“She insisted on staying,” Logan Tom said suddenly, his voice unexpectedly calm. “We talked about it last night. I asked her to come. I told her you needed her. But she refused. She said you would be all right with me. She said she was the only one who would know how to guide those Elves who stayed outside the Loden to where they need to go. She refused to leave them on their own.”

Kirisin was quiet for a moment, his own anger dissipating. “That sounds like Sim.”

“You would know.”

“I still think you should have insisted she come.”

Logan Tom gave him a look. “Would that have worked?”

Kirisin hesitated. “Maybe.” Then he sighed. “All right, no. Probably not.”

“Then stop talking about it. It’s over and done. She made her choice, even if it was the wrong one. She stayed behind and she has to catch up on her own. Maybe she can do it, I don’t know. She seems to think she can.”

All at once Kirisin realized that Logan Tom was afraid for Simralin. For reasons that the boy could scarcely fathom, the Knight of the Word cared a whole lot about what happened to her. Why that should be was hard to figure out. He supposed it had something to do with Sim’s effect on men, the same thing he had thought earlier when he watched them standing together before he used the Loden. But his reaction this time seemed so intense, so much stronger than it should have been. They were silent again as the AV rolled on, the road noise from the big tires a steady rumble. Kirisin squirmed in his seat, glanced over his shoulder. Those sitting in the back of the AV couldn’t have heard what he and Logan Tom were saying even if they had wanted to. Still, talking about Simralin like this made him decidedly uncomfortable.

“How do you feel?” Logan Tom asked suddenly.

He was so surprised by the question that for a moment he didn’t answer.

“After what happened,” the other said. “After using that . . . what do you call it, a Loden?”

Kirisin almost didn’t answer the question, unsure of the other’s motives in asking it. But then he decided that not answering was pointless. “I don’t know. It happened so fast.” He shrugged. “Maybe I’ll know better later. Right now, I just feel relieved that it worked.”

“Did you know you could do that? Your sister didn’t seem to think so.”

He didn’t like hearing that: that Sim had talked about him with Logan Tom. But he let it pass. “She was right,” he admitted. “I didn’t. I didn’t know what would happen. I’d never used the Loden before. No one had.”

“What if you hadn’t been able to summon the magic? What would you have done then?”