He glanced over. “Don’t get your back up just yet. I’m not one of those who think you made a mistake. I’m just wondering how much more of your life you ought to give over to this choice. While you’re spending days down in dusty storerooms searching for something that very likely doesn’t exist, more pressing problems go unresolved.”

“What are you talking about?”

He stopped walking and turned to face her. “The world isn’t what it was, Aphen. We came out of a world that was dominated by science, not magic. Magic was the old way, and we left it behind with the fall of Faerie and the coming of Men. But with the destruction of the world that science and Men built, we turned once more to magic for ways to sustain and improve what was left to us of the Old World. We were mostly successful for more than three thousand years. But now that’s changing.”

She stared at him. “How is it changing? Magic still governs our people. It still dictates the balance of power among the Races.”

“At the moment, but not for much longer. The Federation works hard to recover the lost technologies. Men distrust magic; they believe there is more reliability in science. This is especially so for those governed by the Federation and even more so by those doing the governing. They have a clear and possibly unalterable worldview. They seek domination over the other Races and they intend that science give them the power that will allow for that. They fought for it during the wars on the Prekkendorran, and even after they were defeated they harbored a desire to pursue it. They outnumber the other Races two to one, and they are working hard at increasing those odds through alliances and treaties. All they need is a way to negate the magic of the Elves and the Druids.”

“That won’t happen.” She met his gaze squarely. “The Druids won’t allow it.”

He nodded. “So you think. But the Druid order is tiny and isolated. How many of you are left? Six? Eight? And your Ard Rhys hasn’t been seen in how many years? Even the Elves want nothing to do with you. How much can you accomplish with so few?” He paused. “This is not to say we are any better off. We aren’t. We have some use of magic, but nothing of real consequence beyond the blue Elfstones. We study the use of magic, and a few of us possess talismans handed down over the centuries, but by and large we are bereft. Once, the use of magic defined us. Now it seems an oddity, a remnant of another time.