It was scary, but it was depressing, too. Things had not been good since her father married Isoeld, but she hadn’t realized how bad they had gotten. She hadn’t paid enough attention to what was happening. She had been too self-absorbed when she should have been thinking of her father and the possibility that Isoeld’s intentions were more dangerous than he knew. Isoeld wouldn’t have done this without having thought about it for a long time beforehand. An opportunity might have presented itself or desperation might have pushed her over the edge, but she had to have been planning this terrible thing long before that.

It made Phryne wonder anew about the fate of her grandmother and the Elfstones. Isoeld would not have stopped with her father if she thought it would cement her hold on the throne.

“Has there really been no word at all about Mistral?” she asked Xac. “She’s just disappeared and no one’s seen or heard anything?”

“I told you what I saw when I went to her house. I don’t know anything else, Phryne.”

They walked in silence for a time, approaching the eastern borders of Arborlon now, drawing closer to her grandmother’s cottage. It was getting much darker as the lights of the city faded and the heavy woods loomed ahead, the pathway narrowing and twisting. Phryne found herself growing more uneasy, listening for every noise, searching the shadows.

“Why are we doing this?” Xac whispered suddenly. “I don’t see what you think you’ll find.”

“I know. I don’t, either.” Phryne felt defeated. “I just have to go there and see for myself. I have to try to understand what happened.”

She didn’t say anything about the Elfstones. There wasn’t any reason to discuss that part of things with Xac Wen. Although their fate was at the back of her mind, she wasn’t sure what she would do even if she found them. Keep them from Isoeld, she guessed. Keep them out of her hands.

“I just think this is a mistake,” Xac added unhelpfully.

She decided to change the subject. “How did you manage to get that note to me? How did you get into the kitchen long enough to hide it?”

“What note?” he said.

She stared at him. “The note you put in the hard roll that came with my dinner! The one that said HELP IS COMING.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t send you any note.”

She grabbed his arm and pulled him around to face her. “Wait a minute. Say that again.”

“I didn’t send you any note. Will you let go of my arm, Phryne? For cat’s sake!”