He glanced sideways at Cinnaminson. “But there will be time for that later. For now, eat and rest. I’ll set sentries to keep watch for the dark things tracking you, and I’ll start the process of outfitting an expedition. But how will we travel? It’s safest if we go on foot. Airships have difficulty getting through these mountains. The winds are unpredictable; they can send airships into the rocks as if they were pesky insects. But time is important, too, and travel afoot is slow.”

He shook his head worriedly and went toward the door. “I’ll think it through. Just ask, if you need something. There’s plenty who speak the Dwarf tongue here. We’ll celebrate your safe arrival tonight.”

Then he was out the door and gone.

“I don’t want you to leave me behind, Pen,” Cinnaminson told him as soon as they were alone.

They had eaten, and Khyber and Tagwen had gone out to look around the village. The boy and the girl sat together in Kermadec’s home, the other members of the big Troll’s extended family coming and going silently about them, engaged in tasks of their own. It was after midday, and Pen was feeling the need to sleep again. But he couldn’t sleep until this conversation was finished.

“I can’t be responsible for putting you in any further danger,” he replied, deliberately keeping his voice down so as not to attract attention.

Her face was anguished. “The thing that killed Papa still tracks us. It didn’t die back there in that meadow. It will come after us. If it finds me, it will use me to find you—just like before. How can that be any less dangerous than what you might find where you are going?”

“You will be safe here,” he insisted. “Kermadec’s people are too well armed and this village too well fortified for anything to get to you. Even that thing we escaped. Besides, you don’t know that it’s still coming.”

She kept her empty eyes fixed on the sound of his voice, as if she could actually see him speaking. “Yes, I do. It’s coming.”

He rose and walked to the open doorway of the room, stood there thinking, then came back to sit beside her.

“I’ll have you sent home aboard the Skatelow. Someone in this village must know how to fly an airship. They will take you back into the Westland, to wherever you need to go. Kermadec will arrange it. I’ll ask him to see that you are protected.”