Elven Hunters doing guard duty looked them over as they ascended the various levels of their climb, but let them pass. One or two greeted Xac by name, and he responded with a word or a wave but never anything more. At the top, they left the Elfitch and went into the Carolan Gardens, working their way along the pathways that crisscrossed the flower beds, trellis vines, and hedgerows to reach the city proper.

As they passed out of the gardens and crossed a bordering lawn toward the city roadways, Xac Wen said to Prue, “What happened to your eyes? And don’t tell me that it has anything to do with being in disguise.”

“I lost some of my vision,” she said. “Just a part of it. That’s why my eyes look like this.”

“What part did you lose?”

“The part that sees colors. I can’t see anything but shades of gray anymore.”

“How did that happen?”

“Magic. I traded off being able to see colors for having the use of instincts that are valuable in protecting myself and those with me.”

“What sort of instincts?”

“Ones that let me sense danger when it is near so that I can be ready for it and maybe avoid it.”

The boy studied her for a long moment in silence and then shook his head. “That explanation is worse than the one you gave before. I’ll ask you again later.”

At one point, they encountered an Elf whom Xac Wen knew, a young woman close to Pan’s age. Xac stopped her and asked for word of Phryne. He was told there was no news of the Princess, that since her escape she had not been seen.

“Just wanted to be sure she hadn’t returned from wherever she disappeared to,” he advised his companions as they left the young woman and walked on.

“She might have returned and not been seen,” Prue suggested.

The boy stopped and looked at her. “That’s so. But then where would she go? She would have to go into hiding right away.”

“She could have found a way to get out of the city and decided to try to reach the Orullians.”

He shook his head. “She would stay put for now. She knows I will be searching for her.” He stopped suddenly. “There is one place she might go.”

He led them hurriedly ahead, moving into a residential section where there were rows of cottages situated on the ground and in the trees overhead. Eventually they reached the tree house that the Orullians had been working on when Pan and Prue had first come to see them weeks ago to discuss the collapse of the protective wall that warded the valley.

“Wait here,” he told them.

He scrambled up the stairs onto the platform on which the cottage was situated and disappeared through the door. Pan and Prue waited patiently for his return.