The same could not be said of Master Fellows. He was looking at the pair of them as if he'd found Nour's hand on her breast instead of her jaw.

"Lady Montevero. Lord Bolor." Disapproval crackled in each syllable of their names. As the arbiter of all things fashionable and mannerly in the court, Master Fellows held the unique position of being able to dictate propriety to all but the most powerful courtiers. It was a responsibility he took quite to heart.

"Master Fellows." Jiarine forced a smile. "How delightful to see you. And how is your precious Love doing today?"

The Master of Graces was clad in expertly tailored forest green satin breeches and waistcoat with an amber-lined demicape slung rakishly across one shoulder. A small, fluffy white cat wearing a matching diamond-studded green satin ribbon sat perched on his other shoulder like a Sorrelian sea captain's talking bird. The feline looked at Master Nour and hissed, her thick fur standing up on end.

"Love!" Master Fellows scolded. "That's quite enough." But the kitten would not be soothed or silenced. She hissed again and swatted extended claws in Nour's direction. Master Fellows apologized. "I do beg your pardon, Lord Bolor, Lady Montevero. I don't know what's gotten into my little Love. She's been quite beside herself lately."

The Primage's eyes narrowed.

Alarmed, Jiarine smoothly inserted herself between the two men. Despite Master Fellows's ofttimes pretentious ways, she'd always held a secret admiration for him. He was a self-made man, and even though she knew he did not approve of her, he nonetheless always treated her with impeccable courtesy.

With a winning smile, she clasped Master Fellows's elbow and steered him out of harm's way. "Master Fellows, I'm actually quite glad to see you. I'm planning a small tea to welcome one of the queen's newest Dazzles to court, and I wanted to ask your opinion on the matter of the table linens. Lady Zillina insists that I must use satin, but that strikes me as entirely too formal for an afternoon tea. Am I in the wrong?"

As she and Master Fellows turned the corner, Jiarine risked a final glance over her shoulder. Master Nour was gone.

Southern Celieria

Elves were exceptional runners by mortal standards, but they didn't hold a candle to the Fey. At a warrior's run, the Fey could have crossed the five hundred miles of southeastern Celierian farmland in three days. With the Elves slowing them down, it took them the better part of five.

They made camp their last night in Celieria beside a small stream, where the thick, arching branches of a fireoak tree would provide shelter.

"If one of the Fire masters will build a flame," Fanor Farsight said, "there are fish in that stream. I'll sing us up a few for supper." Not waiting for their response, he walked to the mossy edge of the stream and lay on the bank.

"I'll just get that fire, shall I?" Tajik muttered with a scowl as curiosity sent the other Fey wandering over to the stream's edge.

"Watch this," Rain murmured to Ellysetta as they joined the others near the stream.

Fanor put one hand in the cold, clear water and sang a hypnotic Elvish tune. Within a chime, a fat river trout swam into his hands, its sides gleaming with flashes of gold and green scales. Fanor's fingers closed about the fish and flipped it up, out of the stream.

Gaelen caught the airborne fish with swift, instinctive Fey reflexes.

"Still it, but do not kill it," Fanor advised, and Gaelen spun a simple weave to calm the flopping creature.

Fanor sang to the stream four more times, and four more fish swam into his grasp to be flipped up into the waiting hands of the Fey.

Fanor rose to his feet and stood before the Fey. He sang another soft, achingly beautiful song, each note ringing with pure, perfect pitch. Then he closed his eyes, splayed one hand, and tiny globes of white light shot from his fingertips and enveloped each fish. When the light and the last notes of his song faded, it was clear the fish were dead.

"What did you do just then?” Ellysetta asked. The Elves had hunted small game each night when they made camp, but this was the first time she'd watched one actually catch and kill his prey. The others had simply shown up with meat already prepared for roasting.

He smiled at her puzzlement. "We are all connected, Ellysetta Erimea. You and I. Every rock, plant, and animal. We all spring from the same Source, and to that Source we all return. These fish came when I asked, so I thanked them for offering their bodies to nourish ours and sent their Light back to the gods."

He stepped across the springy grass to the fire now blazing in a circle of river rocks at Tajik's feet. The Fey deftly gutted, scaled, and spitted the fish over Tajik's flames, and Fanor disposed of the offal by burying it at the base of a tree and singing another Elvish song. "What part of their bodies we consume will now become part of ours, and what we do not consume will become part of the earth. And so they are not gone. They are merely transformed."

Ellysetta found herself disturbed by the idea that Fanor's fish had willingly delivered themselves up to be slain and eaten. When Bel offered her a chunk of steaming fish on a broad leaf, she thought squeamishness might rob her of her appetite, but the first whiff of hot food made her belly rumble. Hunger overrode any pretense of delicate sensibilities. She tucked a bite into her mouth and closed her eyes in bliss as the succulent, flavorful fish practically dissolved on her tongue. Her eyes flashed open again almost instantly.

Fanor smiled. "Life is meant to be savored, Ellysetta Erimea. And death is not without purpose." His smile faded. "Most of the time, at least. There are some deaths that are simply an end, with no hope of renewal and no return of life to its Source." His glance, gone suddenly shadowed and brooding, shifted to rest on Rain. "Death by tairen flame, for instance," he added in a low voice.