“Loren, don’t blame yourself for letting the svart come through. You couldn’t have done anything.”

“Don’t be a fool! I should have been aware of its presence as soon as it tried to come within the circle.”

“I’m very seldom foolish, my friend.” The Dwarf’s tone was mild. “You couldn’t have known, because it was wearing this when I killed it.” Sören reached into his right trouser pocket and pulled out an object that he held up in his palm. It was a bracelet, of delicate silver workmanship, and set within it was a gem, green like an emerald.

“A vellin stone!” Loren Silvercloak whispered in dismay. “So it would have been shielded from me. Matt, someone gave a vellin to a svart alfar.”

“So it would seem,” the Dwarf agreed.

The mage was silent; he attended to the bandaging of Matt’s shoulder with quick, skilled hands. When that was finished he walked, still wordless, to the window. He opened it, and a late-night breeze fluttered the white curtains. Loren gazed down at the few cars moving along the street far below.

“These five people,” he said at last, still looking down. “What am I taking them back to? Do I have any right?”

The Dwarf didn’t answer.

After a moment, Loren spoke again, almost to himself. “I left so much out.”

“You did.”

“Did I do wrong?”

“Perhaps. But you are seldom wrong in these things. Nor is Ysanne. If you feel they are needed—”

“But I don’t know what for! I don’t know how. It is only her dreams, my premonitions…”

“Then trust yourself. Trust your premonitions. The girl is a hook, and the other one, Paul—”

“He is another thing. I don’t know what.”

“But something. You’ve been troubled for a long time, my friend. And I don’t think needlessly.”

The mage turned from the window to look at the other man. “I’m afraid you may be right. Matt, who would have us followed here?”

“Someone who wants you to fail in this. Which should tell us something.”

Loren nodded abstractedly. “But who,” he went on, looking at the green-stoned bracelet that the Dwarf still held, “who would ever give such a treasure into the hands of a svart alfar?”

The Dwarf looked down at the stone for a very long time as well before answering.

“Someone who wants you dead,” Matt Sören said.

CHAPTER 2

The girls shared a silent taxi west to the duplex they rented beside High Park. Jennifer, partly because she knew her roommate very well, decided that she wouldn’t be the first to bring up what had happened that night, what they both seemed to have heard under the surface of the old man’s words.

But she was dealing with complex emotions of her own, as they turned down Parkside Drive and she watched the dark shadows of the park slide past on their right. When they got out of the cab the late-night breeze seemed unseasonably chill. She looked across the road for a moment, at the softly rustling trees.