She swallowed, and her mouth twisted. “Horses weren’t the only creatures that the enthralled Elves failed to look after, Quentin.”
THIRTEEN 
Aryal could see that Quentin hadn’t yet pieced together what she meant. He looked sharp, fierce, still ready for battle, his sword gripped in one hand while he rubbed her back with the other. She didn’t think he was aware that he was doing it.
He started for the house, and she grabbed his arm. She told him, “It serves no purpose for you to go in there.”
He glared at her, jerked out of her hold and strode for the house.
She put a hand over her eyes with a sigh. Some people always had to take the hard road. Then, because she knew what was waiting for him in that still, silent house, she followed at a slower pace.
He moved from room to room, his movements angry and aggressive. Then he came to the doorway of one room and stopped with a jerk as if someone had punched him.
Fresh tears flooded her eyes. Gods, she hated crying. She walked up behind him and this time she was the one to put a hand on his rigid back.
It was a beautiful room, clearly the jewel of the entire house. Loving care had gone into every detail, from the bright treasures of tapestries that hung on the walls, to the handmade toys, the books, and the three gold and jeweled animals that sat on a shelf.
The most precious jewel of all lay in the beautifully carved cradle, his tiny body dressed in soft, embroidered silk. His skin glowed, bright ivory and peach. From his delicate, rosebud mouth to his miniscule, pointed ears, he was perfect in every way. Like all dead Elves, he looked as if he had fallen asleep moments ago.
Quentin’s jaw worked.
She said, her voice hoarse, “The door was shut. Not the door to the house—that was unlatched. This door. I think that’s why he’s still so perfect. None of the wildlife could get in here.”
He turned his head and looked at her. His eyes were reddened. “All of them? All of the babies are dead.”
Her mouth worked again, and two tears spilled over. Damn it. “Any child that was too young to enthrall must have been left behind, which means any child too young to fend for itself.”
She had seen horrible things in her life, but this was one of the most appalling and heartbreaking. Children were rare to the Elder Races, as if nature compensated for their long life spans, and they came most rarely to the Elves. Sometimes Elves longed for children for thousands of years, and they greeted the birth of each one with joy.
The death of any single baby or child, of any species, was a terrible tragedy. The death of all the Elven babies and young children in Numenlaur was simply unspeakable.
His chest moved, a quick, involuntary movement. He whispered, “I thought before they were crippled from everything that has happened to them. This will have cut out their heart. No wonder so many are committing suicide.”
When she had opened the door, she had been totally unprepared for what was inside, and the sight had slammed her so hard she had tried to run away from the pain. Now, she did the opposite. She walked into that beautiful room and sat on the stool beside the cradle to gaze at the baby’s face. Her face tickled. She wiped at it, and found that her cheeks were wet.
“I don’t know how to walk away from him,” she said. She picked up one of the gold animals, a frog with emerald eyes, and turned it over and over in her hands. It was small and heavy, and something in her mind told her that it meant something significant, but she couldn’t figure out what it was. “It feels wrong to leave him lying here unprotected. What if something manages to get in? And we can’t bury him. That would be stealing even more from his parents, if either one of them survived. They can’t come back to just find their baby gone.” Her voice broke. “Goddammit.”
As he had done when they had talked about the Elven horses, Quentin spun to turn his back on the room, but this time he turned around again as if he couldn’t help himself. He walked toward her, every line of his body speaking of reluctance.
She wiped at her eyes again. “It’s not that I haven’t seen bad shit before. Battlefields with thousands of dead, and thousands more injured and dying.” She barked out a dark-sounding laugh. “My gods, have I seen bad shit. I just haven’t seen this kind of bad shit before.”
He knelt beside her and looked at the occupant in the cradle. Quentin’s face was still clenched as he fought with his emotions. In a barely audible voice, he said, “I want Amras Gaeleval alive again so I can hurt him. A lot.”
She put a hand on his shoulder, gripping him tightly. His muscles were rigid. “Now you sound like me.”
He glanced at her, pain pooling in his eyes. Then in a gesture that seemed as natural as breathing, he took hold of her hand and leaned his forehead against it.
Had she really reached out to him, and had he really accepted it?
Wonders never ceased.
She looked at his bowed head and slumped, broad shoulders. This wasn’t fun pain. This was the bad kind of pain, and nothing about it was like brandy and chocolate. This was more like taking a knife to the gut and then watching yourself bleed out.
Something welled deep inside. She supposed it was compassion. Or maybe empathy. Whatever it was, it moved her to set the frog on the floor and reach out with her free hand to stroke Quentin’s soft, dark gold hair.
He looked at her over their clasped hands, a raw, direct look. When she met his gaze it was with a shock of connection that shifted something important inside.
Then he squeezed her fingers and let her go. “I can seal the door,” he said. “If there’s anyone with magic sense in the area, that’ll pretty much tell them we’re here.”
“If it leaves him protected, so be it,” she said. “Besides, I know we chose to be wary but I’m no good at pussyfooting around.”
A ghost of a smile played over his firm, well-cut lips. “I’m glad you saw fit to tell me, because otherwise I never would have known.”
It didn’t feel right to punch him in that room, so instead she shoved him lightly, enough to rock him but not enough to knock him over. She rose to her feet. “Do what you’ve got to do. How long will it take?”
“Five minutes.” He picked up the gold frog and set it carefully back into place with the other two figurines, then stood too.
They were quite lovely, exquisitely shaped and detailed, down to the folds in the frog’s eyes. If the set were kept together, on Earth it would fetch a fortune, especially with today’s gold prices.
She paused and cocked her head. “So we have one or maybe two people who came into Numenlaur,” she said softly. “And they are not here to loot for treasure.”
Quentin swiveled to face her, his gaze keen. “Because the figurines are still here.”
“Along with the jewelry in the first few houses we went through,” she told him. “I didn’t look at them closely, but I remember seeing some serious sparkle.”
“Which begs the question,” he said. “Why did they come here?”
“Come on.” She slapped him on the shoulder. “Do your thing so we can get out of here. It’s time we hit the city.”
He nodded, and she left him to go through the pantry supplies. They had hit pay dirt with this house. There were several wafers of wayfarer bread, along with cured meat, jerky, nuts, and dried fruit. She took everything they could carry and, chewing on a strip of jerky, she knelt outside to tuck the new supplies in their packs while the Power from Quentin’s spell built in a slow flare that snapped and disappeared, like a rubber band settling into place.
Her head lifted, and she looked around, assessing the surrounding landscape that seemed so quiet, as if she
