In place of Sgaile's studious inspection, Osha looked suddenly confused.

"This dead-not… dead-not-dead," he said with effort. "We see… hear… not here, but hear stories small of other place… places. How you kill, if is dead?"

This talkative turn took Leesil by surprise, but it made sense. An unusual weapon captured attention from a caste of killers, even one as young as Osha.

Where some humans might think of undeads as only myth and superstition, Sgaile had stated the issue so plainly. The others accepted his word as fact.

Vampires might be rare enough in human lands, but Osha hinted at something else.

"What does he mean by 'not here'?" Leesil asked. "You have no tales or myths of undead?"

Sgaile seemed to consider his reply with great care. "No undead has been known to walk this land."

A direct though polite response, but Leesil caught the implication.

The undead-noble or otherwise-could not enter this forest.

"How kill not-dead… un…dead?" Osha repeated.

Leesil was lost in thought. "What?"

Magiere clasped her falchion's hilt, which made the young elf tense, but she didn't pull it. With her other hand she drew a slow, scything arc of fingertips across her throat.

Wynn sighed in disgust. "Oh, Magiere."

"Throat?" Osha asked.

Urhkar startled Leesil with a reply. "Not throat-neck. They take heads."

Osha’sface paled through his dark complexion. Further off, En’nish hissed under her breath. Sgaile spoke quickly to Osha. The young elf nodded.

"Forgive his reaction," Sgaile said. "Dismemberment of the departed is repulsive to us… but we understand the necessity."

"Have we finished with our debate over slaughter?" Wynn asked, disdain coloring her face.

Sgaile raised an eyebrow. He sheathed Leesil's blade and turned to Magiere, waiting.

Magiere didn't move a muscle.

"I don't like it any more than you," Leesil said. "But Wynn is right. It's their world… their way."

"All right!" she said." Only because I can't see another way to find your mother. But don't get stupid on me. They're guards, not escorts, and they serve their own goals first."

Her blunt accusation jolted Leesil. In essence, she was right. The An-maglahk might look and even act somewhat like his mother, but he was a stranger here and didn't understand their customs, let alone the way they thought. But it changed nothing.

Magiere finally unbuckled her sword and held it out to Sgaile. He accepted it, and one feathery eyebrow rose a bit at its weight. He looked at her as if not quite believing she could wield it.

Wynn handed him the crossbow and quiver off Leesil's back. Sgaile gave these last items to Urhkar, who slung them over his shoulder. It made sense, as there were more arms than one person could carry efficiently, and Sgaile had promised to guard the blades.

Leesil took his rolled cloak off the pack that Wynn carried and handed it to Sgaile.

"Use this to bundle them… easier to carry and keep out of sight."

Sgaile nodded agreement. He was about to turn and lead on.

"Magiere!" Wynn said.

The little sage folded her arms and stared at Magiere's back. Stranger still, Chap gave Wynn a rumble, a displeased sneer, and a lick of his nose. She ignored him.

Leesil was lost. They'd handed over the crossbow, his blades and stilettos, Magiere's falchion…

For an instant Leesil considered saying nothing, but Wynn had already drawn too much attention.

"Give it up-now," he told Magiere.

How one woman could deliver so much spite from the corner of her eye still worried Leesil at times. It made him think of long-lost days in the Sea Lion Tavern, when she grew fed up with his antics.

Magiere reached behind her back and beneath her pack. She drew out the long-bladed dagger acquired before they'd headed into the Warlands.

Sgaile just opened the cloak bundle of weapons and waited. Leesil thought he caught a hint of humor in the man's eyes. Magiere tossed the dagger into the cloak.

"Come," Sgaile said, and gestured to his own companions. "The majay-hi may walk where he pleases, but you must stay inside our circle. Our people may become unsettled at the sight of you."

En’nish remained in front, while Sgaile and Osha spread to the sides, with Urhkar at the rear behind Wynn.

They traveled only a short ways. Leesil caught odd changes in the trees when they passed through an area of dense undergrowth. Wild brush grew higher than his head. There were more oaks and cedars than other trees, with trunks wider than any he'd seen before.

Ivy ran up into their lowest branches, which were just within reach if he'd stretched upward with one hand. Their trunks bulged in odd ways that didn't seem natural, yet he saw no sign of disease. Foliage grew lush, thick and green overhead. In the spaces between trees, the underbrush gave way to open areas carpeted in lime-colored moss. Someone stepped out and turned away as if emerging like a spirit from the bloated trunk of a redwood.

As Leesil drew closer, he saw thickened ivy hanging from its branches. The vines shaped an entryway into the tree's wide opening between the ridges of its earthbound roots.

"Dwellings?" Wynn asked, but no one answered.

Osha fidgeted nervously. Sgaile was as tensely watchful as the first night he'd appeared in the forest. And both made Leesil worry.

They passed more dwelling trees with openings and flora-marked entry-ways. A tall elf peered through a bordering arch of primroses around the dark hollow in an oak. Leesil couldn't make out more than that he was male and would have to duck his head to come out. The large clay dome of an oven sat in an open lawn, smoke rising from its top opening. Several women and two men standing near it stopped, touched their companions, and turned one by one to stare.

Among them was the one Leesil first thought had walked straight out of a tree. He recognized her strange hair. She stood off from the others upon the moss lawn, and a break in the canopy captured her in a shaft of sunlight.

Soft creases in her skin, darker brown than Leesil's own, marked the corners of her large eyes and small mouth. She was slender and tall like his memory of Nein'a, but this woman's hair was like aspen bark, shot with gray that looked dark amid the white blond. Advanced age on an elf seemed strange.

Her narrow jaw ended in a pointed chin tilted down to a slender and lined throat as she fingered through whatever was in her basket. She hadn't yet spotted the new arrivals, but other elves began to gather.

They appeared at openings in the living dwellings or stepped through ivy curtains and around arches of vines and bramble plants shaped to divide and define the community's spaces. A teenage boy in nothing but breeches crouched overhead in an oak's limbs, his brown torso smooth and perfect.

Some faces looked calm and welcoming at first, until they spotted the outsiders walking between the Anmaglahk. Others froze immediately, and fear was tinged with something more dangerous. All stared at Wynn and Magiere. Some even looked at Leesil uncertainly.

Unlike in the human lands, no one here would long mistake him for one of their own. He was short by comparison, his amber eyes smaller, and, though beardless, his wedged chin was too blunt and wide. And his clothing was nothing like theirs.

Chap pushed in to walk close to Wynn.

In a few more steps, their small group was surrounded by people at all sides of the community's center green. A lean man about Sgaile's age stepped out. En’nish halted, but the man wasn't looking at her.

"Sgailsheilleache!" he spit out.

Leesil couldn't catch the stream of Elvish that followed, but Osha stepped back, positioning himself closer to Wynn. Leesil didn't find this comforting as he studied the growing crowd of elves. Their dress differed noticeably from the Anmaglahks'.