Diarmuid and Paul had moved to where three men were standing by a stunted clump of shrubbery. They parted to let the Prince in among them. Kevin, breathing deeply to clear his head, moved up beside Paul and looked down.

When his eyes adjusted to the dark, he wished they hadn’t. The svart alfar had been almost decapitated; its head had been clawed to shreds. One arm had been torn through, the shoulder remaining attached to the body only by an exposed strip of cartilage, and there were deep claw marks scoring the naked torso of the dark green, hairless creature. Even in the shadows, Kevin could see the thick blood clotting the dried-out soil. Breathing very carefully, shocked almost sober, he resisted an impulse to be sick. No one spoke for a long time: the fury that was reflected in the mangled creature on the ground imposed its own silence.

Eventually Diarmuid straightened and moved back a few steps. “Carde,” he said crisply, “I want the watch doubled on our guests as of now. Tomorrow I want a report on why that thing wasn’t seen by any of you. And why you didn’t see what killed it either. If I post guards, I expect them to be useful.”

“My lord.” Carde, badly shaken, moved off with the other guards.

Coll was still crouching beside the dead svart. Now he looked over his shoulder. “Diar,” he said, “it was no ordinary wolf that did this.”

“I know,” said the Prince. “If it was a wolf.”

Kevin, turning, looked at Paul Schafer again. Schafer had his back to them. He was gazing at the outer wall of the garden.

At length the four of them walked back to the balcony. With the aid of crevices in the palace wall, and a hand over the balustrade from Tegid, they were all soon in the room once more. Diarmuid, Tegid, and Coll departed shortly after. The Prince left them two flasks of wine and an offer; they accepted both.

Kevin ended up drinking almost all of the wine himself, primarily because Paul, for a change, wasn’t in a mood to talk.

“We’re on!” Kim hissed, prodding him with an elbow. They were, it seemed. The four of them stepped forward in response to Gorlaes’s sweeping gesture and, as instructed, waved to the loudly cheering crowd.

Kimberly, waving with one hand and supporting Kevin with the other, realized suddenly that this was the scene that Loren had conjured up for them in the Park Plaza two nights before. Instinctively she looked up over her shoulder. And saw the banner flapping lazily overhead: the crescent moon and the oak.

Kevin, grateful for her arm, did manage a few waves and a fixed smile, while reflecting that the tumultuous gathering below was taking a lot on faith. At this height they could have been any four members of the court. He supposed, impressed with himself for thinking so clearly, that the public relations thing would probably focus on the nobility anyhow. The people around them knew that they were from another world—and someone seemed to be awfully unhappy about it.