Dark flower, the things you think of me! I would never— I thought you trusted me.
Ellie fought and thrashed against the darkness. Someone was impersonating her A’chrya, and it could not be for any good purpose. She screamed silently to be released; she called out with a soundless voice to Father Ikara to save her.
Father Ikara. That is rich. Your Father cannot help you, he lost his magic ages ago. He is impotent and weak. I could still save you, but you do not trust me.
Ellie retreated down into the furthest refuge of her mind, where her magic lived and seethed. She hid there, as a child crouched behind a tree, hiding in a game of tag. The darkness grew more intense, almost angry, but she ignored it. Emotion is a weakness, and weakness is death. Emotion is a weakness, and weakness is death. Emotion is a weakness, and weakness is death.
Suddenly everything was very bright, too bright, and loud and just too much all at once. Ellie opened her eyes and could see that she was in her bedchamber in the embassy, tucked into her bed. She drew back the duvet to find that she was still wearing her traveling cloak from her trip to Alynatalos, but that her pack and other traveling gear had been stowed neatly away. She rose from the bed slowly, expecting the pounding headache that always followed one of the dizzy spells, but it was not there. Ellie moved to the sitting room for a moment, her hand pressed to her mouth. All of the journals that she had retrieved from Alynatalos were stacked neatly on her desk, and one of them was open as though it had just been read moments ago.
“Did I -?” She crossed the room to the desk and, with trembling fingers, turned the book around so that she could read it. It was not her master’s handwriting. It was in the language of the elves and seemed to be some kind of a journal. She turned the pages, rubbing at her weary eyes to improve her vision as she stared at the language she knew almost better than her own. “Calder’s Port—Lena Calder—orb. Well, what does that mean?” The words were circled in red ink, and she startled when she noticed fresh ink in the well and a quill lying on the desk next to the book. She read further down the page. “Orb has Ikara’s power.” Her finger traced an arrow that led to another scribbled note, this time actually in her master’s handwriting. “Guardians know where the orb is hidden. GINNY KNOWS.”
Ellie nearly collapsed into her desk chair. What did all of this mean? Who was controlling her last night? When she looked back at the journals, why were those parts circled? Were the legends true—was Father Ikara’s power stolen during the Forest War and placed into a magical orb? Was the orb lost? Ginny knows, the journal said. Did whoever was walking around in her skin last night know what happened to ‘Ginny’ and the Rajah? She rubbed her fingers with her other hand as she remembered the electric shock when she tried to move her fingers on her own. Electricity. . . It must be another wizard. Another wizard that can manipulate the bond to the point of walking around in someone else’s body. No one on Orana but the dragons and the Guardians knew how to use that magic. Well, almost no one.
Now you’re getting it, my Elspethe. Finally. Welcome home.
Ten
Better a Door than a Portal
They followed a trail that led toward the forest for most of the day, finally entering the cooling shade of the trees, but Gin felt like they were going in circles when they came upon a small house made of logs and mud. Sath stopped, staring at the dwelling. “What’s wrong, Sath?” Gin said as she felt the waves of fear and uncertainty through her bond with the Qatu. She cast a simple invisibility spell on both of them, making sure to speak the words that would allow Sath to see her.
“It’s not right. Something smells wrong, Gin. I can’t explain it.”
“I can feel that, but what do you mean, wrong? With the house?”
“Yes. Well, more something inside the house.” He moved a bit closer, widening the gap between them and swishing his tail out of her reach. Gin moved quickly along behind him anyway. “Gin, just stay back for a second, please? Let me look around?”
“Not happening. We don’t get separated, remember?” Gin replied. Sath winced and grumbled, but moved on toward the house. As Sath lifted Gin up and peeked through a window, they could see the decrepit state of the house. It looked timeworn and dilapidated on the outside, and there was a group huddled inside. The wood elves stood around a table with a map unfurled across it. They were discussing something on the map but speaking a dialect of Elvish, and even though Sath put Gin back down and pressed his ear to the side of the house, he was having trouble following it.
“Gin, do you speak Elder Elvish?”
“The high elf dialect, you mean? I do, some, why?”
“Come ‘ere,” he whispered back, reaching back for her hand and pulling her up to him again so that she was close to the window. Gin closed her eyes and focused on the voices. “What are they saying?”
“Um… War, Father Ikara, I’d know that name anywhere. They seem to be talking about an alliance against. . . I’m just not sure,” Gin said. “Wait, that’s not Elder Elvish; that is my dialect but different, old fashioned.” She moved closer to the window. “They are arguing about the Mother Dragon returning to burn the Forest
