Lydia!
“Come on, Kevin,” added a high, shrill voice. “We know you’re in there!”
Wings buzzed in the darkness. Now that had to be Tich’ki!
Kevin put the candlestick back on the bedside table from which he’d snatched it and fumbled with flint and steel till he’d gotten the chick, expensive, beeswax candle burning. By its flickering light, he saw Lydia grin and Tich’ki come to a graceful landing on the bed. Two more figures moved silently out of the shadows:
Eliathanis and Naitachal, the latter nearly invisible, shrouded once more in his cloak of necromantic black.
“We must talk,” the Dark Elf said softly.
“We certainly must!” Kevin agreed. “I don’t know about you, but I feel like all this glittery splendor is going to explode in my face.”
Eliathanis grimaced. “Oh, indeed. The whole affair stinks, as you humans would say, like old boots.’’
Kevin nodded eagerly. “What it is, is that they’re all trying their best to dazzle us.”
“But just who are ‘they’?” the White Elf wondered. “And why are ‘they’ doing this?”
“Why, indeed?” Naitachal mused. “I wonder ... could someone have deceived Count Volmar? Perhaps told him of heroics we simply didn’t do?”
“Why would anyone bother?” Lydia asked. “That doesn’t make sense.”
Tich’ki shrugged. “A weird sort of human joke?”
Kevin shook his head. “Not with Charina here. Her disappearance was hardly a joke!”
“The only other possibility.” Naitachal said slowly, “is that the count himself is involved.”
Lydia stirred impatiently. “Involved in what? All we know is, he hired us to find his niece. We returned to find said niece already free. Everyone thinks we’re heroes. Yeah, it’s a weird situation, but where’s the crime in it?”
“Oh, Powers ...”
“Kevin? What is it?”
He stared at them all. “I just had a horrible thought Remember what the Arachnia back in Westerin told us? About Carlotta? Well, what if ... what if that isn’t Charina after all. I know she’s no illusion, I sat next to her at dinner and all, but ...” He shook his head in misery.
“You mean,” the Dark Elf murmured, “that she might be no one else but Carlotta in disguise?”
“I d-don’t want to believe it, but what if that’s the truth? Then this whole thing, all this ridiculous, empty celebrating, starts making sense. It could all be part of her plot.”
Naitachal swore under his breath. “Could be, no. It is! And here I thought I sensed something odd about that girl, a hint of sorcery hovering about her. But I told myself no, that couldn’t be, I had to be mistaken. 1 let myself get just as bedazzled as the rest of you.”
The Dark Elf straightened resolutely. “What happened. happened. If that really is Carlotta, the count is almost certainly under her sway.”
“And that means they’re both probably waiting for me to find the manuscript again,” Kevin added. “After all, I’m still supposed to be copying it so I can bring the spell back to Master Aldan.”
“Well, you can forget about all that!” Lydia exclaimed. “The last thing we want to do is play into Carlotta’s hands. We’ve got to get out of here before it’s too late. Yes, and warn King Amber, too!”
“No, wait.” Eliathanis’ voice was thoughtful. “If this really is Carlotta, we can’t risk her finding the manuscript. That means we can’t Just go running off like so many frightened children.”
“She probably wouldn’t let us go anywhere anyhow,” Kevin added, “particularly not in the direction of her brother.” He hesitated, biting his lip nervously. “I—I think we have to go along with the deception, let Charina—or whoever she really is—get close to me again. And then ... well ... I guess then well see what happens.”
