The bed was made, and clothes were neatly folded inside the large trunk. The small table and chair were solid, with no hollows to hide anything. Leesil found no openings or edifices in the walls or the shuttered window. Magiere paged through leather-bound papers left on the table as Leesil dropped down to study the floor. No cubbies or holes, not even a loose board, were there to be found, but this meant nothing with people like Byrd and his parents. Leesil searched the bed and mattress, though he knew Byrd would never hide anything in so obvious a place.

"Nothing," Magiere said. "Ledgers and stores lists."

And not a thing remained to inspect in the room.

Leesil crouched before the chest and started on it for the second time. He emptied it completely, piling the clothes on the floor and lifting out all the trays within supported by side rails. He fingered the interior sides and then the bottom, which flexed when he leaned too hard on it. He could smell cedar beneath the linen lining adhered to the wood. The fabric was folded and sealed continuously across all edges and corners, leav-ing nothing that could be lifted or pulled away without splitting the lining. And there was no split.

He leaned against the side and stared into the empty trunk.

"There's nothing here," Magiere said. "And I can't see him hiding anything in the other rooms, if patrons are housed there. We should help Wynn downstairs."

Leesil repacked the trunk, got up, and headed for the door behind Magiere. He still felt the lingering flex of fabric-covered wood on his fingers. Magiere disappeared out into the hallway, and he stopped and looked back.

Flexing wood in a stout travel trunk?

He returned to the trunk and began pulling everything out for the third time.

"Leesil?" Magiere called, her voice carrying from the hall.

He was halfway to the bottom when he heard her come up behind him.

"You've done that twice already," she insisted. "There's nothing there."

Leesil reached the bottom and pressed his palm firmly against it. The wood gave beneath the fabric. The trunk's sides were thick and solid, so why the thinner bottom? He placed his other hand on the outside floor. The distance down to floor and trunk bottom was noticeably different.

A false bottom. But how was it opened if the fabric was solid throughout the interior?

"Leesil!" Magiere said, her voice growing more annoyed.

He ignored her and shoved the trunk over backward. The lid slammed on the floor as the vessel toppled. He stared at its bottom, solid and flush to the edges of its side walls. There were six brass knobs that served as legs along the bottom edges, one for each corner, and the last two placed midway along the front and back edge. These were held in place with small brass nails.

He picked at one with his fingernail. It was loose. Magiere crouched down, as Leesil slipped a stiletto from his wrist sheath and began popping out brass nails. Only the front knob legs came off, and the trunk's bottom fell open.

Leesil found himself staring at a pile of flattened parchments. The first depicted the charcoal-drawn layout of a four-towered keep in crude lines. The sheet below this was an interior map of the same structure. He touched it. Part of the rendering smeared slightly, while the rest seemed set and clean. The whole of it was unfinished, with notable areas still blank within the structure's outline.

"Recently drawn," he said. "Or parts of it."

"Is that Darmouth's keep?" Magiere asked. "Why would Byrd have drawings of the keep?"

Leesil paged through more parchments. There were eight, each depicting a different area or level. All were incomplete, with at least three that had almost nothing added within the outline of the outer walls. Two were of the towers' interiors, with inked marks and lines that might indicate paths walked by sentries.

"A better question…" Leesil said, almost to himself. "Why have drawings of the keep and be meeting with an anmaglahk?

Magiere didn't answer but reached out for his wrist. "What are you going to do?"

"Ask him. I'm going to sit downstairs until he returns."

"I'll wait with you," she said, and it wasn't a suggestion.

"He won't talk unless I'm alone. Gather up Wynn and Chap and go to bed. I'll tell you everything I learn."

Magiere heaved on his wrist, jerking him around to face her. For all the rage in her face, he could feel her shaking through the grip on his wrist. Leesil had no patience for a fight over this.

"fust do it, Magiere!" he snapped. "I know what I'm doing-and you don't.

A long silence followed as she stared back. Magiere turned away without a word. Leesil rolled up the drawings, stuffed them into his shirt, and followed her downstairs.

Wynn was stunned when the search was called off. Of course she refused, until Leesil explained that he was going to speak with Byrd rather than tear the inn apart. Something must have slipped into his voice or expression, because she nodded and did as he asked without another word. He didn't show her the drawings, or he'd never get rid of her. Magiere ushered Chap and Wynn upstairs to their rooms, but Magiere never looked back at him.

Leesil turned down the lanterns and settled in the chair near the front wall to watch the door. He unfastened the catches on his wrist sheaths.

His father and mother, contrary to Byrd's acquaintance, had taught him many things in this city. Beyond blood ties-and sometimes those included-there were no friends here. There were only those who hadn't yet betrayed you, and those you hadn't yet betrayed.

Tomato and Potato were asleep on the bed, so Wynn was alone with Chap in her room. She sat cross-legged upon a braided rug, brushing his fur in long strokes to carefully work out his mats and tangles. She could not always read Chap's expressions, but he appeared relieved by her attention. With her hands once again in his silvery fur, she remembered the strange chorus of leaf-wings she had heard while watching him before the battle on the Stravinan border.

Part of her felt guilty for avoiding the dog… Fay… majay-hi… whatever or however she should think of him. He was all of these things, all at once, though this merely made it more confusing. He had also been her constant companion on this journey. One part of her took solace in his presence, but another part was frightened by the mysteries behind his presence. She knew too little of his agenda, and why he had left his existence among the Fay.

Was that what she had heard in her head as Chap grew angrier and more savage before the battle? And how or why had it happened to her, for that matter?

Chap whined and pushed his head against her folded legs. Wynn wrapped her arms around him.

There were moments such as this when he seemed no more than her four-legged traveling companion. He pulled his head back and whined again, then perked his ears in a quizzical expression.

Wynn grew hesitant. There were other moments when his canine form seemed a deception for his true existence-a Fay in flesh.

And everything in Wynn's vision turned blue-white.

Her stomach lurched, and her dinner rose in her throat. The room became a shadowy version of its former state. Overlaying all was an off-white mist just shy of blue. Its radiance permeated everything like a sec-ond view of the room coloring her normal sight. Within the walls, the radiance thinned, leaving shadowed hollows in the planks. The glimmer thickened within the sleeping forms of Tomato and Potato curled together in a tangle of little legs upon the bed's end.

Wynn lurched back, pulling away from Chap, and the sudden movement sharpened her vertigo. She stared at Chap in fear.

Unlike all else in her tangled vision, he was the only thing that was not permeated with the blue-white trails of mist. Chap was one image, one whole shape, glowing with brilliance. His fur glistened like a million hazy threads of white silk, and his eyes scintillated like crystals held up to the sun.