He looked at her doubtfully. “Yes, Mistress.”

She relented. “You can wait for me on the dock, if you wish. But Sarys Ohmsford is a difficult woman, and she won’t like it if I trudge up to the front door of her house with Troll guards at my back.”

“She won’t like having you here under any circumstances.” Garroneck’s implacable face showed no hint of humor. “But that is as it may be. My men and I will wait.”

She left him where he was, walked over to the railing door, slipped the latch, and climbed down the rope ladder ten rungs to the dock. By now, Sarys would know who had arrived. She would already be angry and worried. Something would have to be done quickly to diffuse both. Khyber was already thinking about what that something might be.

Redden and Railing Ohmsford had grown from boys to young men in the time she had slept the Druid Sleep. She had known them when they were little. She had visited them and spoken with them and taken them for airship rides with their father. But with their father’s death, all that had stopped. Most of their growing up had taken place without her. She had no idea how they would see her now. She had made certain the family was watched over from afar, and so she knew something of how the boys had turned out. Wild, unpredictable, brash, and daring—that was the report on their involvement with airships, particularly Sprints. They were frequently in trouble, but always able to extricate themselves, although sometimes it required help from their Rover cousins. Their mother knew less than half of a half of what they did, but she had been successful, mostly, in keeping them from using the magic.

That, of course, would have to change.

How could she get Sarys to agree? Perhaps the boys would help her with this. If they were present, they might find her offer intriguing enough to take her side. But she didn’t want to pit a mother against her sons in this matter, creating a breach that might never be repaired, so she had to be careful in her choice of words. Telling Sarys too much would be fatal to her chances; she would have to skirt the edges.

She climbed the trail from the docks to the house, her legs stiff-gaited with age and her breath shortened long before she completed the climb. She had aged and worn down while she slept, though not nearly as much as she might have had she been awake. The problem was that she was already aging when she went to sleep, though she might try to deny it. Elves lived longer than humans, but their longevity wasn’t as pronounced as it had been in the time of Faerie.