The Lady of the Storm - 2 (37 page)

Most of the children weren’t truly orphans, for most had families in England, but they all felt and referred to each other that way.

Drystan had parents in Herefordshire County, but he could no longer remember what they looked like. He occasionally received letters from them, and knew he had a brother that strongly resembled Drystan, but apparently Duncan did not possess enough elven magic to be a threat to the elven lords.

Would he ever be united with them?

Drystan rubbed at his eyes.

If this key truly existed… if this brand the white witch had emblazoned on all of her offspring held a clue to opening the door to Elfhame… Would they be able to send the elven lords back where they came from? Perhaps humans did not have the power, but by all accounts the elven lords were considered mad by their very own people. If they opened the door, would their kinsman come through and take the lords back home? Drystan did not know, but he knew the scepters wanted to return to Elfhame, and they thought that this key might accomplish that.

It might be England’s only hope.

Drystan squared his shoulders, feeling the weight of his task, wondering why he had been chosen for it. And then remembered the girl and knew.

He felt he was the only man who could save her. Because he was the only man who knew her torture as his own.

Drystan picked up another sheath of papers and began to read. And then another, and another. Like every night for the past decade, he read until he exhausted even the strength of his elven eyes, until they burned and drooped and he could barely see the words on the page.

It lay at the bottom of the crate, of course.

He opened the leather journal, sighed when he realized it was just a household inventory of Dreamhame Palace from years ago. But the quiver he felt from the direction of the cell made him squint to focus his eyes on the entries. Linens, silver, candles. Gold plate, crystal glasses, silk cloth. And then in the kitchens: caskets of gin, bottled wine, sacks of wheat, cooking pans.

And a scribbled note at the bottom of the entries: three scullery slaves: M. Shreves, A. Cobb, C. Ashton.

Ashton.

Drystan’s eyes watered and he closed them, felt them throb in time to his heartbeat. How many times had he come across this name in various records? Hundreds. And each time it had failed to lead him to the line of the white witch. His dreams of blood and death would become more violent, as if the scepters punished him for that failure.

Such an impossible task, since Ashton House had fallen in an elven war game between Dreamhame and Terrahame centuries ago, its inhabitants scattered across the seven realms when their ransom was not met.

Had some of them have become enslaved in Dreamhame Palace?

He opened his eyes, stared at the entry. Blinked.
Witch
had been messily scrawled near the edge of the paper.

Had he indeed found the white witch of Ashton House?

Yes!
Screamed the scepters in his head, rocking Drystan backward in his chair, the journal falling with a thump upon his battered desk.

And then he gracefully slumped forward, blackness overwhelming him from that final blow to a mind exhausted by years of sleep deprivation.