Hell, these days the fae healers were experts at not only halting but pushing back the ravages of many inflammatory diseases, including arthritis. It might not last over the entire lifetime of an elf, but for a woman in her twilight years, I’d have thought it a no-brainer.

“Because the most beautiful trees in a forest are not the ones that grow tall and straight, young woman, but rather those that are gnarled and twisted by time and life.” There was a hint of censure in her voice, and it was oddly reflected in the oak post’s song. “Besides, it would hardly help my ability to drive, given I’m blind, and there’s no healing that.”

I leaned back in my chair and studied her for a second. There was a sharpness in her gaze, an alertness, that suggested all was not as it seemed. “I’m thinking being blind doesn’t mean you can’t actually see.”

She cackled again. She really was the strangest light elf I’d ever met.

“And you would be right, because the inner eye is always more powerful than the outer. It’s just that most folk have no idea how to focus it.”

“And this inner eye allows you to ‘receive messages’ from the old gods?” Lugh asked.

Her gaze unerringly flicked his way. “I’m tasting skepticism in your manner, young man, and I find that odd, given who your mother was.”

“You knew Mom?” I asked before Lugh could reply. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in oracles or prophets, just that he’d come across too many false ones in his time as a relic hunter.

And one had almost cost him his life.

“Not personally, no,” Castell was saying, “but such dark news travels fast on the wind, and it carried to all those who could hear it.”

“No disrespect meant,” Lugh said, “but you’re a light elf—a forester. The manipulation of living, growing things is your purview, not wind and storms.”

“What I was born and what I became are two very different things.” Her gaze came to mine, and there was a light—a warning—that twisted my insides. “As some here will discover soon enough.”

“Meaning?” I asked, glad only a fraction of the inner trembling was evident in my voice.

“Meaning, young woman, that ignoring the path that stands before you will ultimately lead to a darker and far more dangerous journey.”

As I stared into her unearthly eyes, something strange happened. My awareness of the tavern—and Lugh—faded, and my focus became singular. All I could see was a field of white. Then the white gave way to shadows and fire, a cowled figure standing over a sacrificial stone darkly stained with eons of bloodshed, and a knife that gleamed with an unearthly light raised high. Words filled the air. Words that trembled with power. I had no understanding of them or the spell being invoked, but I could feel the darkness in it and taste its intent. It was taking life to give life.