“Don’t you think it was a good one? Did you remember him?”

“Not sure yet about the first, no to the second.”

They walked into the house and sat at the table off the small kitchen. Arlingfant looked amused. “He didn’t think you would. I thought of him after you left me. He’s changed since you knew him. He killed a man not too long ago. An Elf. He was in training to join the Home Guard—a natural, given his skill level. But he got on another trainee’s bad side, and when the instructor wasn’t looking the trainee tried to cripple him during an exercise. Cymrian reacted instinctively and killed him. His sister told me. But, you know. Once you’ve killed another Elf, you can’t be in the Home Guard.”

Aphenglow understood. There were certain prohibitions that could not be violated. Killing another Elf in service to the King was one.

“But why does he want to work for me?” she asked.

Her sister grinned. “Don’t you know?”

Aphen gave her a perplexed look. “No, I don’t know.”

The grin broadened. “Well, you’ll figure it out.” Arlingfant rose. “Let’s fix ourselves something to eat and then we can talk some more. How does a vegetable stew sound?”

It sounded wonderful. Aphenglow followed her into the kitchen, and for the time being pushed thoughts of Cymrian from her mind.

13

APHENGLOW SPENT THE BALANCE OF THE FOLLOWING DAY working in the underground storerooms that housed the Elven histories and related archives, continuing her search for information on the missing Elfstones. In particular, she was hunting for more information on Aleia and the rest of the Omarosian family and the connection between the two. She wanted to be certain she hadn’t missed anything here before turning her attention to the Chosen histories.

She found exactly nothing she didn’t already know. Except for one thing.

While searching the writings peripheral to the Elven histories, she found herself sidetracked by references to various maps of the times in which the writings were recorded. Wondering how much of the Faerie world might have been mapped in the earliest of times—particularly the time of Aleia Omarosian—she left her place among the writing archives and moved over to where the maps were stored. She searched them front-to-back without success, but then found a further reference to an ancient file that seemed to be missing. This, in turn, led her to another room entirely, where piles of old maps were bundled in stacks, and she spent the next three hours scouring these.

In the end, she found something unexpected.

Something that might prove even more useful than the diary.