But none of that mattered now. What mattered was finding a way out of the underground. Nothing she did would help the Elves until she was back in Arborlon.
She cupped the Stones in her hand, wrapping her fingers about them, feeling them press against her flesh as she closed her eyes and began to picture where it was she wanted to be. She thought of Arborlon first, of its buildings and trees and gardens, of its people old and young. She thought of Tasha and Tenerife. Nothing happened. She shifted her thinking to blue sky and green grasses, to trees and rivers, to the fresh smells she knew from home. She tried to keep her thoughts straight and focused, but she had difficulty doing so. Her mind kept playing tricks on her, shifting from one picture to the next, from people to creatures to plants to places, back and forth. Everything seemed to morph into something else.
But finally the Elfstones responded, their warmth increasing, their magic abruptly surging into her. She opened her eyes as the blue light exploded out of the Stones and flashed down the tunnel’s length, ripping through the darkness for unimaginable distances, piercing a barrier of something that looked to be a thin sheet of clear water, and flashing onward from there to an opening that led out into a forest she did not recognize—the trees old and huge and hoary—before winking out.
“What was that?” Pan asked softly. He’d seen it, too. He looked at her in wonder.
“I’ve been everywhere in the valley and never seen a forest like that one. Are you sure about this?”
She almost laughed. “I’m not sure about anything. I’m not sure where we are or where we’re going or how we will get there. I’m not sure that what we just saw is where I asked to go. But the Elfstones say this is what we’re supposed to do.”
“That isn’t how we got here,” he pointed out. “This tunnel, the one the Elfstones showed us? That’s a different way out entirely. Why is that? Why not take us back the way we came?”
“There’s no point in asking me, Pan. I only got to use the Elfstones one time, when I asked them to find …” She hesitated, realizing what she was about to say. Then she shook her head and dismissed her reticence. “When I asked them to find you—a test Mistral insisted on—they worked fine. But this time, I don’t know.”
She felt a flush creeping up her neck as she admitted she had spied on him, and quickly said, “Maybe they don’t work as well down here, so far underground, so close to the tombs of the Gotrins and their magic. Maybe they don’t respond the same. Or maybe I didn’t ask them in the right way. I don’t know.”
He reached out and closed her fingers back around the Stones. “I think we’ll be all right. Let’s see where this tunnel leads.”
She shoved the Elfstones back into the pouch and the pouch into her pocket, and they set out once more. Movement seemed to help ease her grief. She was still thinking of Mistral, of the way she had just evaporated into nothing, of the loss of the last member of her family. But she was past her shock and despair now, beginning to accept what had happened. She wasn’t sure how strong she was, but she knew that she could function again, that her panic was banished and her common sense restored.
She knew, as well, that while Panterra Qu was with her, she would be stronger still.
But she was ambivalent about how that made her feel. She didn’t want to be dependent on anyone at this juncture; she felt she needed to be strong in her own right, able to face up to and respond to the dangerous challenges that threatened without having to rely on someone else. But there was something about the Tracker’s presence—something in his demeanor and attitude—that was reassuring and comforting. She knew she liked him; she had known that from the first time she saw him. But now she was beginning to wonder if what she felt was something more.
Maybe something much more.
The thought tweaked at her as they walked, nudging this way and that inside her head, giving rise to possibilities that went way beyond anything she had ever imagined.
Some of those possibilities made her blush, but the darkness hid that from the boy. Some gave her pause in a way nothing had for years. She let it all take hold and then released it and washed it away.
It didn’t hurt to consider things that might one day be. Or even things that might never be.
When they had walked for so long that she was almost falling down with fatigue, Pan had them stop. He produced food from the backpack he had carried down from the Ashenell, sharing what he had, giving them both a long rest. While they recovered themselves, he talked of the changes to Prue and the fears he had for her.