“You two seem to be reconciling.”
“Yes.” Harmon shifted to lean back against the tree. “This war has put much into perspective. It’s shown us what’s important. But we’re getting off topic. My apology—”
“You have my good faith,” Ellina said.
Harmon frowned. “But I haven’t even tried to apologize yet.”
“It’s okay.”
“I had a whole speech planned.”
“Save it,” Ellina said, pushing to her feet, “and come help me find some milkweed instead.”
???
Harmon hosted a dinner. This was supposedly only for the core members of their group, yet when Ellina and Venick entered Evov’s open-air courtyard where the dinner would be held, the space was crowded with people.
Ellina tensed. She remembered the stateroom where her mother was murdered, the unexpected press of extra bodies. She remembered a mob beside a river and a band of southerners in a field. Except, then the courtyard gatherers spotted the pair, and everyone broke into applause.
“It seems,” Venick said into Ellina’s ear, “that Harmon has tricked us again.”
Ellina could have been irritated—she did not want a surprise party hosted in their honor—but when Harmon appeared, looking happier than Ellina had ever seen her, Ellina could not find it within herself to be angry. She allowed the woman to sweep in and kiss her cheeks. “I have something for you,” Harmon said.
It was Ellina’s belongings, the things she had left in Igor before her dash into the Taro: her dagger, her bow and arrows. Clothes, which were mostly human-made. At the bottom of the bag, there was a small glass vial.
Ellina was startled to hold these items again. It felt as if they belonged to someone else.
“It’s my fault that you left them behind,” Harmon said. “It seemed only right that I should recover them for you.”
Ellina thanked the woman, and meant it.
“It is curious,” Lin Lill said once they were all seated for dinner, cutting into her potato in straight, deft swipes, “that Evov has reappeared not just for elves, but for humans, too. The city used to be hidden from mankind.”
“Erol once told me something about this city,” Venick replied. He had a mug of ale in one hand, his ankle tossed over his knee, hair loose. Around them, the dinner party was in its throes, the chatter merry. “He said Evov wasn’t always meant to be hidden. The conjurors who built this place didn’t intend for it to serve that purpose. Instead, it was supposed to be a haven for those who were lost.”
“Are we lost?” Lin Lill asked.
“Yes,” Venick answered at the same time Dourin said, “Of course not.”
Dourin made a face. “Iwas never lost. I have known where I was the entire time.”
Harmon and Ellina laughed.
“This reminds me of the time I got lost in the whitelands,” Lin Lill said. “Actually, it is a funny story. That is how I got—”
“Your scar,” the others said, almost in unison.
Lin Lill looked around. “Have I become predictable?”
“I always wondered,” Ellina said, “howdidyou get that scar?”
“I was just about to tell you—”
“How did you really get it, though?”
Lin Lill touched the mark on her cheek with light fingers. She had told a hundred different stories about her scar, each more fanciful than the next: bear fights, arrowheads, a fall into a well. “It happened while I was playing in the woods with my older cousins,” she explained. “No one can say exactly how. I was too young to remember. Actually, when I was a fledgling, I did not even realize the scar was a scar; I thought this was how I always looked.”
Venick caught Ellina’s gaze. She could tell by the slight tilt to his head, and the way his eyes grew serious while the rest of him remained determinedly nonchalant, that he was seeking her thoughts, which were this: even though Lin Lill’s story was not as adventurous as the others, Ellina liked it best, because it was the truth.
