GIVE THEM CREDIT, THE Chameleon Fae knew how to throw the entire nectar gourd at the matter of relaxation. From Varzune’s high-spirited hijinks as he attempted to find a thousand words and phrases to compliment Xiximay’s ‘sophisticated new look’ to the way that every last girlfae assured Zzuriel that Harzune really would die – in the best possible way – it was clear how much they cared for all their new companions. One had to be part of the tribe. It was automatic. Unquestioned and unquestionable. When Hansanori, who had been idly playing masterpieces on his harp into the early evening beside the brook, finally admitted that he could not actually swim, something had to be done.

  He would be taught.

  Oh, and he would remove his fancy silver clothing and give all the girlfae a good ogle at his muscles, as a married female Chameleon put in, raising guffaws of laughter.

  Ooh. Argent Fae blushed deep silver. So voguish.

  The Chameleon loudly ordered everyone to give the learner space. Not one stray droplet would she tolerate.

  Undressing, Hansanori said tentatively, “I’ve always been afraid of water, Janali-Mae. I fell into a pond when I was a Faeling and nearly drowned.”

  “You’ll need to trust me, and you can,” she said. “I’ve taught fourteen Faelings how to swim. More than that, however, I will teach you the song of water. It has its own melody and ways. That is how you will learn to defeat this fear.”

  Allory had fears of her own. Some of the most notable ones in her mind just now, had to do with not exploding again when the Harpist took his shirt off and the shallow-seeming worry that no Faerie that good-looking could possibly want to have anything to do with a runt. Not his fault. Nor was he flawless. Three furrowed parallel scars crossed his left pectoral muscle, which only contrived to make his toned physique look even more amazing in a certain sparkle’s completely disinterested opinion. Not looking. She overheard him telling Janali-Mae that a Dragon had tried to do away with him in his youth and wondered where the silver Fae could have grown up. A dangerous corner of the Deepwoods?

  He said those scars reminded him that his life had been spared. A splash-like burn scar ran down the back of his left shoulder, about an inch and a half wide. It looked as if he were a silver ingot, slightly melted by heat in that spot.

  He even moved like liquid silver. Yummy chiselled muscly silver.

  Suggids! She had it bad.

  Allory slipped off to work with her team of Scintillants. Six down to five. Hard not to think of her sisfae, buried beneath that same tree that bore the scars of her murder. Attempted murder. Could she go back there one day and raise her physical bones from the ground? Should she?

  Was it her fault the Wraith had taken her over?

  Could she find Izrimy’s bones in the boneyard? Would she know them? Would she know her soul and recognise if one of the shadows fed upon her immortal being, supping from the font of a murderer … Allory tried to halt the slew of dark thoughts before they consumed her completely. Sigh. The nightmares were bad enough without her manufacturing extra of her own. If the Wraith could control one of their companions so easily, whom could she even trust? Varzune? Yaarah? Zzuriel? Ashueli? Anyone could turn against her in an instant.

  The Wraith had targeted her. It had said she was the only one it could be. Did that imply that she and these four Scintillants were the last of their kind not to fall into its dread power? Plainly, its murderous plot had been to relieve her of the soul locket, to grasp its power … which must surely point to its inestimable value, to the fact that it feared or desired this strange artefact above all else. Where was it now that she existed in this new Elemental form? She still sensed its presence – and she may as well remind herself that it had not even been made, yet! This whole business must be knotting up time itself.

  How soon would the Wraith learn that she still lived and seek her out?

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  She knew she would not sleep well this evening.

  Her friends sat in a circle with everyone holding hands in the centre. The rascal-sparkle settled atop the hand-pile and set about working out how to coach her friends in what, to her, had come so instinctually. Maybe a little harp music to set the mood?

  Glancing about, she observed that Hansanori had not yet emerged alive from his first swimming lesson. He floated on his back in the shallows, being gently coached to relax by Janali-Mae. So far, he had mastered the frozen grasshopper look. Giggle. For once, she did not feel like the most scaredy-Fae in the crowd. Here came Yaarah and Sabline, the gold overshadowed by the sable, but she observed how the natural ambient magic of the Suylas Deepwoods enhanced the deep natural lustre of his fur. Not that it took much to get a Golden Purrmaine gleaming, except a firm brushing that he kept refusing in lieu of – well, licking himself all over in the feline way – but the elegance of enchanted radiance was truly fetching in the male of the species. The fiery twinkle lighting Sabline’s eye suggested that she appreciated this quality in her mate more than five thousand Hyperdragons could torture her to admit.

  Allory needed to treat Sabline again. Dance over the Nightzephyr; sing her back toward health.

  Barakunal and Ashueli also joined the gathering from the direction of the glade where the contract meeting and two fierce rounds of combat had taken place that afternoon. They walked hand-in-hand.

  Good signs. Good day!

  Allory’s radiance swelled despite her best efforts to quell the misbehaviour, bathing the nearby tree trunks, the grassy banks and the brook in subtle white sapphire-white light. The Harpist’s head popped up out of the water, gleaming as he blinked several times in surprise. At this moment, Barakunal’s gaze fell upon the Argent Faerie, and Hansanori’s upon him. The frisson of mutual recognition instantly knocked her sparkles out of kilter.

  “Master Barakunal!” he gasped.

  The Dark Elf bowed fluidly. “I’m relieved to find you safe and well, Your Royal Highness. Have you any idea how many of your loyal subjects are out scouring the Deepwoods for sign of you right now? No? Of course not. Why should you care?”

  Allory froze. No! He did not just say that.

  In that tone? Suggids!

  With a horrified splutter, Hansanori sank beneath the surface.

  Janali-Mae hauled the coughing, choking Harpist out by the scruff of his neck and clapped him soundly upon the back. He hung there for a moment, reminding her of a half-drowned but very pretty and shiny gerbil.

  Yaarah purred, “You’d be that Hansanori?”

  “He hasn’t told you yet?” Barakunal snorted. “Same old nectar, I suppose.”

  The shocks did not let up. The Master’s scathing tone conveyed the exasperation of an adult with a youth’s childish tantrums. The silver Fae’s reaction could not have betrayed the truth of his accusation more completely had he scribed it on a fancy scroll and sealed it himself.

  With ever-deepening acerbity, as if he had an unspoken score to settle, the Dark Elf added, “In which case, everyone, please allow me to introduce His Royal Luminance Hansanori Argentate-al-Ahrtumi of Ahm-Shira, Crown Prince of all Faedom, who recently deserted both his kingdom and his dying father’s bedside to enjoy a little – personal time, shall we call it – in the Deepwoods.”

  Allory could not stop her sparkles from juddering until she feared she might simply fly apart and expire. He was the Crown Prince? Of all Faedom? How had she ever missed that detail?

  What interest could such an important Faerie possibly have in a woefully undersized Scintillant? This changed everything. Was the whole Harpist persona simply that, a form of disguise or subterfuge? Liar. Suggid-sucking liar!

  Betrayal must feel like this. Acid nausea. Trembling. Fragmented thoughts crashing through her mind.

  Between chattering teeth, Hansanori spluttered, “That’s not true. You’ve no idea what I’ve been through.”

  “Oh, spare us the whinging, please,” growled the Master. “It’s unbecoming in a royal.”

  “My Dadfae’s demented! He has been for years and we’ve all been hiding it.”

  “Is that your excuse, Your Highness?”

  “Well – no – but I’ll tell you something else –”

  Barakunal spat, “What’s that?”

  A vein pulsed in that silver forehead. Suddenly Allory was far in the past, remembering rage that caused her own Dadfae’s veins to swell like this, rage followed by fists and shouting and tears and recriminations, her Momfae trying to get between them, silver blood spurting from her nose … she was that helpless little Faeling again, trying to make everything right, begging them from her cocoon to punish her rather than fight one another.

  Darkness washed over her perception. Hansanori’s words faded before returning to her awareness with shocking clarity.

  “She made me! I was chasing her, see, and it was such a madness that she put upon me –” his eyes rolled wildly, consumed by the raw fear of a man pushed to the brink “– I couldn’t help myself. It’s her, see? She’s the Middlesun of all melody – the nectar of life – who could deny that?”

  The Golden Purrmaine snarled, “You-rrre – GNARR!! You’re blaming Allory for this?”

  An ugly mutter of outrage rose from her companions, one and all.

  “Who, me?” she gasped.

  How could he?

  Quicker than thought, she bolted.