She hesitated.
"From what little you have told us," she said, "both you and Leesil hide pasts filled with regrets. It is the time to choose your own path and stop letting others choose it for you. Centuries ago, the fabled war cost the world so much in the Forgotten. Knowledge, great works, even civilization faded so utterly that we know little of what happened before, during, or following that conflict. If this Welstiel discovered a power of that time, he will continue to seek it-with or without you. Find it before he does. If he murdered Chesna just to bring you here, think what he would do to get it and to use it."
Everything the sages said made sense, but it was too much to ask. Magiere simply wanted to go home. Each time she stepped outside the life she wanted, unwillingly doing whatever was asked, some far greater burden fell upon her.
"We didn't even finish our task here," she said, and took a deep breath that was hard to let out. "Not only did we chase the wrong undead, but we let Welstiel escape and Chane as well."
Tilswith blinked in surprise, and Leesil threw up his arms in disgust, then winced at the pain such action sent through his wounds.
"Take money for Miiska," Tilswith insisted. "No other could take Noble Dead. You make city safe. You refuse Welstiel so he not stay here-find other way to that he seek."
Leesil clearly agreed. "That pack of stuffed pheasants on the council used what happened in our town to drag you into this. I've got two heads in a satchel, and there's a third in that house we can add to it."
She let his words sink in but wondered if they were motivated by guilt over burning down the warehouse to save her life.
"What about Chane?" she asked.
Wynn averted her eyes at the name.
"Chane is scholar," Tilswith answered, "but we know he is too Noble Dead. Small chance he come to us and small chance we help him. He not stay in Bela, not take risk." He held up his hands with a shrug, as if the answer were obvious. "So task done. All Noble Dead gone."
"I will take the bankdraft to Miiska for you," Wynn added, "and seek out the baker you mentioned named Karlin."
The sages truly believed the situation was resolved, but this was all happening too fast for Magiere. Now they expected her and Leesil and Chap to somehow stop Welstiel from finding whatever he sought, though no one knew what or where this thing was. When she closed her eyes, she could still feel the last moments of Chesna and Au'shiyn, and how their killer felt nothing-no pity, no regret, not even satisfaction.
Welstiel hadn't even fed on them. He'd murdered them as bait to draw her in. For a moment, Magiere felt anger's heat return. As much as Welstiel knew of her nature, how much did he know of the means by which she was brought into this world? Dhampir, the child of a vampire with hidden knowledge and a mortal mother Magiere had known only from a wooden marker in a village graveyard.
And how far back in her life did Welstiel's meddling reach? There were possibilities in that she did not want to think upon.
Leesil leaned close to her. "There's actually something more I haven't told you."
Magiere's dampened anger flared at the thought that he'd once more left something until after the fact.
"Back on the ship that brought us here," he continued, "I spoke with the thug locked in the cargo hold. Master Poyesk hired those men to stop you from returning with the bankdraft. Karlin has to be warned how far Poyesk will go to prevent the new warehouse from being built."
Magiere's wounds started to ache as if the numbing salve had worn off, and the pain merely added to her ire.
"Damn you, Leesil."
"You had too much to deal with already," he snapped back at her. "And some of it you wouldn't even face."
He dropped his eyes, head down, and Magiere's anger waned. He looked tired and sad. There was more to his reaction than the tangle of deceptions they'd unraveled since leaving Miiska. Part of his exasperation had more to do with her.
"Not to worry," Wynn said matter-of-factly. "You can tell me exactly what to say or you can write a letter. I promise that Karlin will be made aware of all."
Magiere longed only for home, but the sages' words plagued her. She-and Leesil and Chap-weren't finished. She wanted answers for her past, her future, and why she was here.
With Leesil close but ignoring her, she felt suddenly tired of talk. All she wanted now was to be out of this crowded room and to be alone with him.
"We don't have that bankdraft yet," she said. "We can't decide anything until that's settled."
The two sages said their good-nights and quietly left. Leesil lifted Magiere's good arm over his shoulders, winced once as it settled around his neck, and led her toward their barracks room. Chap ambled along behind them, sore and stiff, but otherwise well enough.
As Leesil settled Magiere upon the lower bunk, he still appeared lost inside himself.
"I'm sorry," Magiere said. "I've been weighed down by all that's happened since before we even left home."
"Yes…" he whispered. "But leave that for the moment. There's something else you need to know. Something that happened tonight in the sewers."
Magiere held her breath, unsure if she could take anything more.
"My mother…" he whispered, somehow afraid to speak it aloud, "may be alive."
Magiere grabbed his arm and pulled him down to crouch in front her. Before she could ask the first urgent question, he told her of his encounter with the elf-the anmaglahk-who called himself Sgaile. Nagging suspicion grew when she heard how the elf cowered back as Chap intimidated him into partially answering Leesil's questions.
"Maybe they imprisoned her for what she taught me," Leesil finished. "Though from watching Sgaile, she didn't have time to teach me everything of their ways, or she chose not to. I think she may have gotten away from Darmouth, and if I'm right, the elves don't kill their own-even a traitor, so-called."
Chap watched them both with keen attention. Magiere thought she saw the hound wrinkle his jowls at the mention of the elven assassin.
"She was the one who gave me Chap," Leesil reminded her.
A new sorrow settled upon Magiere. Leesil's guilt over his parents, so long hidden, had been tossed back in his face with the uncertainty of his mother's fate.
"If she's alive, we'll find her," she promised. "We'll find out why all of this has happened to us."
As quickly as this journey had started, the day the council letter arrived in Miiska, the days to come settled in her mind. Home would have to wait.
"Us," Leesil answered, with a soft laugh that made Magiere uncomfortable. "That is another puzzle entirely. And I know the crux of it, now."
He looked at her with sorrow, as if she'd betrayed him with some secret he'd uncovered. Magiere tensed, frightened.
Leesil held out his left wrist, the scars of her teeth plain to see. She shoved his arm away and shrank back.
"All the distance you placed between us," he said accusingly. "This is why."
"Leesil, not now," she warned him.
"I told you before," he said. "I'm not that easy to kill."
Magiere's stomach lurched as memory rushed at her upon his words. She felt his flesh between her teeth the night he burned the warehouse. She tasted his blood in her mouth as she swallowed it down, the only thing she desired in that moment. Not anyone's-only his.
"Yes, you are," she shouted. "You can't make this so simple!"
Leesil hung back, confused. "What do you mean…?"
"Neither of us really knows what I am," Magiere answered. "You're here with me now, and I wouldn't wish it any other way. But each time you try to make it more than that, it becomes dangerous, unnatural, and you-"
"What?" Leesil snapped at her. "I'm not the one holding secrets now. You tell me what's so-"
"Because I can kill you," Magiere said through her teeth, and her anger added vicious bite to her words. "And worst of all, you'd let me!"