Kirisin felt a chill run down the back of his neck all the way to his heels, the sort you have when you’ve encountered the freakishly impossible. He stiffened momentarily, then shook his head.

“They’ll wait a long time for that to happen,” he muttered. “I can promise you that!”

Simralin gave him a doubtful glance, but didn’t say anything more.

DEEP IN THE FORESTS OF THE CINTRA, in the midst of his army, the demon that called itself Findo Gask blinked twice as he caught the first whiff of the magic’s use. At first he thought he had been mistaken, that his senses were deceiving him, but as the magic steadied and sharpened, he could feel its proximity and recognize it for what it was. The sharp old eyes fixed on a point in space, and his senses drank in the full extent of what they were experiencing. He shut out everything happening around him—the noise, smell, and movement, and the creatures that generated them—and he began to search. Quickly, quickly . . .

But he wasn’t quick enough. There wasn’t enough time. The magic was there for a few seconds, tight and strong and recognizable, and then it was gone. He was unable to determine its source. Still, a smile crossed his lips, deepening the lines of his face.

Someone was being very careful.

He rose and stood looking off into the darkness of the trees. It didn’t matter, really. He knew what was happening. He knew why and he knew how. In the end, it would all turn out the way he had planned. The boy was back, and he had found the Elfstones. The nature of the magic he had sensed was unmistakable. Elfstone magic was distinct from any other kind of magic, different from that of the gypsy morph or the Knights of the Word. Magic was not of a single kind; if you knew it was there, you could teach yourself to identify its nature.

And this was unquestionably Elven.

So the demon that called itself Culph had succeeded in tracking the boy to the Elfstones, gaining control over the magic, and bringing both back to serve the demon cause. He wondered briefly if Delloreen had played any part in this, if she had somehow tracked the young female Knight of the Word to the Elves and dispatched her. That would have made her very happy, and he would never begrudge her happiness of that sort. On the other hand, it would be convenient for him if she had failed and was dead. Increasingly dangerous, she needed to be eliminated in any case. If the Knight hadn’t done so, he would have to.

He banished Delloreen to the back corners of his mind and pondered momentarily what the use of the Elfstones meant beyond the obvious. Why had the magic been summoned now? There didn’t appear to be any point in it.