“But they don’t even know what’s in it, do they?” Pleysia pressed, leaning forward, brow furrowed. “Why would they bother with something they know nothing about? And if they did know what it contained and thought it dangerous for some reason, why wouldn’t they have tried to steal it or destroy it long before this?”

“I don’t know what they were thinking. The one is dead and the other’s identity is a mystery. But he did take my backpack in the clear anticipation that the diary was in there.”

“Or he took it because he knew something was in there that you believed had value,” Seersha offered. “He might not have known it was the diary, only that it was a document that you had found valuable. So it might still be true, as Pleysia thinks, that the diary is only a young girl’s imaginings.”

Carrick nodded. “That’s true, Aphen. Who knew you had found the diary and taken it out of the archives?”

She shook her head. “No one, so far as I know. I was alone in the storerooms the entire day, except for my uncle Ellich. But I hid the diary before he got close enough to see what I was doing, and I didn’t take it out again until after he had left. There was no one else down there.”

“So this girl, Aleia, takes this Darkling boy as her lover, changes her mind about the relationship when he insists she must leave Arborlon and come to live with his people, and then after refusing him discovers too late that he has stolen all but the seeking-Stones, leaving them behind so she will have a way to track him down.” Seersha grimaced. “Then she tries to do so, but can’t—even with the seeking-Stones to aid her—returns empty-handed and lives out the rest of her life. And you’ve no idea what happened to her?”

Aphenglow shook her head. “She wrote she had found a way to help set things right, but didn’t say what it was. She died shortly after, according to the genealogy charts of the Elven Kings and Queens. The Elfstones were gone for good after that. If there was any record of the specifics of their disappearance, it has been lost. The records as a whole are incomplete, of course, going that far back. All we know for certain is that the Elfstones disappeared during the age of Faerie, and it now appears it might have happened in the way the diary relates.”

Pleysia frowned “What exactly are we supposed to do with this?”

“That is what we are here to discuss,” Carrick declared. “What do you think, Aphenglow?”