seeing you.' He took up the girl's hand and brushed his lips along her fingertips.
'I've given a lot of thought to our conversation last night,' Thistle said. 'I'm feeling very unhappy that I would not-could not give you the token you asked for.' She touched the feather brooch pinned to her gown. 'After more careful consideration, I have decided to give you my wholehearted support, and you will have my token, tonight.'
'Oh, Thistle, my darling,' Lord Victor whispered. He swept the girl up in his arms and kissed her as if she were a woman.
'Lord Victor,' Thistle remarked when the croamarkh finally released her, 'I fear you've mistaken my meaning.'
Victor stepped back and turned his head away as if to hide his disappointment. 'Forgive me, Lady Thistle, I thought… I dared hope…'
'Oh, Victor,' Thistle whispered, stepping forward and taking the croamarkh's hands. 'It's not that I'm not honored by your declaration. It's only that I meant something different by offering my support.'
Victor looked the girl in the eyes once more, confusion written on his face. 'What did you mean, Thistle?'
'I meant I will deliver Verovan's hoard to you. So you can do all you said for Westgate. So you can make it the greatest city in all of Faerun.'
A smile fluttered across the croamarkh's face. 'Oh, Thistle. Sweet lady. All that talk 6f Verovan's treasure- that's just dreams, faerie tales. Someday, I will do all those things I spoke of, but when I asked for your support I was thinking more realistically-I was thinking of the kind of support a woman gives a man. Thistle, I love you. I want you to be my wife.'
Thistle beamed with pleasure, but she was still determined to prove herself. 'There is no position I'd like more,' the girl replied, 'but I will give you Verovan's hoard. It's not a myth. Meet me tonight at Castle Vhammos, and I will prove it.'
Victor shook his head. 'Darling, even for Verovan's hoard I cannot meet you tonight. I must be at the Temple of Gond for the ceremony to initiate apprentices. If I did not attend, it would offend every artisan in the city, not to mention the priests of Gond, and probably Gond himself.'
Thistle laughed. 'You are so dutiful. Meet me tomorrow night then. You shall have Verovan's treasure, and you shall have me.'
'Very well,' the croamarkh agreed. He leaned forward and whispered in the girl's ear, 'Tomorrow night I'll let you prove whatever you like.'
The next morning, Thistle called Olive out to the veranda to join her for breakfast. The lady was watching Kretschmer and Winterhart drilling the castle guard. Marching in formation, the new recruits were beginning to look like a force to be reckoned with. 'Miss Winterhart is better suited to her new post, I think,' Thistle commented.
'Miss Winterhart tells me you visited Lord Dhostar yesterday afternoon, again without an escort,' the halfling retorted.
'She followed me again? Of all the nerve! I want you to dismiss her at once.'
'No, Lady, I will not,' Olive replied. Before the girl could protest, the halfling pressed on with an explanation. 'I authorized Miss Winterhart to follow you. I couldn't care less about your courtship of Victor Dhostar, but if you're attacked by Night Masks, there must be someone present to defend you. I'm sure Lord Victor would agree with me that your safety is more important than your privacy.'
'Yes, he probably would,' Thistle agreed, her tone soft- ening at Olive's assessment of the croamarkh. 'He cares about me. Oh, Olive, he's so wonderful. I wish grandmother were here. She would be so happy for me. I know she'd approve of my supporting him, don't you think?'
'That all depends,' Olive replied. 'Your grandmother was the most dignified lady I ever met. I think she hoped you would be like her. Are you offering this support in a dignified fashion or like a schoolgirl?'
Thistle straightened her back as if her grandmother had just chastised her for poor posture. 'Of course I will offer my support in a dignified fashion,' she insisted.
'Good,' Olive replied, 'because however wonderful he may be, Victor Dhostar is still the head of a rival house. What was that thing your grandmother used to say about marrying into rival houses?'
' 'You can marry into them, but don't offer to cover their losses,' ' Thistle replied. 'Olive, Lord Victor doesn't need my money, but if he did I would give it to him because I know he would use it for the good of all Westgate.' Olive tched just as Lady Nettel might have done.
'Don't you halflings have any sense of romance?' Thistle snapped with annoyance.
'Sense and romance,' Olive sniffed. 'Now there are two words that definitely don't go together.'
Thistle harrumphed and stormed off the veranda, just as she had the day before, leaving Olive in complete possession of her breakfast.
After assigning duty rosters to the newly trained guards, Olive spent the rest of the day in her room, strumming nervously on her yarting. Try as she might, she could not shake off a sense of impending doom she had, not for herself but for Thistle Thalavar. The halfling was racking her brain trying to figure what Victor Dhostar's game was. Thistle was a good match for any noble in the city, but men like Dhostar didn't care about making a good match, Olive realized. They cared only about power.
Jamal came casing on Olive at Castle Thalavar shortly after sunset. 'There's something very strange going on,' the actress reported. 'Kel says there are all sorts of Night Masks out tonight. He followed a pair of them down to Castle Vhammos. He says he thinks they're all holding some sort of war council.'
Olive set down her yarting and began strapping on her scabbard. At that moment, Miss Winterhart burst into the room. The younger halfling was dressed all in leather and armed for combat with a human-sized sword strapped across her back in the fashion of warriors of the north.
'Lady Thistle has gone to Castle Vhammos,' Winter-hart reported, 'but I didn't dare approach too closely. The guards are letting all sorts of unsavory types enter, but I do not think they will let a halfling pass. I know another way in. Follow me.'
Winterhart turned about and strode off with Olive and Jamal dashing after her. The younger halfling led them to her quarters in the lower regions of the castle. Olive was just wondering if there was some secret passageway Lady Nettel had neglected to mention when Winterhart plunged, like a diver into a pond, into the mirror hanging on her wall.
Olive's startled reflection rippled for a moment and then was still. 'I'm probably going to regret this,' the older halfling whispered just before she stepped into the darkness of the mirror.
Jamal was left facing her own reflection. There was probably nothing she could do, she told herself. She wasn't much of a fighter, and she doubted very much there would be any call for an actress wherever the mirror took her. 'Some cheap hero you are,' she said, glaring at the aging face glaring back at her. Taking a deep breath, she leaped into the mirror, thinking, I know I'm going to regret this.
Darkness seemed to fill the other side of the mirror. After a few moments, however, Olive's eyes adjusted to the dim light cast by a brazier. She stood in the center of an underground cavern containing items removed from the lair of the Faceless-most notable were the remaining iron golems, the empty rack for the masks of the Night Masters, and the skull of the dragon Mist, with the red lights spinning in its eye sockets. 'Where are we?' Jamal whispered.
'The Faceless's newest lair, I'd guess,' Olive replied. 'Winterhart, how'd you get a magic portal mirror into here? What's going on, woman?'
Winterhart held up a finger to indicate Olive should wait for a moment. The younger halfling stood before Mist's skull, holding a small golden wand.
'Your associate is in the chamber above with the Night Masters and their followers,' the dragon's skull was saying to Winterhart. 'There are over two hundred Night Masks waiting for the Faceless to lead them to Verovan's hoard.'
'Verovan's hoard!' Olive gasped in astonishment. 'But where are Lady Thistle and Lord Victor?' she demanded.
'Lord Victor has taken Lady Thistle to the top of the southern tower,' Mist reported. 'With no idea that her lover is the Faceless, Lady Thistle is showing him how to open the portal to Verovan's treasury.' 'Dhostar is the
