Timony cocked his head and was quiet for a long moment, then gave a slow shake of his head. “No. The blind man is just stronger, it seems. The bogans must be in his service, for bogans alone don’t have the power to outwit the safeguards of a doonie’s stane.”

Lizzie gave a look in the direction of where she thought the stone was. The stone with the dead bogan lying near its base.

“We should find a place to hide,” she said. “Because they’ll probably be back.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Well, they brought me here for some reason.”

To nail her with wooden spikes to a tree the way they had Timony?

“And I did kill one of them,” she added.

“Ah, yes,” Timony said. “You must be much fiercer than you look.”

“I could say the same of you, coming back from the dead and all.”

The doonie nodded.

“What was it like?” Lizzie had to ask. “Did you see the light and the tunnel that they talk about?”

“I don’t remember anything,” Timony told her. “I have only a vague recollection of the blind man, and then there was you, drawing me out of the dark with your tears. I’m lucky you knew the spell to bring me back.”

“The spell?”

“Washing me with your tears. The genuine tears of a human hold a potent charm. All human secretions have a gift to some degree or another.”

Lizzie pulled a face.

“Thanks for putting those images in my head,” she said.

Timony gave her a puzzled look.

“Never mind,” she told him. “It’s not important.”

“Yes, it is,” he said. “I owe you my life. Ask me anything, and if it’s in my power, I will give it to you.”

“You mean like a magic wish?”

He nodded.

She shook her head. “No, that wouldn’t be right. I didn’t know that my tears would bring you back to life, but even if I had, what kind of a person would I have been to just leave you lying there like you were dead? You can’t trade on that kind of thing.”

“That doesn’t change my debt to you.”

Lizzie shook her head. “Let’s just concentrate on how to get out of here. Or at least find someplace safe.”

“I have a house,” Timony began, “under the ground . . .” But then he shook his head. “Except that’s where I was when the blind man pulled me out with a binding word.”

He gave Lizzie a considering look.

“What?” she said, feeling self-conscious.

“You’re not really dressed for any kind of a journey,” he told her.

“That’s because I’m dressed for bed. God, do you think I just walk around like this? I’m a fiddler, not some pop tart.”

“Let me see if I have something that will fit,” he said.