“Get out of here, Pen,” the Elf girl ordered, gesturing toward the door. “Go find something to do. Cinnaminson and I need to talk. While we do, you think about what I just said. You think about whether what you are asking of her is reasonable or not. You think about everything that’s happened while you’re at it. Use your brain, if you can find a way to it through all your wrongheaded opinions.”

She was angry, her face flushed and her gestures curt and threatening. Pen stood up slowly and glanced down at Cinnaminson. She was staring straight ahead; tears were leaking from the corners of her eyes, streaking her smooth face. He started to say something, then stopped himself.

As he left the room, he felt Khyber Elessedil glaring at him. He walked through the house, past the surreptitious glances of the Trolls, his gaze directed straight ahead. When he was outside again, he stopped and stared into space, wondering exactly what had just happened.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

THIRTEEN

Darkness had fallen over Paranor, deep and smothering, and the Druid’s Keep was wrapped in silence. Within the fortress halls, the Druids came and went like wraiths; cloaked in black and hooded, they passed down halls that echoed softly with the scrape of slippers and the rustle of robes. Some cradled books and loose-leaf writings in their arms. Some carried materials for the tasks they had been given in the cause of the Druid order.

One carried nothing but a second cloak, neatly folded over one arm, so preoccupied that not a glance was spared for those it passed.

Bek Ohmsford looked up as the cloaked figure entered the room, and it took him a moment to realize it wasn’t a Druid at all, but his wife. Rue Meridian came over to where he lay looking hot and feverish beneath his covers and laid the cloak at his feet.

She bent close to keep her voice a whisper. “I hope you don’t feel as bad as you look.”

He smiled. He was hot and sticky, and beads of sweat dotted his forehead. “I look terrible, don’t I? That root you gave me really works. Traunt Rowan was here earlier to see how I was doing. I told him the fever had come back worse than before and was highly contagious. He was in and out of the room in seconds. No one has been back since. You found the robes, I see. No one saw you?”