She held her ground a moment longer to see if anything else was going to happen, but after a few minutes in which nothing did, she moved ahead once more. Shadows layered the cavern floor in strange shapes, elongated and twisted in the bits and pieces of light, and she could have sworn that some of them moved. But she could find nothing living in the mix of light and dark, and even the sources of the whispering refused to reveal themselves. She walked alone, down through the tombs, down through the shadows, down to the edge of the green, still waters of the lake.

There she stopped, waiting.

Phryne, a voice called out to her.

Even though she had been expecting something to happen, she nearly jumped out of her skin. She wheeled right and left, searching for the speaker, the sound of her name echoing all through the chamber so that it was impossible to trace.

I am here, child.

And there was Mistral. Her grandmother stood next to a huge stone marker not twenty feet away, wrapped in her favorite cloak, the one into which she had woven impressions of the flowers of her gardens. She looked diminished standing in the shadow of the marker, a tiny figure, frail and old, her years a weight upon her shoulders.

She also looked dead. The faint light of the torches passed right through her, revealing her transparency, her changed state of being. She could no longer be seen as one of the living, even by Phryne, who very much wanted her to be. Whatever had happened aboveground, she had crossed over into the spirit world, her life come to an end.

Phryne gave a low moan of dismay and felt tears spring to her eyes. “Oh, Grandmother, no,” she whispered.

Her grandmother made a placating gesture. I know you are disappointed not to find me still among the living. But I am as you see me, my life complete. I was alive when I made the avatar I hoped would bring you to me. I was alive when I made my escape from my home. But there were minions of Isoeld waiting for me, sent to kill me and take from me the Elfstones. She couldn’t know for certain I had them, but she certainly suspected. Her creatures would find them on me or find them when they searched the cottage.

She sighed, a deep exhalation. My faithful friends, my oldsters from so many years, friends and lovers and servants, fought to save me and died doing so. I escaped because of their sacrifice but was grievously injured. Knowing I would die and pass from this world without ever having told you what I must or done what I had promised, I came here, down beneath the Ashenell, down to where the most powerful of the Elven spirit Queens dwells with her people. Here, I could maintain a presence long enough for you to find me.