She shrugged. “It was a rumor in my family history, but I did not know for sure. So is it true? Am I a direct descendant, and has the magic come to me through the girl Candle?”

He spread his hands on his knees and studied her face. “All true. You have Candle’s magic in your blood, passed down to you through the generations. Some of your ancestors had use of it, some didn’t. You do. But it is a fragile gift, and it does not always serve its user successfully. It is quite unpredictable. You must have noticed.”

“It warns when danger threatens either me or those around me. It tells me when to be careful or turn back or do something to avoid what might otherwise happen.” She paused. “But you’re right. Sometimes it doesn’t work. Sometimes it fails to warn me of anything. Then I am at risk—as are those who depend on me. Was it like that for Candle, too?”

The King of the Silver River nodded. “It was. Too much so. It almost killed her. Not only her, but others, too. The boy Hawk almost lost his life because of her inability to control the magic. But that is its nature. Magic works differently for different people, and there is no way of knowing how it will respond. Even those who have used it repeatedly and come to rely on it have found that it can abandon them.”

She wrinkled her forehead in thought and brushed at her red hair. “Do you know why that happens?”

He shook his head. “Mostly, we have to accept it as it is.” He paused. “But there is something I can do about your specific problem.”

She looked at him hopefully. “Do you have that kind of power? Could you make it predictable? Could you make it do what it’s supposed to do and warn me when I’m in danger? Or if Pan is in danger when he’s with me? I can’t help him otherwise, and I have to help him. He needs me to help him.”

“Panterra Qu. Your best friend since you both were small. He’s very important to you, isn’t he?”

She nodded quickly. “More important than anything.”

“Did you know that he now carries the black staff? That he has become the bearer whom the demon hunts and seeks to destroy?”

She went pale. “Why would Pan be carrying the black staff? It belongs to Sider.”

“Sider Ament is dead, killed just outside the walls of your valley. He was hunting the Drouj who betrayed you, the one you believed was your friend.”

Quickly he told her the truth about Arik Siq and what he had been seeking to do when he left her imprisoned in the Drouj camp and accompanied Panterra Qu back into the valley.