us gains him. Why would he make this story up? He knows we’re not going to let him go, even if we don’t take him to Arborlon.”

“He doesn’t sound like he’s lying,” she agreed.

“Even if any part of it is true, we don’t want to risk what might happen if we deliver him to the Queen without first knowing the truth. Even if we go before the High Council and let him tell them what he’s told us, we could be in a lot of danger. The Queen could find a way to turn the story around on us. She could make it out that we’re somehow involved in what’s happened. There’s no reason the High Council should choose to believe us over her. We don’t have any proof about any of this. It’s Bonnasaint’s word against hers, and that’s not enough.”

“But we have to do something. We have to help Phryne, no matter what.”

He nodded. “Well, we can’t help her if we’re locked up with her.”

As if of the same mind, they glanced over at Bonnasaint, who sat staring off into the distance, distracted. “Too bad we can’t leave him here,” Pan muttered.

“If we did, he couldn’t tell his story. Somehow we have to find a way to let him do that, and we have to make the Elves believe it.”

Pan looked at her. “Well, that shouldn’t be too difficult, should it?”

They smiled as one. “So what are we going to do?” she repeated.

He thought about it. He was still shaken by the events of the previous night, still rattled by the idea that someone wanted them dead badly enough to send an assassin. Certainly, Skeal Eile had no love for them. But even so, this seemed a bit drastic. What could killing them gain the Seraphic?

“What if,” he suggested, “just one of us goes into Arborlon to find Tasha and Tenerife and then brings them back for a meeting? Maybe then we will have a better idea about what we should do.”

She cocked her head. “But you swore we wouldn’t let ourselves become separated again. No matter what.”

He looked at her uncomfortably. “I haven’t forgotten. But what choice do we have? We can’t leave Bonnasaint alone. We can’t even leave him unwatched.”