“No, it’s true—all of it!” The boy looked seriously offended. “How could I make up something like that? Oh, I forgot. At the house, when that ghost thing appeared looking like Mistral, it said something about Elfstones and that she had them hidden and that Phryne should come and get them. I think that was why we went to the Ashenell, although it might just have been because Phryne wanted to find her grandmother. She was really worried about her.”

“So Phryne disappeared?” Panterra pressed. “She vanished just like that? Didn’t say or do anything?”

The boy nodded. “She was right there in front of me one moment, walking under the arch, and then she was gone. I looked all over. I even walked under the arch like she did. Nothing happened. I waited all day for her to come back, and she didn’t. So I came here.”

Tasha reached out and ruffled his hair. “You did the right thing. Too bad we don’t know more about where she’s disappeared to, though. Then we would know where to start looking.”

“The Ashenell,” Prue said at once. “That’s where.”

“Then why didn’t Xac find her?” Tenerife asked in confusion. “He said he was there all day and didn’t see her again.”

“Not in the Ashenell. Below the Ashenell. She’s gone down into the lower regions, just as Kirisin and Simralin Belloruus did all those years ago. She’s gone down there to meet with Mistral. Don’t you know the story?”

Blank looks greeted her question, even from Panterra, who had no idea what she was talking about. She gave them an exasperated look.

“All right, then—listen. Five hundred years ago, the Elfstones were in the possession of the dead, specifically Pancea Rolt Gotrin, an Elven sorceress long dead but very powerful even so. Her shade met with Kirisin and struck a bargain with him. If she gave him the blue Elfstones, the ones they called the seeking-Stones, he would agree to do what he could to persuade the Elven living to seek out and make use of the magic they had lost or forgotten since the days of Faerie. That was how the Elfstones ended up in the hands of the Belloruus family over the years. Mistral must have had them last and told Phryne about them.”

“And then sent her underground beneath the Ashenell burial grounds to retrieve them?” Tenerife demanded, clearly disbelieving the whole thing. He shook his head. “Why would she drag her granddaughter down there? Why not just come back up and give them to her? What would Mistral Belloruus be doing down there, anyway? How would she even find the way?”