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Lancaeriel laughed softly. "You have indeed grown quite astute since I met you," she said warmly. "Yes, I believe it is my husband. I hope it is my husband. But if it is him ... I must be prepared not to recognize him when I find him."

She smiled sadly. "If he is here, then he must be Dark Elven. In every life before this, he has been Light Elven. But then, so was I, until this life."

But if he were from a different race, then it was also likely he would have a different face.

"Still, it makes me wish I were free to wander the city and look for him," she added. "As dangerous as it is."

"And I am one of them," Lancaeriel murmured wistfully. She sighed. "I hadn't considered the possibility that he might have been pressed into the General's service ... but then, I only began to sense his presence a few minutes ago."

Her eyes grew troubled again. "If he is a soldier, I hope it was by pressure and not by choice." Then she laughed softly. "Wouldn't that be interesting? In all his lives, he has been absolutely hopeless with weapons of any sort."

Lancaeriel sighed softly. "So do I," she murmured. And then she repeated to herself, even quieter, "So do I."

She half-smiled at Miyuki. "It's going to be hard to stay down here."

"Just remember what's at stake if you leave," Wren cautioned her from where she had been helping set up a third tent. She hadn't meant to listen in on the conversation, but it was the first she'd been able to understand in quite a while and she hadn't been able to help herself.

"Need the room," Wren replied simply, shrugging. "There are twelve of us who are going to be staying down here - and that's if Kyrie, Dae'er and Arphenion get to sleep up in the house. If they join us down here it's really going to be crowded."

They had figured Mathias, Chesnet, Hamir, Ruaven and Janos in one tent; Mari, Iadrim, Wren and Lancaeriel in the second; and Lin, Andarien and Miyuki could have the third to themselves.

A short time after everything was set up, Kyrie came back down to the cellar.

"All right," she said, getting their attention, '"it's time we got down to planning. Damn that General." She scowled. "He certainly knows how to make things miserable for people."

"Earendil? Soldiers?" Kyrie retorted. "And now you're all reduced to hiding in a cellar. Mari, Mathias, Chesnet - we need you, too." She motioned for them to come join the powwow, then looked around at who else was already there.

Wren, Lancaeriel and Andarien had been present already, since they'd all been chatting with Lin and Miyuki, and now the others came to join them as well.

"I don't do well confined behind walls," Kyrie said darkly. "I spent several years locked up when I was very young and since then being trapped indoors has always rankled me."

She sighed. "All right. Things are a bit different now. I know what most of you are capable of. Mari, how far did you all get in your talk earlier?"

Mari looked around at everyone. "I think we covered everyone," she said slowly.

Kyrie nodded. "Good. Then there are only two things I'm not sure of. Miyuki's and Lancaeriel's magical capabilities."

It was a subject she had always shied away from, and she was well aware of it. But the time had come that she needed to know everything. She looked at the two of them and waited expectantly.

Kyrie nodded thoughtfully. "The binding runes will come in handy," she murmured softly. "You should make as many as you possibly can."

She thought a moment longer, then turned to Lancaeriel. She tensed up slightly, then asked, "And you?"

Lancaeriel fidgeted uncomfortably. It had been hard enough going through her history earlier in the day, but to go through it again, and so soon ...

"Perhaps the shorter way of putting it is that there seems to be little that she can't do," Mari supplied quietly. "Life, death, everything in between ..."