1385 - Alturiak

"You don't want to trade for it?" said Coram. The grey-haired former dockhand ran his fingers over the percaline cover and the embossment of the authors' names. "It reeks as good as a rose. There's fine paper here."

While some of the old watermen who earned a small allowance for their work in the Seaholt, the sailors' library, had a real enthusiasm for the written word, Coram's eye was all for the fabric of the objects that came and went over his desk. He loved new paper, vellum and parchment, and would have thrown ancient texts and important draft manuscripts on the midden because of a hint of mildew, had his fellows not been alert to his preferences.

"Not today, Coram. This is meant as a token of appreciation." The Seaholt was the only library or bookshop on Faerun that received the latest work from Doctora Rosalenita Stoneskeld gratis. My work too now, Elanee thought. Ten gold pieces was the standard price from the press. Twenty gold pieces for monks of Oghma.

"Sure? We have a Halruaan doll that came in on the moon surge. Very nice piece of work. It would look fine on your mantlepiece."

The only mantlepiece in the townhouse she shared with Rosalenita and Semmy had already been claimed by a sucking radish vine from Chult. It claimed anything put on the mantlepiece as a subject in its miniature empire. Elanee had already lost a vase and two tinderboxes to assertions of its territorial integrity. "I told you as soon as we came in – that doll is under a curse."

"But such a fine smell of tea and smoked tobacco! Who cared about a little curse?" urged the old docker unrepentantly.

"You would, if it made your nose fall off."

Coram grinned. Fine lines appeared round his eyes while others round his jaw vanished as the skin pulled taut. He was about seventy: old for a human. She tapped the cover of Mosses and Lichens: The Case for the Defence.

"Take care of it. I saw one of the red priors in the stacks. She'll walk out with it under her robes if she's given the chance."

Coram tapped his nose. "Don't worry, doctora. We've arranged a surprise for her. The next time she tries to waddle out with an encyclopaedia strapped to her thigh will be a sight worth seeing."

Shaking her head, Elanee went to find her escort. The Seaholt was based in a former warehouse on the harbourfront. Almost every inch of the original brick interior was covered in wood panels salvaged from shipwrecks, or from superannuated trade-cogs sent to the breaker's yard. The same maritime sources had provided the thousands of shelves, stands and cabinets that gave the inside of the library the quality of an irregular, overcrowded labyrinth, one that changed whenever the twenty attendants and director agreed that a thorough reordering was necessary. This was often since their patron deities Sashelas and Valkur were pleased by mutability.

If she had not known Semmy well, she could have lost hours wandering the narrow aisles in search of him. As it was, she went straight to the cleared space near the doors where visitors hung their cloaks up to dry on large iron cleats strategically situated over the copper pipes that channelled heated water down from the volcanic springs on Mount Waterdeep.

Depending on the weather, the atmosphere there could range from dry to humid. Today, in the depths of winter on a morning that had started with hail, moved on to freezing rain and then to sleet, the air felt like a visitor from Tashalar or Samarach. No one had anything better to do than head to the Seaholt for diversion, and so steam rose from the abundance of damp canvas, wool and oilskin garments that lined the wall.

A large display window, the gift of some wealthy merchant captain, was thick with mist. An attendant had already lit the bronze ship's lantern near the top; it swung gently from side to side, as if still in the hands of a midshipman pacing the deck on a blustery night.

"If you stay here any longer, you'll set down roots." Elanee did not think she was being serious. But then, she was speaking to Semmy. Unwanted rooting might be a real problem for him, though she had never, in the more than seven years she'd known him, observed him produce a pair of scissors and snip himself free of the ground.

"So soon?" Semmy whispered. In the to-him-congenial dampness, the rattle in his voice was less marked. The former halfing, left with green skin and globular eyes after a botanical misadventure, was sitting cross-legged on the floor in his shirt sleeves.

"I could—" She was about to offer to run her next errand alone, for it affected only her, in any case, when the silhouette on the other side of the fogged-up window caught her notice. It was about her height and build. Unlike her own practical outfit of a brown jacket and hose, her reflection was wearing a jewel-blue robe, and the hair on the blurry head was dark and straight.

She froze in shock. She tried to tell herself that she was mistaken, and that it could be any elf examining the modest display of books and curiosities in the Seaholt's window. A senior master from the Watchful Order, or a successful artisan from the mansions of the Sea Ward slumming it for a bit of adventure. Still, she had to be sure.

"Just a moment – I need to…" Not able to complete her excuse, she left Semmy to swelter in his tropical paradise. Slinging her deerskin cloak around her, and pulling up the hood, she stepped out onto the broad thoroughfare that wound along the harbourfront.

She was ready for the blast of cold salty wind that hit her full in the face. The familiar mage, unchanged except in that his robe looked tailored, and his hair fell unbound over his shoulders, she was not ready for. He won't have noticed me. I can walk away, visit the Blackstar Inn, then come back later to collect Semmy, who won't mind. The only danger is if someone mistakes him for a tradeable commodity, or a cabin boy. I can go right now.

"Why, Elanee, how lovely to meet you here! What a remarkable coincidence…" Sand's expression let her know at once that coincidence had nothing to do with it. She hadn't even managed to get two paces from the door.

Trying not to look as if she hadn't been caught sneaking away from a former battle companion, someone whose life she had saved, and been saved by, she flicked back her hood. Drizzle immediately landed on the tips of her ears, and trickled down them towards her neck.

"Sand. What are you doing here?"

"Exploring the largest city on the Sword Coast, of course," he replied with faux innocence. "As Ambassador Issani was so fond of mentioning, all of Neverwinter could fit into a single ward in Waterdeep."

"And?" She felt regret at being so abrupt; alongside the memories of death and destruction, homelier ones of Sand and Duncan's improvised double-act in the taproom of the Sunken Flagon had a place too. But Sand was here for a reason.

"And I thought I would visit an old acquaintance while I was in the area. How are you, Elaníae? You left so abruptly last time we met, Harcourt thought he might have offended you…"

"I doubt Harcourt's offended anyone in his life. How did you find me? Scrying?"

"Not necessary, my dear druid. Are you still a druid, by the way? I wasn't sure."

"Yes, I'm still a druid." She lived on the edge of a huge metropolis, ate well-cooked food at Rosalenita's table twice or three times a day, and sometimes spent hours on the roof of the tavern by Caravan Court watching the comings and goings in the square below. Silvanus did not appear to judge her less worthy for it; nature had not rejected her.

"The absence of leaves and small pieces of tree from your hair made me wonder…" He scanned her from head to foot, and nodded to himself. "I suppose we have all changed to some extent. Even Khelgar."

"Khelgar? Is he here?" She would like to see the dwarf. His guilelessness and loyalty to his friends seemed more valuable in retrospect than at the time of their cooperation. According to gossip from the Neverwinter Ward, Nasher had made him Captain of Crossroad Keep, and inducted him into the Nine, which was completely absurd.

"No, our friends are busy in the north." A mixture of relief and disappointment bubbled through her. "And, in answer to your earlier question, I did not need to scry." He unslung an oilskin bag from his shoulder, and pulled out a book bound in rich green, identical to the one she had left on the counter of the Seaholt. "'Rosalenita Stoneskeld and Elanee of Waterdeep'," he quoted. "In the distressing business of forensic investigation, this is what I would refer to as a clue. Besides, this city's full of Neverwinter émigrés. You can hardly expect to go entirely unrecognised."

She blinked in surprise. In fact, that was exactly what she had expected. While Lila was galloping white stallions though the gates of Crossroad Keep, and Neeshka was springing across rooftops in the light of the hunter's moon, Elanee was somewhere in the background, unnoticed, and not much regarded when she was. Not sure how to answer, she remained silent.

One of the biggest wharves in the Deepwater Harbour lay behind her. She watched the faint reflections of its activity in the window; a three-masted ship was being stocked for a long journey, one bound to the far north to judge by the ice-breakers on the bow. Wagons drawn by animals had been banned from the harbourside after a spate of fatal accidents. Teams of half-orcs, dwarves and ogre-blooded types were much in demand in consequence, though the human watermen did not share the enthusiasm of the shipmasters for them.

"I'm sorry I did not stop you that night in Crossroad Keep." Sand folded his hands behind him, looking as close to awkward as the richly-clothed, immaculately presented elf could. Had she heard him give a sincere apology before? She didn't think so. That meant the experience could be new to him as well, or nearly new. "As you may recall, I was not at my best." Sozzled on golden brandy – she did recall. "And, really, Khelgar was supposed to be the one with the detachable brain. If I'd had the smudge of an inkling what you intended—"

"—I'd have gone anyway." Lila Farlong or Jerro must have told him about her flight to the east. When she thought about it these days, she mostly just regretted not having gone a little further to see some of the wonders of Kara-Tur before returning to the Sword Coast. But then she might never have met Rosalenita or Semmy, or become, as far as she knew, Faerun's first druid-botanist.

"Why are you here, Sand? Really?" He could have written to her and offered to meet over pastries and hot rum in the Golden Harp if all he really wanted was chat about new and old times.

A wagon rolled past drawn by two burly half-orcs. Sea spray had infiltrated the wind, and left her lips tasting of salt.

"It is a somewhat complex and delicate matter. Perhaps we could adjourn to somewhere more sheltered?" He looked towards the harbour in wind-blown resentment. She wondered if he still ran his little apothecary near the Neverwinter docks, or if his status as one of the few unexiled survivors of the underground fight in the Illefarn palace had allowed him to move into the upper echelons of society. Sand when she knew him had seemed torn between a desire for acknowledgement, for a taste of glory, and a contempt for the class of people he wished to join.

"Tell me what this is about first." She had no idea why Sand would be approaching her with a complex and delicate matter unless he had a friend with a broken metatarsal, or a lace-frocked fern growing in his atrium.

Sand wrinkled his nose. "If you insist." He drew himself up like the lecturer preparing to teach a particularly stupid class. "In two months' time, a cataclysm will strike Abeir-Toril. The Weave, the source of magic, will collapse, and the echoes of that disaster will be felt across the Planes. Wards will break, lands will drown in blue fire, and masters of the arcane who have not taken steps to protect themselves will be driven mad. Everything will be thrown into disorder—"

Elanee leant her head to one side. "You mean the Spellplague?"

"—the destruction will be so complete that—" Sand frowned as his mouth caught up with his ears. "What? You know about it?"

She didn't much like the incredulous tone in his voice. Was it so unlikely that the uneducated, marsh-born druid might be acquainted with the events of the wider world? "Zhjaeve sent a message to me at midwinter. A warning." The githzerai priestess was unable to visit the Prime again in the flesh. Her successful mission had used up her lifetime's allowance of contact with the material plane. Any more visits to the Sword Coast, and she would be forbidden from returning home.

"How kind of her." Each word was sharpened to a point. "I am glad that the wellbeing of her other allies moved her so much that she did everything in her power to warn them."

Sand would be one of those most at risk from the latest disaster. She couldn't blame him for being angry. Many times, Elanee had been on the verge of writing to Crossroad Keep with a copy of Zhjaeve's message, so that the people there knew another storm was coming, but whenever she reached for a pen, a chain of the old guilt had twisted round her and pulled, and she had frozen in dread. Now the guilt would be renewed. There'd be a whole new coil of it to throttle her.

"I'm sure Zhjaeve thought you'd have your own sources," she said, defending her friend. Someone else that she'd never see again, though at least the priestess was alive, content and with her family on her ever-shifting home plane.

Sand nodded. "You may be right," he conceded. His abandonment of acerbity surprised her; the mage had never let an opportunity for a witticism at another's expense pass him by, whether justified or not. But then, he wanted something, or he wouldn't be here.

"My friends and I are moving to a lodge near Westbridge a ten-day from now. We should be safe there." Rosalenita had attempted to warn the Waterdhavian authorities of the danger, and largely failed: a message from Limbo relayed through a druid from the Mere of Dead Men and an eccentric half-orc botanist was not the sort of communication to enjoy much credibility within the Waterdeep bureaucracy. Wide-eyed prophets of doom could be scooped up by the dozen in the huge city. Some even had their own temples.

"And Neverwinter?" Sand asked. His tone was bland, the judgement concealed.

Elanee shrugged. It would survive. According to the stories she'd heard, and the pieces of history she'd read, it always did survive somehow. She realised she was thinking of the city as a living being, as if it were a forest bound together by a secret net of roots under the earth, or the colonies of sea creatures, some alive, some dead and petrified, that her selkie friend wrote to her about. When had this change in her perception happened? Druidic orthodoxy said that cities were less than dead things; they were artificial soulless intrusions, bringing death to the living.

"The depth of your concern is touching," said Sand. "I could censure you for it, but choose not to." He looked at his fingernails in a gesture so typical of him that she felt a wave of longing for a past that, viewed dispassionately, had nothing extraordinary to recommend it, only battles, only suffering. Except for maybe one thing. And that was questionable. "After almost a decade without any major crises, Neverwinter has become very dull and commercial. I cannot express how tedious it is to go out to the grocers for bread and milk, and feel no obligation to check that my will is up-to-date. It's been six years since anyone even tried to rob me, and five years since the last watchman wanted me to provide him with a monetary incentive for doing his job. The spice has gone out of life."

He paused to adjust the hang of his sleeves. Since the wind immediately blew them back up his arms, she wasn't sure why he bothered. "I'm sure the Spellplague will soon set all to rights again. The northern end of the Sword Coast cannot be allowed to have a functioning city for long."

"I don't see what I can do about that, Sand." The Spellplague was a phenomenon far beyond her abilities; she could not stop it, or even ameliorate it. She could only take her friends and run. Zhjaeve's message had been clear on that point. 'Run into wildfire, and it will consume you body and soul; your defiance would be the defiance of a moth that casts itself into a wave of lava. Hide. Wait. Be patient.'

"Help us spread the word. The Neverwinter Wood and the Duskwood are full of creatures that would listen to you. They would respect you, a druid who knows the ancient speech of the land. You would have powers of persuasion beyond anything we can bring to bear."

"Who is 'us'?" She had guessed part of the answer before Sand could open his mouth.

"An association of interested parties. A bard from one of the old families. Sharwyn. You may have heard of her." She recognised the name, but could attach no more details to it than Sand had provided. "Vale. Sevann. A mutual friend of ours in the Neverwinter Nine."

"Sir Nevalle?"

Sand shook his head, amused. "Certainly not. One Knight Captain Khelgar of Crossroad Keep. A long-term leasehold procured from Clan Ironfist. I believe the two of you are acquainted." He watched her expression with the wry humour of someone used to imparting unlikely news. So the gossip was true. "Not as ridiculous a choice as it initially seemed. Trade with the Ironfists has been flourishing, and any bandit who prefers to keep his nose in its natural shape stays far away from the Keep's territory."

"Did Lord Nasher put Neeshka in charge of the treasury as well?"

"No. But he did add her to the Neverwinter payroll – as special agent. For very special, secret missions, though I'm sure I couldn't compromise the city's security by supplying you with details." Sand looked as if he'd love to supply her with details of Neeshka's secret work for Nasher, especially if the process involved being taken to the better class of tavern and plied with hot drinks and sweetmeats. She ignored the hook.

"Who else is involved?"

Sand's eyelashes flickered. "Various connections. Merchants. Former soldiers. Farmers. Little people. The kind that history is built of, but whose names disappear with the end of their life…and Lila Farlong and Ammon Jerro naturally."

Naturally. Without fully realising it, she'd been waiting for those names. The pair that survived and escaped. The fortunate ones. "Aren't they in exile?"

"An interesting story." Sand looked around him, then took a step closer to the door of the Seaholt where the eaves of the roof and a brick pillar provided a limited amount of shelter. "A former hero, a warlock and a blond knight of Neverwinter walk into a tavern… To be precise, into The Triboar Arms at the start of this year. A ten-day later, and Neverwinter withdraws its troops from Old Owl Well, as if their services are no longer required to keep the pass clear, and the population of West Harbour increases by two adults and one infant." His mouth twitched. "Tripling it overnight, in effect."

A deal had been done then. A deal made under-the-table, well beyond the bounds of the city's territory, free from public scrutiny. Were the murdered nobles of the Blacklake District shaking their embalmed fists in outrage? She wished she knew what Casavir would have thought of it.

"It sounds as if you have enough people to 'spread the word'. You don't need me," she said waspishly. Her anger puzzled her; she was aware that she was angry, but was not sure why. Anyone could make requests of her. She had the right to turn them down if she chose. As long as Sand didn't try to abduct her, carry her away to the north slung over one of his narrow shoulders, then his appeal for help was fair, though doomed to failure.

"Oh, but we do. Until recently, for example, I had no idea how difficult it is to make a glade of talking magnolia grasp the concept that they have to move forest for their own safety." He gave an actorly, despairing sigh. "Even diagrams were of no use. In the end, Harcourt had to perform the whole scenario. He was remarkably convincing in the role of 'twelve war wizards driven mad by the Spellplague throwing fireballs as they rush from their burning tower'."

Elanee was refused to be caught up in Sand's fantasy. "Speak to Elder Naevan. He can help you win over the next talking glade."

The door of the Seaholt swung open. Elanee looked down. Sand looked down too, and gave a barely perceptible start. Semmy could have that effect on people.

"Is everything in order?" Semmy rattled in the same tone that Duncan had used on a drunk bothering Shandra. 'Shall I break his jaw for you?' was the implied meaning.

The former halfling had come out without the coat and various wrappings he needed as protection against the salty air, but two copies of the Apology for Lichen were wedged under his arm, as if they were his most prized possessions, which could under no circumstances be left unsupervised.

"Certainly," said Sand, recovering from the momentary shock of her friend's green skin and alarming eyes. He continued, as fluently as ever, "Elanía and I were merely discussing some Neverwinter business. I'm sure our old friends would be happy to see you again, my dear druid. I've reserved two places on the mail wagon to Port Llast. It leaves from the feet of the Sahuagin Humbled at noon tomorrow."

Elanee could have told him at once that she wouldn't be there, but was too distracted by the news that a regular mail wagon now ran as far as the only substantial town between Neverwinter and the Luskan border. Looking soggy, and distinctly sorry for himself, Sand gave a short bow to Semmy that was really closer to a nod with a shrug tacked onto the end. "Delighted to have made your acquaintance. Elaníae, I am staying at the Broken Lance if you wish to meet tonight. Much has happened since you left."

Then he was off. The nimble mage made straight for the edge of the harbour; before he reached it, blue light crumbled through the space around him, and he vanished. His teleportation skills had improved. She stared at the empty cobbles that he had lately occupied, and tried to examine without passion the roil of emotion that Sand's visit had awoken. Grief. Guilt. Jealousy, if she was honest. Shame. The whole poisoned grove of them. Lovely.

"You are going to Neverwinter?" Semmy asked. It touched her how alarmed he sounded. Normally he was as stoic as a monk.

"No." She smiled at him "I belong with you and Rosalenita. I'm not going anywhere without you."

Semmy nodded. She pulled the books out from under this arm, and as she did so his stance relaxed like a soldier being told to stand at ease.

"And the Broken Lance?"

Elanee hesitated. Did she really want to hear whatever choice pieces of news Sand was willing to unwrap for her? On one level, yes. The mage could be counted on to provide the most lurid details, and, besides, she wanted to know what had happened to the others. How was Khelgar coping with his Knight Captaincy? Had Neeshka really given up on her criminal habits? What had happened to Duncan? Sal? Even Torio, the former Luskan ambassador: what had become of her?

"I'll leave it." If she let Sand entertain her for an evening in the elegant, high-windowed salon of the Broken Lance, she might agree to his impossible request, and travel north with him. "We've still got a lot to do today," she said, assuming a brisk voice that made her feel more in control. "I need to call at the Blackstar Inn before we go home, and then there are some drafts to edit."

"The Blackstar Inn? Why?"

"There's a Ruathen diviner staying there." Perhaps she should start by asking the woman what the Spellplague was. If the woman didn't know that, she wouldn't know anything else.

"Ah. I will accompany you." Semmy volunteered at once, though his days as a reputedly swashbuckling bodyguard were long behind him. But he knew about Casavir; he would follow her slowly and quietly to the inn, carrying the heavy books and any parcels they picked up in the markets, which he would insist on doing despite his short stature and stiffness. And the visit would be useless, as all her visits to diviners were. And she and Semmy would walk homeward, not speaking, and he would buy her a cup of foamy cinnamon milk from a stall without asking. Because this was Waterdeep, there'd probably be apple brandy in it.

"Don't let me forget to stop at the courier station on Belnimbra," she said. "We can post the books there." One for Rustem in Thay, and one for Jaheira, wherever she was, both sent to a Harper contact, who could ensure that they found their way to the right person eventually. Rustem would be amused; she couldn't guess Jaheira's reaction, but hoped that Silvanus's messenger would be pleased with the work Elanee had devoted herself to. Spreading the word. Spreading knowledge. Not about the next catastrophe in Faerun's succession of catastrophes, but about the patterns of nature. About the worth of even the smallest living things. "And then — there will be lots of packing to do."

Semmy shivered, and Elanee winced. He'd been exposed to the harbour winds for much too long. An elf in this maritime winter might long for warmer climes, or for the shelter of a forest; Semmy's reaction could be more extreme, according to Rosalenita. The words turn yellow and die had been mentioned in discussions of the subject.

"Come on — let's go back inside and get your cloak and scarves." Not forgetting the extravagant hat of brown silk and beaver-fur that made him look like an oversized mushroom out for a stroll. She held open the door to the Seaholt, and felt the memory of Sand's visit drift mercifully away to the corner of her mind where other unwanted things slept.

1388 – Marpenoth

Ah, the oak, the oak, the stately oak

He never breaks nor fails

And if I had a love alike

He'd bear me through the gales.

Elanee sang the simple old love song under her breath as she worked. A brilliant lamp of enchanted crystal sent a clear white light over her sketchpad. A second lamp illuminated the twisting stems of their latest acquisition. Its sharp, forked leaves, silver-grey on the top and dark green on the bottom, reminded her of lizard tongues. Slaan, she called it. The plant was still awaiting a name in the Stoneskeld system. Her charcoal drawings tonight would be the basis for a coloured woodcut print that could be posted to Rosalenita's collection of scholars, hobbyists and enthusiasts; one of them was sure to recognise it, or at least to have crossed paths with one of its relatives.

She put down the stub of charcoal as footsteps creaked across the upper landing and slowly descended the steep staircase. Footsteps and the regular click of a silver-headed walking cane. A bout of fever over the late summer had given a mauling to Rosalenita's sense of balance.

Back in the Year of Blue Fire, Elanee had been grateful that their house had come through everything unharmed, its survival aided by the escape of the bloodthorn, which had obligingly grown into a curtain wall during the period of abandonment with the result that looters were deterred. A few of those undeterred were eaten. Knucklebones still speckled the remaining thicket like unripe strawberries. Still, if the house had been destroyed, it might have been rebuilt with fewer flights of stairs, and higher ceilings.

When her friend reached the hall, Elanee began sketching again. She didn't want Rosalenita to suspect her of worrying. If she did, that would just provoke her into running down the stairs without her cane.

"Working late! Well, how's the little mystery doing?"

Slaan, all two feet of it, rested in its plain clay pot on top of an adjustable table. In the middle of the sleeping glasshouse, in its circle of light, surrounded by shadowy palms, as well as a ketimbul, and a pandan, the plant resembled a champion being presented at the altar of a vast temple; the tree-trunks were pillars disappearing into the night behind him. Or else it was a performer on the stage of the Six Masks . That was a more apt comparison. And a more cheerful one.

"Still a mystery. We'll have the print ready to dispatch in a few days if not earlier."

Rosanlenita stood leaning on her cane, looking down in heavy thought at the plant of unknown origins and family. The botanist's silver hairs glowed in the lamplight amongst the grey. "I keep thinking it's got to be a young keladi, but then those seed pods are like nothing on any keladi I've ever seen."

"The roots don't match either," said Elanee. "They're like spider's webs." She rubbed her nose and guessed she had left a charcoal smudge there. Well, it was mild compared to the blood and worse she'd often been covered in during her years of shadow-hunting. "I spoke to Tam about it yesterday—"

"Tam the cook?"

"Yes. He says it must be a gift of the gods: an entirely new creation without like or ancestors bestowed on you as a sign of favour."

Elanee waited for Rosalenita's irritated huff, and was not disappointed. Slaan's leaves rattled. "It had better not be 'em. Bloody amateurs. I can just imagine what sort of thing they'd bodge together. A sparkly giant cactus that shoots down flies with tiny lightning bolts, and keeps trying to get it on with the lilac in next door's garden. No system. No order. No class."

In a few charcoal lines, Elanee absently sketched a laughing face in the corner of her paper. Nose. Smiling eyes. Mouth. There. "If Silvanus were responsible, it would be a dwarf oak tree, like the miniature trees they're supposed to keep in pots in the east."

"Yeeesss," drawled Rosalenita. "Silvanus is alright. Valkur and Lathander too. Ilmater would be half-tolerable if he wasn't always so miserable. And I can put up with Chauntea on a good day." The botanist was ostensibly a follower of Chauntea, in that she was registered at the temple and paid her dues every month, after a certain amount of muttering and complaining about inflation and priests dining on solid gold tableware.

"Why do you worship Chauntea?" Elanee couldn't remember asking before.

As if she hadn't heard the question, Rosalenita ambled over to a Nelanthese palm that had survived the Spellplague, her amethyst-coloured nightgown trailing behind her. She ran the tips of her claws down its smooth bark, as if stroking a beloved old pet. Elanee's soul, still more druid in its pith than botanist, felt a sympathetic flare in the tree's energies.

"Oh, you know…" Rosalenita's voice shifted, moving into the clipped, neat tones of someone who had received the best and most expensive education available in Waterdeep, which she had. "One has friends who worship Chauntea for one reason or another. They die too young, and then it seems that the easiest means of seeing them again one day is to join the same cult. Much cleaner and less messy than hiring a necromancer." As the botanist turned round, the mischief in her grin was moderated by the seriousness in her eyes. "Did you never think of enlisting in the Church of Tyr?"

Elanee hesitated, considering her answer. "…no…no…I couldn't have left Silvanus. It would have felt like betraying an old friend." Apart from that, she didn't rate a god highly who didn't even know where the souls of his faithful resided. That path was closed to her regardless since the recent turbulence had removed Tyr's godhead.

"I s'pose some of 'em manage to be half-decent, even if I wouldn't trust any of 'em to look after the glasshouses when I'm away." Rosalenita fell back into the comfortable, everyday register that Elanee was used to hearing. "Why bother to notice which plants need extra metal salts mixed in with their feed, and which need ash, when you can click your fingers and make everything grow as high as Celestia?"

"I'm sure Helm would follow a watering schedule," said Elanee, "if he could do it in full-plate armour with choirs singing anthems through the pantry window." She bit her lip. Letting herself fall into Rosalenita's habit of irreverence was not a wise course of action. The gods might make allowances for the half-orc with her unshakeable sense of purpose, but she doubted they'd see the disrespect of a little swamp druid in the same light.

Rosalenita laughed, and drew up a stool. "I'm still not letting him anywhere near my tree ferns." Seating herself slowly, her grip tightened on the head of her cane as she arranged her nightgown in careful folds with her other hand. That done, she sighed, and closed her eyes. "It's autumn already, and I'm bored. Where shall we go next? I want to have a big expedition to look forward to. Just don't say Kara-Tur! You know I'm allergic to fox demons and calligraphy. And the Heavenly Emperor makes me sneeze as well."

It was Elanee's turn to laugh. They'd had this conversation before, and Rosalenita's excuses grew stranger each time. "What don't you like about His Loftiness, the Heavenly Emperor of Shou Lung?"

One of his ancestors had been a character in the dragon-and-sorceress novels that she still read, in which he'd been both paternal and distant, reminding her a little of Neverwinter's late Protector. After three years, she still found it hard to believe that Nasher was dead.

"Just the sound of him. Don't like the thought of all that harmony and enlightenment. I'm enlightened enough as it is, thank you kindly, without some sky king trying to improve on excellence."

"But just think about all the books we could write about a journey to the east. Think of all the plants. You'd be the most famous botanist on the face of Abeir-Toril."

Rosalenita sniffed. "Already am. What, you think it's someone else?"

"Every bookshop in Waterdeep has Drouth's Elements of Plant Knowledge on display. They say he's researching the woodlands around the Marsh of Chelimber for his next work." Rosalenita mimed hitting the table in rage. If she'd done it for real, they would have had to buy a new table. "Chelimber's my territory. I was there over a decade ago! Perhaps I should invite him for lunch, take him on a tour of the garden, then shove him into the bloodthorn's cage when he's off-guard?"

She tried to look fierce, as if driven by murderous, dark passions; with her protruding incisors and heavy brow, it should have been easy, but despite the enthusiasm of the attempt, she only succeeding in looking cross-eyed and slightly constipated. Elanee put a hand over her mouth as her shoulders shook.

"Maybe you should—"

Knocking at the door prevented her from completing her offer of assistance in the hypothetical hit on a rival scholar. They exchanged looks. It was past the hour for paying social calls in Waterdeep – long past, especially in the current fraught climate. Elanee was heading for the corridor before she even heard Semmy's shuffle approaching from the parlour. After pausing to let him go first, being aware of how seriously he took his household duties, she shadowed him to the entrance hall.

The ebony floor here had been purchased at an auction on the estate of a noble family: the estate was being broken up, and the family were moving south to Baldur's Gate. The copper-cheap acquisition of sixty yards square of hardwood boards had been a bargain, one which also offered Elanee certain advantages should anyone of malicious intent appear at Rosalenita's door. She bent, and brushed the polished ebony with her finger tips. There was a spark there still. Just enough memory of the humming, forceful life of the woodland to work with. Nature was everywhere; all she needed to do was bare her soul to it, and it was open to her in turn.

The downside of this safety measure of last resort was that it might leave them without a floor, and with a persimmon tree blocking the doorway. You win some, you lose some.

The door knocker sounded again, echoing down the plaster-walled corridor. Semmy raised the dark green patches of scale where his eyebrows had been. She nodded. He slid back the bolt, and wrenched the solid door open.

Light flowed from the lobby out onto the figure waiting on the threshold. Long black hair. Layered robes like the ones worn by merchants from the south. Delicate pale face with the inevitable twist of arch amusement round the mouth and eyes.

"Sand!" she snapped over Semmy's head. "What are you doing here?"

The mage raised his eyebrows with more aplomb than poor Semmy had managed. "Do you live here too, Elaníae? How marvellous. I had no idea."

"Of course you didn't," she snarled. She understood where the anger came from, and it wasn't Sand at its root. He just happened to be its representative. Again. She could deal with the past in small doses, planned and controlled and braced for well in advance, but she wasn't going to pretend to be overjoyed when it waltzed up to her house unannounced, and wrecked what had to this point been an enjoyable evening.

"Just so," said Sand with a thin smile. "Now, delightful as this is, I'm afraid I must prioritise business before pleasure." While she choked in annoyance, Sand smoothly redirected his attention to Semmy. "Master Autolycus, I'm so glad to have the chance to renew our brief acquaintanceship."

"Elanee is ours, mage," rasped Semmy. However Sand had discovered his previous name, its use did not impress the steward. "You cannot misappropriate her."

"I do not wish to pilfer Elanee, nor any other druids you happen to have stored in the cellar. Nor will I steal, liberate, lure away, purloin or otherwise separate you from her." She noticed that when he spoke about her to Semmy, Sand had no difficulty using the Common form of her name, confirming her suspicion that he chose the elvish version to annoy her. "Tonight I am here to visit the famous Doctor Rosalenita Stoneskeld. I have an invitation for her."

From a pocket of his elaborate robe, he drew out a sealed scroll, brandishing it before him like a duellist. Rosalenita's full name, including the middle ones that she tried to keep secret, were written out in a splendid cursive elven script. A deep buttery yellow wax sealed the edge up in a neat line, which some conscientious secretary must have applied with utmost care.

Five symbols were stamped in a row on the surface of the wax: a crescent moon, a portcullis, a star above a tree, a crown, and, right at the end, the Eye of Tyr. Was it her imagination, or were its edges a little warped – not as crisp as the emblems of the other cities, as if even holding its own in the wax was beyond its strength?

"The Doctora is at home to visitors between lunch and sunset. Return tomorrow, and she will receive you if her schedule allows," said Semmy, unmoved by the sight of the invitation. She hoped the steward would shut the door in Sand's face; his request to meet Rosalenita had to be a ruse, a game. Why, she did not know. Nor did she really want to.

"My apologies for the hour of my visit," said Sand with glib readiness, "the customs of Athkatla – late dinners and busy nights – have already left their mark on me. But as you see, I am not here on my own account. The Lords' Alliance and Council of Neverwinter requested my services; I have come as their representative."

After tucking the scroll back into his inner pocket, he adjusted the hang of his robes so that they lay in regular, smooth pleats. What did Sand appreciate more, the sense of authority, or the generous commission he was earning? But that might be unfair; Sand had never been venal.

"I will enquire. Wait here." Semmy shuffled down the corridor towards the glasshouse, leaving Elanee alone with Sand. Her heart sank; Rosalenita's curiosity would assure him of an audience. The mysterious sealed letter was an extra guarantee.

"Still running errands for Lila Farlong?" she asked before he could get his own dig in. Sand's expression gave nothing away.

"As I said, I am presently working for the Council. Lila does not have a seat on it. Between ourselves, she is not seen as being completely sound." Elanee hadn't known until Sand's visit that Neverwinter had a council of any variety. According to the scraps of news she'd been unable to avoid, the city proper lay abandoned. If there was a council, it held sway over ghosts and ruins.

"Jerro?"

"Gods preserve me, no."

"Nevalle, then."

Sand's grey eyes widened marginally. "My, you are out of the loop, aren't you? Have all of Waterdeep's broadside scribblers and hawkers gone astray in the Undermountain? Though that might lead to a better-informed citizenry…"

"Neverwinter affairs are not given much attention here. People prefer hearing local news, and stories from the south. Neverwinter just isn't seen as…important." That was true. And on top of that, Waterdhavians found Neverwinter a disquieting topic of conversation. If one thriving city state could go from jewel of the north to burnt-out wreck after a run of misfortune, so could others.

"Really? How very short-sighted of people," he said with ironic emphasis. Sand's reaction to her clumsy dismissal of the city that had his loyalty was as smooth as snakeskin. "In that case, you may be surprised to learn that Nevalle was banished by the Council. In the wake of recent problems, a scapegoat was needed, and the horns and fleece fitted Nevalle to perfection. The general sentiment seemed to be that a wealthy knight who took such pains to shine his armour and hair every morning might have done a better job of ensuring that the city didn't get burnt down."

"That seems unfair," she observed. Although she hadn't known the knight well, his devotion to duty during the Shadow War had been obvious. When she'd treated him during the siege, his armour had been dented and scored by undead claws in dozens of places…

"Perhaps." Sand gave a light shrug. "But as I recall, we humble folk of Neverwinter were quite – how shall I put it? - piqued at the time. And he was lucky, in that the march – or is it wheel? – of progress had moved in his favour. Our poor northern backwater had become almost sentimental over the last decade. It wasn't so long ago that Neverwinter's best and brightest lynched a man for being in the wrong place at the wrong time."

And people ask why I never take the road north, she thought.

As Semmy returned, she examined the dark street behind Sand in case he'd brought any more of her old acquaintances with him, but all was quiet. The taproom of the Sunken Flagon wasn't going to burst out from behind a streetlamp. Elder Naevan wasn't going to step out of the notary's house opposite.

Even before she made way for Semmy, the beginnings of smugness were appearing round Sand's mouth, and in the depths of his eyes.

"Doctora Rosalenita will see you now. Follow."

Semmy was being even less polite than he had been with her when she gained entry with a Harper passphrase. Anyone less thick-skinned would have shrivelled at his terseness, and immediately volunteered to return at a more convenient hour. She smiled. Semmy's on my side. Good. Sand could wave as many fancy scrolls around as he liked, but he wouldn't shake the steward's steadfastness.

In the glasshouse, Rosalenita had donned a pair of thick-lensed spectacles, and was thumbing through a pile of correspondence. Since she was in the habit of reading and composing letters before breakfast, Elanee guessed that she only wanted something to keep her hands occupied while her mind worked on categorising Sand. Slipping past him, she reclaimed the chair she'd recently vacated.

"Evenin'. Sorry for not getting up." Rosalenita gestured to where her cane lay propped against the table. "In Waterdeep, we stand when a guest arrives, but sometimes old age makes for bad manners. You must be Sand." She adjusted her spectacles. "Uncommon name for an elf. Not short for Isaendor, is it? Once knew a goldsmith called that."

If Sand was startled by the sight of the large half-orc sitting in state in her tropical glasshouse, he didn't show it. He only gave a formal bow before answering. "I chose the name Sand when I moved to Neverwinter. It was easier for the locals to say, and if they could say my name that meant they could also promote my goods. My potions shop – now no more, alas – relied for a great deal of its custom on personal recommendations. My draughts could be relied upon not to poison the drinker, force them into love with the next person they saw, or change their sex on an hourly cycle." Sand paused. His fingers toyed with the steel-coloured lace on the cuff of his inner sleeve. "Unless that was what they wanted, naturally."

Semmy moved to stand at right angles to Sand and Rosalenita, his back to the ridged trunk of a date palm, his jaw set, as if he was a highway robber preparing for an ambush.

"As good a reason as any to take up a new name," said Rosalenita. "I thought it might be something to do with those nasty lads in Luskan who had a grudge against you. Business interests is a much nicer story."

The faint smile hardened on Sand's face. Still, he didn't frown. He must have realised that his host was testing him, teasing him, just as she had done to Elanee when they first met. It had been after her encounter with Sand outside the Seaholt that she had filled her friend in on the small part of his history that she knew; Rosalenita had listened and remembered.

"It is indeed. Happily, Luskan has evinced no interest in me for some time. Most of my former contacts there passed unpeacefully away in the plague. I'm sure that the Host Tower's loss was Carceri's gain. A few of the Host Tower lords may not even have noticed the change in the décor."

"I visited the Host Tower once," Rosalenita mused. "Sulphur yellow wallpaper."

"Not to forget the cold-wrought iron spikes pointing upward from the courtyard and balcony edges."

"Impossible to forget…a bold aesthetic choice, as my tailor keeps telling me…"

"Quite," said Sand. "The Host Tower could be very creative, especially in furnishing its dungeons."

Rosalenita's eyes glinted. The problem with her friend was that she liked people too much; Semmy could be counted on to react to anyone unfamiliar with all the warmth of a crop-eared guard dog on a long chain. The botanist was uncomfortable in crowds, but let a stranger wander into her domain, and it was like watching her open a box and find a rare tree fern inside: first the tests and observations, then tending to its needs, then finding it a corner where it would grow happily. That was what she had done with Elanee, after all.

"I don't reckon you nipped out to Waterdeep from—

"—Athkatla—"

"—Athkatla? Really? Well, I don't reckon you came all the way from Amn to talk to me about interior décor. Unless you're here on behalf of that D'Arnise girl, then you can tell her that she'll need to knock bigger holes in the walls of her castle if she wants an indoor orangery. They need light, and lots of it. She'd be better advised to stick it on the roof like a sensible person."

Elanee tensed on her chair, waiting. Whatever Sand wanted, it would be nothing good. His last visit had been to announce the Spellplague. What would it be today? An army of drow on giant vampire bats? Was the Astral Plane about to collide with the Prime?

"I believe Lady D'Arnise has moved on from investigating the potential of citrus fruits to cure hunger and disease. She is now very drawn to turnips."

"Who isn't?" Rosalenita murmured as she accepted the scroll from Sand, and broke the wax with a swipe of her index claw. Unrolling it, she held the paper up to the lamp as she read the contents, a frown appearing between her brows and getting deeper the longer she read. The paper was of such fine quality, thick and white as snow on the inside, creamy on the outside, that Elanee couldn't even discern the shadows of the letters from where she sat.

"Humph." The noise from Rosalenita was a mixture of sigh and grunt. It was the noise she made when she encountered a plant in the wild that didn't fit its surroundings. "Odd business. I suppose you know what it says?" she asked Sand, who inclined his head. "Listen to this, you two.

"'Most learned Rosalenita. Your presence is humbly requested in Neverwinter on the last day of Uktar for a service of remembrance and thanksgiving. A safe route will be provided to the Blacklake, where the service will begin on the third hour after noon. Detachments of mages and guards from allied cities will guarantee the security of all attendees. You are kindly asked to refrain from carrying any manner of weapon, including explosives, vials of poisonous or corrosive liquid, enchanted figurines, wands, magic staffs, necklaces of fireballs, scrolls, siege engines, sharpened hair combs, or any other device which might be used to cause harm.'"

In that case, Elanee thought, Sand should cut out his tongue before going. She felt ashamed of her meanness afterwards, though not very.

"'The one who delivers this invitation has been authorised by us, the undersigned, to cover your expenses, and to provide further details as you require.' And then there are signatures. Lots of 'em. The first one says Hornblade. Isn't he the high head'un in Silverymoon now? Then there's something-squiggle-Alagondar. I thought he was dead. And here's one in runes. Gelkar?"

"Khelgar," Elanee said at exactly the same time as Sand. Avoiding his gaze, she stared at the forked leaves of Slaan.

"Khelgar Ironfist, Knight Captain of Crossroad Keep. An important dwarf in Neverwinter politics these days." Elanee tried to imagine Khelgar as a savvy political operator like Rustem in Thay, or Loreo Anteos in Waterdeep, and failed. Either he had changed a lot, or Sand was a born writer of popular novels.

"Ah yes. Khelgar. Always get my Ks and Gs mixed up in rune-reading." Rosalenita passed the scroll to Elanee. "You have a look. The names'll mean more to you than me."

Taking it, she was forced to admire the flowing script: it was too flowery for a printed book, but for its purpose it was perfectly chosen and executed. The recipient of such a piece of craft would feel flattered, signalled out for special notice, and thus much more likely to accept the invitation it contained. The gentle but distinctive aroma of honeysuckle rose from the thick paper.

Skipping the message, Elanee went straight to the twenty signatures underneath. Some were stamped, others inked by hand. Of those inked, about half were fully legible. A few names she knew at once.

"Brelaina?" she asked Sand. A draught of warm air alerted her to Semmy's presence at her side. He was staring round her elbow at the scroll, round eyes sucking in the details. She tilted the paper so that he could read it more easily.

"Helped re-establish the Council after the Spellplague, and still has a seat. A dependable voice of reason."

At least that made sense, though it felt like a drop of clarity in a muddy lake. Brelaina had been authoritative and methodical. She was the kind of person who would inevitably be involved in the reconstruction work.

"And Cormick?" She had spotted another familiar name amongst the flourishes and curls, and dredged up the few memories she had of him. A typical Harbourman, big and blunt like his square, heavy signature, but his solidity hid a vein of rashness. He'd been friendly and helpful, until he realised that Crossroad Keep was sheltering the murderer that killed his betrothed. Then he was only angry. Very angry. She touched his name on the paper in compassion.

"In charge of Helm's Hold." A muscle twitched above Sand's jaw. Was that disapproval? "And very influential on the Council, though some might be inclined to believe that his status has more to do with the huge fortress and town at his command that with his grasp of strategy." Yes. Disapproval.

"Like Khelgar then?"

Sand gave an easy one-shouldered shrug. "A little. Though Khelgar has an interesting collection of advisors, and is more capable in his own right than either of us might have guessed back in the glorious days when I was learning how to hide from dragons, and you were learning what rooves and plumbing were for."

"Dragons?" rattled Semmy. His eyelids retracting, displaying his interest. The remains of Autolycus in him still enjoyed dragon stories. If Sand starting telling him about Nolaloth or Tholapsyx, they could be here till the turn of the month.

"Metaphorical dragons," said Elanee. Sand gave her a look. It went quite literally over Semmy's head, but she was sure that Rosalenita caught it, and understood its significance.

Letting the metaphorical dragons lie, Semmy brushed the letter with his lobed fingertips. "Duke Belt," he read aloud. "Duchess Liia. Lord Caladorn. So many names…" The last sibilant faded into the soft hiss of a grass snake.

"Politicians…" drawled Rosalenita, her tone announcing her opinion of the species. "I'd rather spend the afternoon talking to the wall. Anyone interesting going?" Sand smiled in the manner she remembered from visits to his shop: although discreet, it was still a salesman's smile.

"There are a number definitely attending who might meet with your approval. Aldanon the Sage, Tarmas of West Harbour, Eltoora Sarptyl, Jax Tanthire, Beaverside, Molya the Reader, Carainos the Avowed…"

"Carainos will be there?" Rosalenita folded her hands on the table and leaned forward. "I've wanted to meet him since I found his Book of Noxious Substances in my aunt's library. Opened my eyes to all you can do with a rotbean pod. Amazing things."

"He was nominated by Bann Alagondar personally," confirmed Sand with the quiet pleasure of a fisherman sensing a tug on the line.

"Well – in that case – and Eltoora as well. Haven't seen her for years. Thought she fell into a volcano in seventy-two, truth be told."

"My associate reports that she's very much alive. That reminds me…" And Sand, meticulously oblivious to the glares Elanee sent in his direction, produced the new edition of Rosalenita's first Zakharan volume, and asked the botanist to sign it, spelling Harcourt's name out for her as she wrote a dedication on the title page with her best quill pen.

In a very limited sense, the invitation was none of Elanee's business. She wasn't even mentioned in it; it was addressed solely to Rosalenita. But as her bodyguard, writing partner, and friend, her responsibility ranged much further. She wasn't going to let Sand draw her mentor into whatever trouble was stirring north of the border.

"What's this really about, Sand? Duke Belt – Liia – Lord Caladorn. They wouldn't be involving themselves in this ceremony that has nothing to do with them, that's happening a hundred miles and more from their territory. And who is this memorial service for? The letter doesn't say." Rosalenita might be puzzled by her vehemence, but these questions needed to be asked.

"My dear druid, it is very simple. Let me set it out for you. The memorial is a tribute to all the people who will die next year in the civil war that will erupt if Bann Alagondar and the new Council fail to sign a peace treaty when they meet beside the Blacklake at the end of Uktar."

I knew it, she thought. I knew there was a catch. The fragrance of honeysuckle was only there to disguise the rot.

Sand was deadly serious for once. The lamplight and shadow intensified the sharp lines of his face. She remembered seeing him in Crossroad Keep after the last battle; how in the gaps in his performance of liqueur-soaked petulance, he had seemed deeply tired. Some of that tiredness was visible in his eyes now. Not such a smug snake now, as Sir Nevalle had once put it, if he had ever been.

"Of course," he continued, "officially, the memorial service will be an occasion to pay tribute to the soldiers and civilians dead in Neverwinter's wars. No particular wars will be specified in case any of the delegates, in a momentary lapse of judgement owing to the stress of the situation, forgot which side they were on."

After Sand had finished, no one spoke for a time. Elanee caught Rosalenita's eye. With a wince, her friend rubbed the tip of an incisor, and wrinkled her nose.

"I will bring refreshments," rattled Semmy, and began to shuffle away before either of them could thank him.

"Civil wars are infertile territory for botanists," said Rosalenita after another strained, three-sided pause. "I grant you, they water the earth, but only brambles grow there. Too much iron in the ground for anything else."

"I assure you—" began Sand, seeing his fish begin pulling away.

" —on the other hand…" Rosalenita interrupted him slowly and deliberately. Sand startled. Perhaps he was no longer used to having people talk across him. "…on the other hand, I was moaning about boredom when you arrived on my doorstep." She pressed her palms together, holding her hands straight as if she was in prayer. Behind them, Elanee glimpsed the hint of a smirk. "If Fate or whatever sent you to me, I don't want to be ungrateful. Neverwinter's always had its troubles, but being boring was never one of 'em."

Elanee felt sick. Going to Neverwinter to escape boredom was like volunteering for the executioner's block to cure a head-cold. "But – Rosalenita—"

"Excellent! Let me—" said Sand.

Rosalenita held up a finger for quiet. "But before I start packing my steel-padded bloomers and Nan Redhand's battle-axe, I want to know: why me? Why are you asking people like me and Aldanon and Molya to the party? I'd be calling on Drizzt or Laeral, myself."

It was a good question. Elanee had initially assumed that Sand's visit was simply a cover for his second attempt to drag her into trouble in Neverwinter, but this was a greater matter than she had guessed. Civil war. She knew enough about the world to sense the ill omen borne on those words. Recalling the beautiful coloured lamps strung between houses and columns in the Blacklake District, her heart ached. What were her old battle companions doing, the ones who'd survived? Had they picked sides? It sounded as if Sand had thrown in his lot with this new Council.

"In the negotiations, it was generally agreed that the last thing this affair needs is the involvement of more warriors. The delegates bound to attend under the terms of the agreement include a bad-tempered warlock, Uthgardt chiefs, an orc chieftain, and the leader of some very bloody reprisals against the Luskans in Port Llast. And those are among the more predictable guests. The Lords' Alliance asked for reputable, independent and, above all, peaceful guests to bear witness to the proceedings, and to distract the more volatile elements from their grudges and ambitions. A list of names was drawn up, the faction leaders approved it, and…here I am. Was the explanation satisfactory?"

Sand looked in no doubt that he knew what the answer would be. She'd met humbler griffins.

"Entirely," said Rosalenita with a broad grin.

Semmy stepped out of the shadow of a pandan tree, his third-best serving tray loaded with water of anise and ginger biscuits. As he laid it on the table, he scooped up the invitation, and, after retreating from the lamplight, started reading it through carefully again.

Feeling nauseous, Elanee left the biscuits untouched, and managed only a sip of the water of anise before she had to set it down. There must be a means to dissuade Rosalenita from going, she told herself. There must be.

Sand accepted the proffered glass. Whatever would happen on the shores of the Blacklake, he would survive it. It was said that cats always landed on their feet. That might not be true of cats, but she was sure it was true of Sands.

He raised his glass, blinking as the fumes from the strong spirit reached his nose. "I would suggest a toast to the Peace of Neverwinter, but based on previous experiences, any such sentiment could lead to the city immediately collapsing into the sea."

"To the High Road then," returned Rosalenita. "May its many potholes be as a massage for the backside, and not a series of kicks. I don't want to spend the memorial service lying flat on my face on a stretcher with my bum in the air."

"Yet you would still be exhibiting more refined behaviour than some of the delegates." Sand certainly thought he was being very amusing, and Rosalenita seemed entertained; the playfulness failed to hide the reality, that he was luring a harmless, brilliant old lady onto a road that would end in a pit of starving wolves. If Rosalenita insisted on going, then she would accompany her. But to return after so long—

She sat still while Sand poured more of the details into her friend's receptive ear. Though trying to listen, nothing of what they said stayed in her memory. The words were all known to her, but they did not adhere, drifting away like foam on the ebb tide. Silvanus help her, the road to Neverwinter ran straight past the Mere of Dead Men. There had been places where willow roots broke through the paved surface, and streams ran across it to fill the sleepy pools.

"…Elanee can persuade the throttler ivy to get out of the way for you…" The mention of her name brought her back to the lamplit circle. Rosalenita must be offering Sand a bed for the night, since the ivy in question had taken over the main guest bedroom. "Don't let the name put you off. It's just one of 'em folk traditions like dogs' fingers and scorpion grass. I've never caught it strangling anyone."

There was no need to frown at Sand. He declined the chance to spend the night with the second most aggressive plant in their collection with just enough hesitation to avoid seeming ill-mannered.

"…I will be staying at the Broken Lance for the next few days, and again in the middle of Uktar. Any messages sent there will reach me. Elanee. Master Autolycus. Doctora." She blinked as Sand tapped his forefinger over his heart, saying goodbye in the elvish manner of Evereska. It was the first time she'd seen him use the gesture.

"I want to go as well," rattled Semmy. He held up the scroll. Even from two yards' distance, she detected a whisper of honeysuckle amongst the dense green smells of the glasshouse. "Where can I acquire one of these?"

Rosalenita gave one of her huge smiles. "Ready for an adventure, Semmy? It'll be just like the old days…without all the Tethyrian assassins dropping out of the canopy."

Semmy tried to square his shoulders, but the effect was more like a slow, sinuous flexing, as if his black coat was wrapped around the coils of a python. "Yesss," he whispered. He stared intently at Sand, who didn't balk, yet didn't seem to enjoy the scrutiny. "Adventure. As in the old days…I collected orchids."

Sand shifted slightly. "I will speak to my associates. Something can certainly be arranged." Gripping her cane – Elanee had not noticed Rosalenita reaching for it – the botanist stood.

"Well, this evening turned out different to what I expected. Let me walk you to the door, Master Sand. Another time I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on silverbark sap. Odd stuff. I think it has more properties than we know of, but the Guild of Apothecaries will only tell me to mind my own business if I get onto them about it. 'Go and draw some more nice flower pictures, doctora, and leave potion brewing to the professionals'."

As Rosalenita led the mage down the hall, Elanee sipped the water of anise, then pressed her thumb against her forehead. The breath of Auril take Sand. She wanted everything to return to how it had been an hour ago before he showed up with his treacherous roll of paper.

"You are tired," said Semmy. She let her hand fall to the table.

"No, not very tired."

"Then you are afraid." She looked at him, revealing the answer through her silence. "Why?"

"I don't know." She paused. "Aren't you ever scared at the thought of seeing your past? If you could visit your homeland again, would you?"

Semmy moved closer. Picking up Sand's half-empty glass, he dipped the ends of his fingers into the spirit, holding them there until they heard the front door close. He removed them, and held them up to the lamplight. The skin where the spirit had touched it was cross-hatched with thin lines of yellow, brown, and black. "Yeeess," he replied at last. His lips twisted in a spasm of rage. "But not like this."

That night she dreamed again of the land of the silver sky and waving grasses. The dream that no diviner or priest in Faerun had been able to explain to her. Semmy's advice to avoid eating hard cheese in the afternoon and evening had been more helpful, and also free. As usual the hoofbeats sounded, and as usual she woke up before she could discover more.

"Thank you," she told the hag's eye insincerely as she looked out of the window, and realised it was nowhere near dawn. The veins in the eye pulsed, as if it was laughing at her.

Rosalenita could not be dissuaded from her plan at breakfast, and at lunch she was too full of her enthusiasm for a book of experimental alchemical studies sent by Sand to have attention to spare for Elanee's speech about the dangers of Neverwinter, and the horrors of the north. At dinner, Elanee had no more luck.

"Look at Semmy," she said, reluctantly using him to prop up her argument.

"I am," replied the botanist. "He's a marvellous shade of teal today. The extra latok-paste in his formula is working wonders."

Leaning to attention in a corner, Semmy gave one of his soft, choked laughs. Elanee couldn't tell if he was amused at the comment, or if the laugh was directed at himself.

"He spent a single night in the Mere of Dead Men, and—" she tried to find a description of what had happened that wasn't hurtful " —it changed him utterly. You've said yourself that he was lucky to survive."

Rosalenita snorted, and shook the grip of her cane at her. Since it had been moulded into the shape of a rotund, fat-cheeked hamster, the gesture was lacking in ferocity. "That was decades ago. Apart from a few undead and – what d'you call 'em? Lantern bearers? – the Mere's supposed to be quite safe now. Safer than the Dock Ward the night after pay-day, that's for sure. Not that I'm going to the Mere anyway."

Her chest was tight with a kind of unfocused fear; it reminded her of the first months after the fall of the King of Shadows. During her more lucid moments, she had felt like this. But she wasn't ready to give up yet.

"Neverwinter was torn apart in the Spellplague. They say it's full of ghosts, and shadows, and wild magic."

Rosalenita put down her fork. Although the meal had consisted of rice cakes and grilled vegetables, nothing greasy, the botanist washed her hands in the bowl of fresh water provided for the purpose, and patted them dry on a flannel. Then she looked at Elanee, her lower jaw tensing in thought.

Leaning forward, she gently took Elanee's right hand between her own large ones. "I know you're worried. There's places I've been you couldn't pay me to revisit. But I promise you, Semmy and I will be safe. I haven't stayed alive this long through carelessness. You stay here and make sure the bloodthorn doesn't escape again."

Elanee gulped and nodded. She didn't want to annoy Rosalenita by arguing further. What's worse, asked a nagging voice that reminded her of a long-vanished ranger, you lose a friend because you disagreed with her? Or you lose her because she dies in Neverwinter's latest mess? Sounds like you're still a coward…

Rosalenita was watching her carefully. Her continued misgivings must have been obvious.

Giving her hand a squeeze, the botanist added, "We're going north with the City Guard. There'll be detachments from other cities in the Alliance there too. The folk that planned it, they planned good."

"'Course I'm right." Rosalenita grinned and stood up. "Now, I've got to figure out what I'll pack, and what I'll have to buy in. Is it cold in Neverwinter roundabout the Feast of the Moon? I don't want to get there and find out two sets of woolly underwear still let the draught through. You care about that when you're old. Maybe you're laughing now, but wait till your eight hundredth birthday, and you'll see what I mean."

"You aren't old!" said Elanee, falling with relief into one of their familiar patterns of conversation.

"My hair's grey, I can't see properly, and I keep falling asleep in the afternoon," the botanist called back to them from the door. "Either I'm old, or the gods are reincarnating me as a dormouse while I'm still alive."

When she was gone, Semmy muttered behind Elanee, so quietly that a human might not have heard, "Better a dormouse than a cabbage."

Time played strange tricks on Elanee as the day for Rosalenita and Semmy's departure drew closer. Sometimes she set herself long lists of tasks to complete and errands to run; after every one was done, she would glance up at the sun, and discover that it wasn't even mid-morning.

Another time, she sat down after breakfast with her sketchbook, intending to work on technical botanical drawings, but emerged after what felt like five minutes to see dinner being served, and that she'd filled pages and pages with hundreds of little drawings: Naloch asleep by the hearth in the Sunken Flagon; Kistrel holding up a cloak between her pincers; Neeshka mid-cackle, pointing at something unseen; Ivarr reading in his study; Lila glancing over her shoulder, sabre readied; Zhjaeve watching the stars; and an armoured man walking away, his back to her, wisps of his dark hair curling round the top of his gorget. When she came to him, she closed the sketchbook, and shoved it out-of-sight under a bookcase.

The cook and another one of the hired helpers carried Rosalenita's trunk into the hall on the evening before the convoy north was due to set out. Elanee tried to pretend it wasn't there as she moved through the house, leading to a stubbed toe and the application of some of the newer expletives she'd heard from attendants at the Seaholt. They'll just be gone for a ten-day, she told herself. Perhaps less. And then everything will return to normal.

Despite eating no hard cheese, pickled fruit, or any kind of allium throughout the day, as soon as she lay down on her bed that night, she woke into the same dreamworld that had been haunting her for years. Not quite the same though. Now the night lay thick on the grassy plains. She sniffed, and detected the bright, clean smell of frost, which was absurd, because this was a dream, and no one smells anything in their dreams, except for dogs and badgers.

A bank like the huge dykes she'd seen in Sembia lay a few yards ahead of her, following a line as straight as the trunk of a poplar tree.

She waited for hoofbeats, the hoofbeats that would send her back to her bed in Waterdeep, but heard nothing. Looking around, she tried to mark the details of the place so that she'd have more information for the next travelling diviner who made her impossible promises.

Poppies grew up the sloping bank. Heart-shaped flowers like Cormyrian violets bejewelled the grass at her feet. She picked one, and let it nod its delicate head from where she lodged it in the buckle of her baldric. She'd definitely been wearing a nightgown when she went to bed, yet her imagination had seen fit to kit her out in her old orc-fighting gear, the hardened leather jerkin and long kilt she'd worn in the mountains round Old Owl Well.

She was about to wander over to one of the closer trees to see if she could learn more from it, when a sense of something, of someone, made her jerk to a halt.

The night was empty. She was ready to laugh at herself, then —

"Is anyone there?" called a male voice. The question rang out clearly, sounding confident, the timbre of the voice low and warm as eiderdown.

Every pore of her skin prickled. Her fingers snapped closed on air. Oh gods. This is just a dream. It's not really him.

But even if it wasn't… The voice had sounded as if it came from the top of the bank. There would be no one there, of course. She would climb it, and there would be nothing, and she would wake up to the sound of the waits piping in the dawn on Julthoon Street.

"I mean you no harm," said the beautiful voice. There was no doubt about it: it was coming from the top of the bank, and this time she heard the chink of a bridle, and the stamp of a horse's hoof. "Let us talk."

Elanee started running. She managed four strides. Then a heavy hand landed on her shoulder.

Unable to go further, she whirled around, heard thudding.

Katriona was looking down at her. The human's white-blonde hair gleamed, though there was no moon visible through the clouds to lighten the darkness. Her blue eyes were wide and expressionless. As Elanee looked up at her, a trickle of blood appeared at the corner of the woman's mouth, and trickled over her chin, unregarded.

They stared at each other.

Elanee's heart gave a single violent leap, and everything disappeared. She was lying in bed, feverish, her chest aching, tears forming in her eyes.

And yet with a wilting violet lying in the folds of her nightgown.

This time, the hag's eye didn't even wink.

Just after sunrise, she slipped out of the front door of the house, down the steps, and onto the street. Rosalenita and Semmy had already climbed aboard the wagon that would take them through the north gate and onto the only one of Waterdeep's highways that she'd never set foot on. They would cross the border into Neverwinter territory by the end of the day.

The wagon was the same one they always used; the horses too. But the human watchman on the driver's perch with the crescent moon of Waterdeep on his tabard was a new addition; likewise the dark-eyed elven mage in the colours of Silverymoon standing in the hold.

Without waiting for permission, Elanee hopped into the wagon. The mage glowered and pointed a wand at her until Rosalenita pushed it politely but firmly to one side.

"Mornin'," she said.

Not entirely concealed by his mushroom hat, Semmy's pale eyes rolled in Elanee's direction. "The weather is excellent," he remarked in a vatic manner not so different to Zhjaeve. "The sky is clear. The temperature is tolerable."

Rosalenita smiled, and leaned back against the interior wall. "Too right it is. Perfect conditions for a cattle raid, as my daddy used to say."

The two of them made it so easy. She thought that any decision that involved staying by them, keeping watch over them, had to be correct. An elf, a wobbly half-orc, and a little green man wearing too many clothes must look like debris from a gutter-pipe to the elegant Silverymoon mage, but there was no group Elanee would rather be a part of.

"I thought I could join you," she said, "since the weather's so fine. I know I don't have an invitation. I could at least go as far as the gates of Neverwinter."

"Actually…" said Rosalenita, not quite making eye contact. She had her botanist's satchel by her as she always did. Reaching into it, she drew out three scrolls, all with yellow wax seals, all scented with honeysuckle. "I reckoned that since Sand didn't charge us for Semmy's, I might as well ask him for a third on the off-chance of you changing your mind."

Rosalenita's lower lip pressed against her upper; one eye widened while the other narrowed. The expression signified a level of nervousness that was rare in her friend. Ruefully, Elanee wondered how much of the nervousness was to blame on her own behaviour over the last month.

"Thank you," she said. She glanced down at the rough boards of the wagon floor, and swallowed so that her voice wouldn't crack from the pressure of the gratitude that filled her chest and throat. Not the resentful kind of gratitude she might once have felt towards a hero for saving her life as a footnote to other, greater deeds, but the rush of affection towards a friend who had done something small for her sake, and done it beautifully.

"Did you pack your battle-axe?" she managed to say while keeping her composure.

"Couldn't fit it in the trunk. And no weapons allowed at the service, anyway. Very untraditional. My nan would never have believed it."

"A trained assassin only needs the tip of one finger to kill," Semmy informed them; that sort of fact delighted him, but he sounded like his usual serious self. The Silverymoon mage gripped her wand more tightly; she seemed unedified by this knowledge.

"That's funny," said Rosalenita. "I heard the same thing about gigolos. Especially ones from Calimshan. What d'you think, you two? Time to go?"

"Yes," rattled Semmy. Elanee nodded, her mouth dry. She gripped the edge of the bench she was sitting on. A neighbour waved cheerfully from his first-floor window; she detached a hand long enough to wave back. Then Rosalenita clicked her tongue at the horses and at once, to the surprise of the watchman holding the reins and whip, the wagon trundled away down the street.