“What was that?” Pan asked softly. He’d seen it, too. He looked at her in wonder. “I’ve been everywhere in the valley and never seen a forest like that one. Are you sure about this?”

She almost laughed. “I’m not sure about anything. I’m not sure where we are or where we’re going or how we will get there. I’m not sure that what we just saw is where I asked to go. But the Elfstones say this is what we’re supposed to do.”

“That isn’t how we got here,” he pointed out. “This tunnel, the one the Elfstones showed us? That’s a different way out entirely. Why is that? Why not take us back the way we came?”

“There’s no point in asking me, Pan. I only got to use the Elfstones one time, when I asked them to find…” She hesitated, realizing what she was about to say. Then she shook her head and dismissed her reticence. “When I asked them to find you—a test Mistral insisted on—they worked fine. But this time, I don’t know.”

She felt a flush creeping up her neck as she admitted she had spied on him, and quickly said, “Maybe they don’t work as well down here, so far underground, so close to the tombs of the Gotrins and their magic. Maybe they don’t respond the same. Or maybe I didn’t ask them in the right way. I don’t know.”

He reached out and closed her fingers back around the Stones. “I think we’ll be all right. Let’s see where this tunnel leads.”

She shoved the Elfstones back into the pouch and the pouch into her pocket, and they set out once more. Movement seemed to help ease her grief. She was still thinking of Mistral, of the way she had just evaporated into nothing, of the loss of the last member of her family. But she was past her shock and despair now, beginning to accept what had happened. She wasn’t sure how strong she was, but she knew that she could function again, that her panic was banished and her common sense restored.

She knew, as well, that while Panterra Qu was with her, she would be stronger still. But she was ambivalent about how that made her feel. She didn’t want to be dependent on anyone at this juncture; she felt she needed to be strong in her own right, able to face up to and respond to the dangerous challenges that threatened without having to rely on someone else. But there was something about the Tracker’s presence—something in his demeanor and attitude—that was reassuring and comforting. She knew she liked him; she had known that from the first time she saw him. But now she was beginning to wonder if what she felt was something more.

Maybe something much more.