Khyber Elessedil shook her head slowly. The lines around her eyes and at the corners of her mouth deepened, suggesting for the first time that even the Druid Sleep could do only so much to keep aging at bay. “Maybe you have looked after yourselves since your father’s death and can protect yourselves if the need arises. But can you protect Mirai, as well? You have the power of the wishsong to call upon. Mirai Leah does not. You should consider what that means.”

The twins watched her walk back down toward the airfield, waiting for her to reach the flats before climbing to their feet.

“She’s right, you know,” Redden said quietly. “About Mirai.”

Railing didn’t answer.

They found her at Farshaun’s house, a small cottage nestled in the southern fringes of the village, set alone in a grove of old-growth hardwoods canopied overhead by a vast umbrella of branches and leaves that left the cottage dappled with shadows and sunlight. She was sitting on Farshaun’s tiny porch, watching him braid a lanyard that he intended to use as a sling for his conch shell, a summoning horn used by Rover airmen to alert one another to danger or to call for help in times of trouble. The Rovers had begun using them only recently and had found them a better tool than shouts or message birds when a swift response was necessary.

The twins walked up and sat down with the girl and the old man, and Mirai looked at them and immediately said, “What’s wrong.”

“Nothing,” said Railing.

“Everything,” said Redden.

Then they recounted what the Ard Rhys had told them—the purpose for her coming to find them, the nature of the quest she was proposing, the extent of the danger it presented, their mother’s efforts to keep them from going and Khyber Elessedil’s efforts to persuade them to come anyway. Because even if she was telling them to consider things carefully, to think it all over before deciding, she clearly believed it was necessary for them to make the journey.

“The missing Elfstones,” Farshaun mused when the twins had finished. “That would be something, if they could be found. I think everyone decided a long time ago they were lost forever and wouldn’t be seen again.”

“What do they do?” Railing asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t think anyone knows. That’s what I mean. Find the Elfstones and you find the answer to one of the greatest secrets of all time. Of course, maybe you open a can of worms instead. Finding magic of that sort could be the most dangerous thing ever to happen.”

“But less dangerous for the Druids to find them than some others,” Redden said.