She and Ferion slipped from his back. Together, they both moved to face the gryphon. He would not even get the chance to say good-bye to her in private. Pride made the gryphon hold his head high.

“Thank you for everything,” Ferion said. “I will never forget what you’ve done for my mother and me.”

“Make something good come out of this,” Graydon told him. “Stay away from gaming tables.”

A harsh breath escaped the other male. “The thought of gambling again makes me feel ill.”

Well. At least there was that.

Bel stepped forward, looking up at him. Her expression caused his chest to ache. Telepathically, she said, I will miss you with all my heart.

The pain in her mental voice was so apparent, every imagined rebuff or slight he had felt over the last several hours vanished in an instant.

Slowly, the gryphon lowered his head until he rested his beak against her chest. He breathed deeply, filling his lungs with her scent one last time. She stroked his head.

This isn’t over, he told her. Don’t ever forget it.

Nodding, she stood back and wiped at her eyes. He felt the physical separation like a knife cut along his skin. Ferion put his arm around her shoulders. Graydon watched as they walked to their house.

Once she had disappeared from sight, he launched again and stayed aloft for hours, hurtling through the air as fast as he could in a crazed flight going nowhere.

Malphas couldn’t kill Ferion without also freeing them to hunt him down, but that did not defang the Djinn, not while he held the lien on Ferion’s soul. If they broke the bargain, Malphas could control or torture Ferion with impunity.

That meant Graydon couldn’t hunt for Malphas, or say anything to anyone based on what he had learned that morning.

But, like setting fire to the house, there was nothing in the bargain to keep Graydon from watching and waiting for other leverage that may come his way.

And nothing whatsoever in the bargain that could keep him from using it.

TEN

South Carolina, December 2015

A

s Graydon flew south along the coast, he left the snowfall behind in New York.

Gradually the air warmed. The cloud cover cleared enough to reveal the glow of the moon. He watched the shadowy ocean and the glowing lattice of the coastal cities while he considered the challenges that lay ahead.

The biggest challenge was figuring out how to speak with Beluviel in private. If Linwe refused to tell Bel he was coming, and if, as Linwe had said, she was secluding herself, trying to talk to her would not only be difficult, it could very well be dangerous.

The Elves had been through one hell of a year. Earlier in January, their numbers had been decimated. Their Lord Calondir had been killed, and for a brief time, Beluviel herself had been controlled by a Powerful madman, Amras Gaeleval.

Graydon’s muscles clenched as he remembered carrying her from the battlefield. She had been bloody and suffering from exposure to the cold. An atavistic, primitive part of him had wanted to lash out at the world, to keep her from any harm.

But she wasn’t his to protect. Giving her over to the care of the healers and walking away had been one of the hardest things he had ever done.

Aside from the loss of so many Elves, for Bel, one of the most devastating losses had to have been the death of her Wood, which had been destroyed when a fire swept through it.

And the most dangerous consequence of all – Ferion had inherited the power and title from his deceased father.

Now Malphas held the lien on the soul of the Lord of the Elven demesne. Any hope Graydon had entertained of finding some way to renegotiate the terms of their bargain had died along with Calondir. Malphas would never give up the possibility of control over a demesne ruler.

In fact, in Graydon’s jaded opinion, it would be downright miraculous if Malphas hadn’t already forced Ferion to commit stealthy, nefarious acts that furthered the Djinn’s own interests without giving him away.

If they could only catch him reneging on the bargain, they would have enough to take to the Djinn, who could forcibly sever Malphas’s connections on Graydon and Beluviel, and might even be able to lift the lien on Ferion. But it would be foolish to hope Malphas would make a mistake that catastrophic.

It didn’t matter how sharp an eye Bel tried to keep on Ferion’s actions. Nobody could watch someone else all day, every day for years on end. With the power shift that had occurred earlier this year, Ferion could set any number of obstacles in her path to keep her from getting too close to him.

One grim consolation lay buried in the midst of tragedy. The Elven demesne had faced so many challenges in recovering that Ferion – and through him, Malphas – hadn’t had time to do more than pick up the pieces.

Also, throughout the summer months, the Elder tribunal had maintained a constant physical presence in the demesne, erecting Quonset huts as temporary medical and psychiatric hospitals to aid the recovering wounded.

Large quantities of other kinds of aid had poured in from all over the world in the form of food, clothing, temporary propane-powered generators, and tents to house the Elves who had recovered enough to leave the hospital. Even a cell tower had been built a few miles away to facilitate in coordinating the relief efforts.

The tribunal had only removed its presence when autumn came, and the surviving Numenlaur Elves had been ready to travel home again. Still, as a community, the Elves who remained in South Carolina would be raw and jumpy.

Linwe had exaggerated on the phone, but only a little. Like all the other demesnes in the United States, the Elven demesne covered a large area, including Charleston, and Graydon could enter it quite easily.

What he couldn’t do as easily is approach the main Elven home, the nucleus of their society, without permission.

While he considered recent events, the gryphon stole over the South Carolina Elven border in the early hours of the morning.