Pen looked off into the darkness, filled with sudden rage, filled with a need to exact revenge for what had happened, but impotent to do anything but sit and fume. The images that filled his mind were so terrible that he couldn’t bear them. “I didn’t realize what I was doing by telling her she couldn’t come,” he said quietly. “I didn’t know.”

She squeezed his hand. “I wish you still didn’t know. I wish I didn’t have to tell you. But you still care about the girl, don’t you? So you need to know what’s happened to her so that you can understand what she’s going through. She’s fragile in ways that you don’t see. She might have mind-sight, but it’s not sufficient protection against the monsters of this world and not enough to make up for the loss of her family. Her father, bad as he was, loved her, and she loved him. He was the support she could fall back on when things were too much for her. Who’s going to offer her that support now?”

“I am,” he said at once.

“Then you can’t tell her you intend to leave her behind.” Khyber’s voice was fierce. “You can’t make her safe that way, Pen. I know taking her is dangerous, but leaving her is worse.”

They stared at each other in silence. In the background, the music and singing of the Troll revelers wafted through the darkness, rising above the firelight, echoing off the rock walls of the cliffs. Pen wanted to cry for what he was feeling, but no tears would come.

“I’ll tell her she can come,” he said finally. “I’ll tell her I was wrong, that we need her.”

She nodded. “Be careful what you say and how you say it. She wouldn’t like it that I’ve told you what happened. She will probably want to tell you herself one day.”

He nodded. “Thank you, Khyber. Thank you for telling me. Thank you for not letting me make a mistake I couldn’t correct.”

She got to her feet and stood looking at him. “I just did what I thought I had to do, Pen, but I have to tell you that it doesn’t make me feel very good to have done it.”

She turned and walked away.

Acting on whispered instructions from Shadea a’Ru, the Gnome Hunters removed the heavy mesh netting and bound and gagged Bek Ohmsford. He could have struggled or used magic to save himself, but he was terrified that if he did so, they would kill Rue. Bitter with disappointment and self-recrimination, he let them take him without a struggle.