They rushed to each other in mutual relief and hugged long and hard. “I didn’t know what had become of you after the Trolls took you,” Aislinne said. “How did you get free?
What brought you here? Where is Pan?”
She backed away from Prue and gasped. “Your eyes! You’re blind!”
“Not so blind that I can’t see you!” Prue laughed. “Mostly, I just can’t see colors now. I can still see everything else. I’ll explain. But what are you doing so far from home? You don’t look as if you’ve eaten or drunk anything in days, and your clothes … Aislinne, what’s happened?”
They sat down together at the edge of the fields and began to trade stories, a process that took them much time. They had not seen each other since Aislinne had been imprisoned and Prue had escaped the Drouj and encountered the King of the Silver River. When they had caught each other up on everything that had transpired and what it was that had brought them to this time and place, they stopped talking altogether for long moments, locked in an awkward silence that discouraged either from saying anything more.
“What will you do now?” Prue asked the other finally. “Where will you go, if you can’t go back to Glensk Wood? Is there family that will take you in?”
Aislinne shook her head. “Distant family, people I know about who live in other villages but that I haven’t seen in years. Or in some cases, ever. There is no one else.
Not even Brickey now. Not you or Pan, either, it seems. I came here because I could think of nowhere else and because I felt Sider calling me here. It’s silly, I know.
Irrational. But I thought I saw him when I was fleeing, and I was so afraid of that creature—”
“When he came for me in the ruins,” Prue interrupted, “I could barely breathe. All I could think about was getting away. I don’t ever want to see him again, and yet I know I must. The King of the Silver River made it clear that sooner or later Pan would have to face him. When that happens, I have to be there to try to protect him.”
“But what will you do? How can you help?”
Prue shrugged. “I don’t know. I will do whatever I can. But I was sent back for that express purpose, Aislinne. My sight is diminished, but I was given back my ability to sense danger so that I could aid him. I must try.”
“You have greater courage than I do.” Aislinne brushed back locks of her graying hair, her face suddenly old and worn. “I could never have done what you are doing if it were asked of me. I couldn’t even make myself go with Sider when he chose to take up the black staff.”
“He never asked it of you.” The girl smiled. “Besides, you don’t know what you can or can’t do until you are forced to find out. I discovered that among the Drouj.”
Aislinne nodded, sighed. “So this scarlet dove? Do you intend to follow it farther?”
Prue nodded. “I think I must. It came to me so that I would. Like before, it will lead me to Pan. But I think that maybe this time, given what you’ve told me, the demon might be waiting. The dove leads me toward Glensk Wood, and that is where the demon is. And even if Pan isn’t there now, he might be coming soon. I have to hurry.”
Aislinne considered. “The demon intends to lead the people of the village out of the valley, so he won’t be there long. But wherever Pan is, that’s where the demon might be going, too.” Aislinne shook her head. “I think I should go with you.”
“But this isn’t your …”
“It isn’t my fight? My problem? My responsibility?” Aislinne smiled. “I think it is all of that and more, Prue. Besides, what else would I do? Hide out here in the ruins of Sider’s past? What sort of coward would that make me? No, I want to come with you.”
She picked up the ash bow and looked at it. “I don’t know what made me decide to come here and find this, but I think maybe it was Sider. He’s gone, but it feels like he is still looking out for me. He meant this bow for me, you know. It was to be a gift. But I wouldn’t take it. Not if he wasn’t going to stay with me. But I was good with it once, and I have used a bow since and think I am good with it still. I don’t know how much help it will be, but it might be some. Please let me come with you.”
“You’ve done more than enough for us …”
“Please, Prue. Let me come.”
Prue had never seen Aislinne like this. Always so self-assured, so much in command of every situation, so much the leader when others were lost—now she seemed none of these. She was a woman searching for a reason to go on, trying to find a way to heal the damage that had been done to her. She had lost so much. Maybe she was entitled to get something back.
“All right,” she said to the older woman. “We will go together.”
“And look out for and take care of each other.”
“And find Pan.”
Aislinne reached out and gave the girl a hug. “You’re all grown up, Prue Liss.