Before Kellen could think of what to say, Jermayan turned away and began carrying Idalia back in the direction of her and Kellen's house.
Kellen clutched the silk-wrapped bundle tighter and followed.
It looks like they're well matched in one thing. They're both about as stubborn as each other, anyway. He sighed. Well, if he wants to do this, and it makes him feel useful … he's a grown man. I guess he's a grown man. He looks old enough to make up his own mind about making himself miserable, anyway.
Though true night had fallen while the keystone was being created, Jermayan had no trouble finding his way along the narrow unlighted paths that lay between the unicorn meadow and Kellen and Idalia's house, and Kellen found himself having to hurry to keep up with the Elf. If Jermayan had not been dressed entirely in white, it would have been even more difficult.
'You can slow down, you know,' Kellen finally said, a little breathlessly. 'There's no rush—I don't think Idalia's going to wake up anytime soon. And thank you for taking her.'
Jermayan abruptly slowed, allowing Kellen to catch up with him.
'No, she is exhausted,' Jermayan said tenderly, gazing down at Idalia's face, her head cradled protectively against his shoulder. 'But I would not wish to place you in the position of having permitted my attentions to your sister, should she learn I have taken this service upon myself.'
'What you and Idalia do—or don't do—is between the two of you,' Kellen said hastily. 'She wouldn't listen to me anyway.' And since I didn't even know I had a sister until Shalkan dumped me at her front door a few moontums ago, and since she all but told me off for trying to nose in when you first showed up on our doorstep, I'm sure not going to start telling her how to run her life now.
Jermayan smiled faintly. 'Great wisdom in one so young,' he commented.
'Besides,' Kellen added, after a moment, 'what do I know, anyway? Somebody who keeps company with unicorns doesn't have a right to a lot of opinions about people who—ah—can't.'
He thought he heard a faint chuckle from Jermayan, but he couldn't be sure.
They continued onward in a more companionable silence until they reached the door. Kellen opened it, and Jermayan carried Idalia inside. Kellen was glad they'd left a couple of the lamps burning; he hadn't anticipated coming back with so many burdens. He quickly set the wrapped keystone down on the padded bench.
'Show me to her room, of your grace,' Jermayan said, and Kellen went to open that door in turn.
Kellen turned back the covers and Jermayan laid Idalia carefully down on the bed, gazing at her for a long moment, his face unreadable. Kellen could feel the tension of things unsaid and emotions denied fill the room like water running into a cup, so intense it made his head hurt.
'Cover her warmly, and watch over her,' Jermayan said abruptly. 'See that she sleeps undisturbed.'
Jermayan left—not seeming to hurry, in the fashion of Elves, but gone so quickly it would have been easy to imagine he'd never been there at all. Kellen removed Idalia's sandals—she might be willing to sleep in her clothes, but not in her shoes—then covered her and closed the bedroom door, blowing out the bedside lamps before he left.
He picked up the keystone and went to his own room, tucking it securely away in his pack, then went to light the lamps outside the door. Elsewhere in the canyon he could see other scattered points of light, as the Elves who had wearily returned to their homes had done the same.
He built up the fire in the stove and rummaged through the cabinets, setting out a meal for Idalia if she woke up during the night. He realized he was hungry himself—he'd been too excited to eat earlier—and cut himself a slice of cold venison and dried-cherry pie, washing it down with a tankard of cold berry-cider. Eating dispelled the last of the eldritch feeling he'd gotten from being in the meadow, as if a wind had blown him free of cobwebs. And paradoxically, it left him that much more free to worry.
Now that Idalia's part was done, the keystone made and charged, his part of the task seemed that much closer to beginning. In a few hours, he and Shalkan and one of the Elves would be on their way, riding into the unknown. Kellen was sure he couldn't possibly sleep, but it would do no harm to lie down for a few hours…
'WAKE up, sleepyhead!'
'What… ?'
Kellen came groggily awake out of muddled dreams, thrashing and struggling. The dreams that had seemed so vivid a moment before dissolved instantly, leaving him blinking in confusion.
He didn't remember falling asleep. But the last time he'd looked out the window of his bedroom, the sky had been black. Now the sky was grey-pale, and Idalia was standing over him, wrapped in a violet house robe the color
