“Well, it was her right to choose.” His voice sounded as tight as a drawn bowstring. “Alas. Let me hand my horse over to Faharn, and then we shall go to neutral ground and talk.” Laz shaded his eyes and looked in the direction of Grallezar and the archers. “Ah, I see you prudently stationed a few guards out there.”

“I’ll dismiss them.”

He grinned again, bowed, and led his horse away.

Laz handed his horse over to Faharn, then gave his apprentice a few quick instructions about setting up the camp. By the time he returned to Dallandra, the archers had gone back to the Westfolk tents. Dalla had picked out a spot midway between their two camps and trampled down the grass in a small circle. When they sat down, he felt oddly private despite the blue sky above them, as if they sat in a tiny chamber curtained all round with fine green lace.

“Would you tell me what you know about the dragon book?” Dallandra began.

“The dragon book?” Laz said. “Ah, there was a dragon on the cover, indeed. I held it in my hands and turned the pages, but I can’t truly read your beautiful language, so I have no idea of what was written in it.”

“Berwynna told me that you thought the text had somewhat to do with dragons.”

“Somewhat. For one thing, there was the image on the cover.”

“I wanted to ask you about that. You have a book that’s decorated with the reverse colors but the same outline of a dragon. Did you buy that in a marketplace?”

“I didn’t. My sisters had it made specially for me as a coming-of-age present. I saved it for years until I had somewhat important to write in it. You look surprised.”

“I am. I suppose Evandar might have scried it somehow. He did see bits and pieces of future events, and if he saw you and the book, he might well have decided to make one much like it.”

“I truly want to learn more about this fellow.”

“I’ll tell you, fear not! But about the book—”

“Well, beyond the cover, I could pick out a word here and there, and drahkonen was one of them.” Laz paused to summon his memories. He could see the pages of the book clearly in his mind. “Odd, now that I think of it! That word seemed to recur in the same place on every page. Indeed, about halfway down and to the right of the line, and on every page that I saw.”

“How very strange!”

Laz nodded his agreement. “Did Wynni tell you about the spirits?”

“She mentioned that you’d said some were attached to the book, but no more than that. She apparently can’t see the Wildfolk.”

“She can’t, truly, but I did. They were Spirits of Aethyr. They appeared once as flames, icy white with strangely colored tips. Another time I saw them as a lozenge, floating just over the book. They can move it, by the by, and they must have some way of influencing people’s minds. Somehow they tricked Wynni into taking it from the island.”