When she turned to face him, she found him staring fixedly at something off to one side, his mouth hanging open. He tried to say something more and couldn’t.
She followed his gaze and found herself face-to-face with Mistral Belloruus. Except that it wasn’t her grandmother exactly—it was something that approximated her. This Mistral Belloruus was vaguely transparent and so washed of color she was reduced to various shades of gray. She stood in place facing Phryne, but not exactly seeing her, eyes staring at a point somewhere in between where they each stood.
Phryne, listen to me.
The voice was as pale and insubstantial as her image, and Phryne was certain in that moment that her grandmother was dead and this was her ghost. She sobbed audibly, and it was more than the night’s chill that made her shiver. Her grandmother had always seemed so indestructible. That she was gone seemed impossible.
“Grandmother,” she whispered.
This avatar wil not last more than a few minutes, but I wanted you to be certain that it was I who was speaking to you. Isoeld and her creatures wil come for me soon. It is inevitable. She knows about the Elfstones. Your father made the mistake of confiding in her. When she finds them missing from the palace, she wil know who has them. With you imprisoned, there is no one to stand with me. My faithful wil try, but they are old and lack even my strength. So the outcome is settled.
Phryne was confused anew. If this was not a ghost, but an avatar created by some form of magic, then there was a chance that her grandmother was still alive.
I regret I did not have a way of rescuing you. I have sent word to others who might. One way or another, you wil be set free. When that happens, you wil come here to look for me and for the Elfstones. But we wil both be gone.
Xac Wen edged forward to stand closer to Phryne. His voice was a harsh whisper as he said, “I don’t think that we should …”
But the avatar was already talking over him.
To keep the Elfstones safe for you, I am taking them to a place that I know even Isoeld wil not think to find me. If I hide the Elfstones here, they wil be found. If I choose to remain behind, I wil be found. So I am leaving. When you find the cottage empty, you wil touch the flowers, and this avatar wil awaken. In departing, it wil tel you where I am. Read it on the air. Come to me after you do, and I wil give you the Elfstones. Your destiny is settled. It has arrived much sooner than either of us expected and comes cloaked in misfortune and grief.
But it cannot be turned away; it cannot be denied. Embrace it, child.
Then she was gone, disappeared back into the night. Like smoke on a stiff breeze, the avatar shimmered and faded away. Phryne kept staring at the place it had last been, waiting for something more to appear. Read it on the air. She was trying, but there was only darkness and the memory of her grandmother’s words.
Finally, Xac pulled at her arm. “We have to go, Phryne! I hear voices!”
Still, she lingered, unwilling to give up. If she left now, she would know exactly nothing of where her grandmother had gone. She would never find the Elfstones.
Everything would be lost. Read it on the air. Shades! She was trying!
“Phryne!”
Xac Wen’s voice had changed to a harsh whisper. She could hear the voices now, too.
They were coming from outside the front of the cottage, soft and guarded. Men’s voices —Elven Hunters or something much, much worse.
Then the gloom right in front of her blazed to life, filling the darkness with huge words written with flames in bright red letters that sizzled and popped as if the air itself were burning.
Phryne felt her breath catch as she read:
Go to the Ashenell
beneath the
Belloruusian Arch
With Xac Wen in tow, she went out the back door, across a small grassy open space, and into the gardens. Swiftly they gained the forest beyond, pausing there to crouch down and look back. Lights were moving inside the house, two or three, and she could hear the scrape and clump of heavy boots on the wooden floors. If she could have done so, she would have shuttered the house and trapped them inside. Buffeted by too many emotions to sort out all at once, she embraced the one that was strongest and made it her own.
Rage.
Someday, she would make Isoeld and those responsible for whatever had been done to her grandmother pay for their arrogance and their hateful disregard for any form of moral code. She would track them down and hurt them. She envisioned what she would do, but as she did so the anger leached away and tears filled her eyes. She brushed them away, not wanting the boy to see. When she looked over at him, though, he was looking back.
“Don’t worry, Phryne, she’ll be all right. Your grandmother, I mean. She got away from them.”
He was trying to help, to make her feel better, and she gave him a smile for his effort.