Unlike the prince, the wardens did not ignore Elen, as if she did not exist. Nor did they question her every move, as Hemerlin had. She guided them to the bone pile, succinctly described its local history and looping track, and knelt to show them the ashy scar where she’d killed the Spore. Xilsi probed the scar with her spear’s tip. Simo sprinkled some kind of powder all around and over the withered skeleton of the bush whose essence—life energy—the Spore had consumed. He spoke words in a singsong language Elen did not recognize. The powder twinkled. Something moved that was neither shadow nor light, and she thought it might be a salt spirit, but she didn’t ask. It felt different from the salt spirits she had access to. Maybe someday Kem would know.

The glittering dust twisted, rising heavenward, but then spun back—as if deliberately—and puffed aggressively at Elen. A sharp hiss chased past her face, blowing into her eyes. The pressure dissipated, and the spirit was gone.

“Odd,” said Simo, looking at her, but instead of saying more, he shrugged and stood. “I am satisfied that nothing remains of this irruption.”

She inclined her head to acknowledge the statement. They did not wait for her but spread out to return to the main path by sweeping around the bone pile and covering a great deal more ground than before, gazes turned to the earth as they searched for other signs of fresh Spore. By now, the dusk had deepened. The moon appeared above the hills to the east. Elen looked that way nervously, but it was not yet high enough to top the wall of the Spires compound. Their tall, peaked tower roofs caught the last gleam of the setting sun and melded it with the first silvery beams of the rising moon.

She kept thinking of the way the prince had stared at the Spires. Though she knew she ought not to speak without being spoken to, she nevertheless said, “Should we not rejoin the others quickly? Before it is full dark?”

Simo looked her up and down. His eyes had a strange glimmer, as if lit from within or aided by yet another spirit. Which might explain why wardens were willing to travel at night, if they were aided by magic as well as shrive-steel.

“Is there something you fear, Deputy Courier? Something of the night, or something else you have not informed us of?”

“Chief Menial Hemerlin gave me little enough chance to inform him of anything,” she remarked, forgetting herself.

Xilsi snickered. “Ha! A wickedly true assessment!”

Jirvy frowned, but Elen had the curious instinct it was Xilsi’s comment, and not Elen’s, that had annoyed him.