Ben sighed. “I’m working on it,” he assured them.
The hours slipped away. Midnight passed, and the Crag Trolls began to shuffle off to bed. A few stayed on duty to tend the kilns and watchfires, but the rest disappeared into their stone huts. Questor and Abernathy dropped off to sleep. Most of the G’home Gnomes joined them. Fillip and Sot curled up at his feet. Only the kobolds remained awake with Ben. They lay on their sides, unable to get to a sitting position, their narrow eyes fixed on him watchfully, their white teeth showing through those maddening grins. Ben smiled back at them once or twice. They were tough little creatures. He admired them and he regretted getting them into this mess. He regretted getting them all into this mess.
It was nearing morning when he felt a hand lightly touch his face. He had been dozing, and he came awake with a start. Mist and smoke hung like a pall across the valley floor. Shadows cast by the fires chased one another through the haze, red and black wraiths. There was a chill in the air; the fires burned low.
“Ben?”
He looked around and Willow was there. She was crouched directly behind him, huddled close to the chaining post. Slate and earth-colored clothing concealed her slim form and a hooded cloak shadowed her face and hair. He blinked in disbelief, thinking her a part of some half-remembered dream.
“Ben?” she repeated, and her sea-green eyes stared out at him from beneath the hood. “Are you all right?”
He nodded mechanically. She was real. “How did you find me?” he whispered.
“I followed you,” she answered, moving closer. Her face was inches from his own, the shadows drawn clear of her, exquisite features. She was so impossibly beautiful. “I told you that I belonged to you, Ben. Did you not believe me?”
“It was not a question of believing you, Willow,” he tried to explain. “You cannot belong to me. No one can.”
She shook her head determinedly. “It was decided long ago that I should, Ben. Why is it that you cannot understand that?”
He felt a wave of helplessness wash through him. He remembered her naked in the waters of the Irrylyn; he remembered her changing into that gnarled tree within the pines. She excited and repelled him both, and he could not come to terms with the mix of feelings.
“Why are you here?” he asked in frustration.
“To set you free,” she answered at once. She slipped from beneath the cloak a ring of iron keys. “You should have asked my father for me, Ben. He would have given his permission if you had asked. But you did not ask, and because you did not, I was forced to leave anyway. Now I cannot go back again.”
“What do you mean, you can’t go back?”
She began working the keys into the locks of his chains, trying each in turn. “It is forbidden for any to leave the lake country without my father’s permission. The penalty is exile.”
“Exile? But you’re his daughter!”
“No longer, Ben.”
“Then you shouldn’t have come, damn it! You shouldn’t have left, if you knew that this would happen!”
Her gaze was steady. “I had no choice.”
The third key fitted and the chains fell away. Ben stared at the sylph in anger and frustration, and then in despair. She slipped from his side and moved to Questor, Abernathy, and the kobolds. One by one, she set them free. Daylight was beginning to lighten the eastern sky across the mountains. The trolls would be waking soon.
Willow slipped back to him. “We must go quickly, Ben.”
“How did you get in here without being seen?” he asked.
“There are none who can see the people of the lake country if they do not wish it, Ben. I slipped into the valley after midnight and stole the keys from the watch. The gates stand open, the chain only draped through its rings. But we must leave at once; the deception will be discovered.”
She passed the ring of keys to him, and he took them. His fingers brushed hers. He hesitated, thinking suddenly of what she had risked to come after him. She must have shadowed him since he had left the lake country. She must have been watching over him all that time.