He could see that she wanted to object, that she was anxious to press on. But to her credit she didn’t argue the matter, deciding perhaps that he was right about trying to cross those hills in darkness. So she simply nodded and joined him in searching for that night’s shelter. There was not much to be found without going back into the woods, and neither of them wanted to do that. They ended up settling on a fold in the hills that would keep them mostly hidden and hunkered down in its lee. There was nothing to eat or drink, so they soon rolled up under Pan’s blanket, huddled close together, and drifted into an uneasy sleep.

Nothing disturbed them that night, although had anything threatened them Pan would have known. He was awake almost the entire time, unable to sleep, unwilling even to try, his thoughts on Phryne as she pressed close to him, wondering at how things could change so quickly and wishing he could have done something to stop it. At least, he told himself, she wasn’t trying to avoid him altogether, sleeping so close to him. At least she wasn’t signaling that she no longer wanted him near.

But this alone provided scant comfort, and his thoughts of her were dark and despairing. The hours passed and sleep eluded him as surely as his hopes for the future he had once imagined possible.

When dawn broke and she woke, he kissed her once on the cheek, quick and purposeful, and rose to see what the new day had to tell him. He was hungry and thirsty and tired, as he knew she also was, and he wondered how long they could go on this way.

“I don’t know where we are,” he admitted as they stood together and looked out across the empty terrain. “I don’t recognize any of this. I don’t know where we are or which way the passes lie.”

She nodded, as if expecting him to say as much. “Then I’ll use the Elfstones to find out.”

He looked at her doubtfully. “There’s a risk in that, as you already know.”

“But if we don’t use them, we’ll continue traveling blindly ahead, and that’s every bit as dangerous. I think we have to.”

She waited, looking at him. “I think so, too,” he agreed finally.

He moved a few steps away from her and took up a protective stance as she prepared to use the Elfstones, reaching into her pocket to produce them and pouring them out of their pouch and into her hand. She stood there a moment studying them, as if not quite sure what it was she was holding, as if weighing what it meant to summon the magic. Then she folded her fingers about the Stones, faced off toward the mountains, and closed her eyes.