keep
“You do. How do you plan to do that?”
“The pleasure of my company isn’t enough for you?”
“Please be serious.”
“I have other friends, you know,” she declared. “I have lots of other friends, and they would all be happy to help me.”
“You have two G’home Gnomes, and neither has the least idea what to do about your situation. You have no one else. You don’t even have your mud puppy anymore, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
She stared at him in disbelief, and then after looking around quickly began calling for Haltwhistle. But the mud puppy did not appear.
“Where is he?” she demanded, a bit frantic.
“I sent him home to the Earth Mother,” said the cat. “It wasn’t difficult. You forgot to speak his name, so he would have left anyway.”
He was right. She hadn’t spoken Haltwhistle’s name at all yesterday, and she knew what that meant. If she failed to speak the mud puppy’s name at least once each day, he would leave and go back to wherever he had come from. She didn’t even know where that was because she had never thought about it. She had always been careful to say his name so that she wouldn’t have to worry. But last night, absorbed in her own troubles, she had forgotten.
“Well, I can find him again,” she declared bravely.
“Not before your father finds you.” Dirk’s remonstrance was maddeningly calm. “Now tell me where it is that you are going.”
“I don’t know,” she said miserably.
“Somewhere you won’t be found …,” he nudged.
“Why won’t you just stay with me? Then it wouldn’t matter where I went. Why won’t you do that?”
Edgewood Dirk licked his chops and closed his eyes. “I know myself too well to make a promise I cannot keep. My nature requires that I be interested in your actions. For that to happen, you have to make interesting choices. Now think. Where could you go that would interest me?”
She shook her head helplessly.
“Put it another way. Where is the last place your father would think to look? Because sooner or later he will give up on talismans and wizards and come looking for you himself.” Dirk paused. “Or perhaps he will send someone in his place, someone more effective at finding what is hidden. Perhaps he will send the Paladin looking for you.”
Mistaya froze. She knew about the Paladin, of course, even though she had never seen him. Everyone knew about the Paladin. They whispered of it when they thought she couldn’t hear, and Questor Thews had talked of it quite openly. They were all proud of its service to the throne, but they were also quite afraid of it: huge and dark of purpose, all armored and armed astride its charger. There had never been anything in memory that had been able to stand against the Paladin.
The last thing she wanted was something as implacable as that searching for her.
“Think, Princess,” the cat pressed. “Where will your father look last for you?”
She thought. The Deep Fell was a good choice because magic couldn’t penetrate its mists.
“The Deep Fell?”
“He will look there first.”
“The Fire Springs!”
“He will look there second. He knows how the dragon feels about you.”
“Not Rhyndweir? I won’t go there!”
The cat waited. Suddenly Mistaya realized what answer he was looking for. “No!” she said at once. The cat cocked his head. “No! Absolutely not!” she repeated.
“When you wish to hide, the best place is always the one those hunting you are certain you will avoid.” Dirk gave her one of those patented looks. “Isn’t it?”
“You want me to go to Libiris,” she declared.
