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The others all woke within a half hour of each other, and shortly after they were all up, Dae'er and Arphenion came down to the cellar with breakfast for all of them. A short time after that, Kyrie returned and came down as well.

"Lin, Mari, Chesnet and Mathias," she called from the bottom of the steps that led to the rest of the house. "Could I see the four of you upstairs?"

Andarien didn't like that he was being left out - he already felt helpless enough - but he didn't argue the point.

Mari, Mathias and Chesnet followed after Lin and Kyrie. Once they reached the top of the stairs, Kyrie murmured back to the others, "Stay as close to the walls as you can. We're going to go all the way up to the second floor, and we need to make sure you're not seen."

The top of the cellar stair opened up to the main hallway of the house, and the stairs that led up again were closer to the front, where Tsara took care of her patients and customers. At the moment there was no one else there, and Kyrie hurried them along the hallway towards the stairs, then led them up. Once there, she brought them to a large room, empty but for a square table and several straight-backed wooden chairs. She motioned for them to take a seat.

Mathias and Chesnet sat on either side of Mari protectively, and Kyrie sat across from them, next to Lin. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"Lin," she said quietly, focusing on her, "I know how worried you've been about Earendil. I spoke with someone who has seen him and talked to him a bit."

She hesitated again, wondering how to continue with her information.

Kyrie swallowed hard. "Not well," she replied quietly. "I'm sorry. The General has been questioning him about his traveling companions, and his purpose in the country ... he has not told them anything, and he is paying for it."

She had been given the details of Earendil's condition, and she hoped that she would be able to do something to help him when they got him back; or maybe she would ask Lancaeriel to see what she could do magically.

Kyrie shook her head. "I don't think more than a few days," she said quietly. "And of course, the longer we take, the more they're going to do to him. We need to get him out of there as soon as we can."

She hesitated, then reached across the table and put her hands over Lin's. "I'm so sorry, Lin," she said sorrowfully. "I should never have asked you all to come with me here. I knew this was a possibility ... I wasn't thinking straight, but that's no excuse. I'm so, so sorry."

Kyrie looked to Mari and the men. "Now we think of how to get into the palace so that we can do what we set out to do," she said quietly. "Things in the palace are pretty much the same as they ever were, except that the General is getting more paranoid. The place is full of soldiers, more than there have ever been. Mari, you grew up there. Do you have any ideas?"

Mari was silent for a moment as she thought about the question. She knew the ins and outs of the palace, all right; but the problem was that the General also knew them. He had once been in charge of palace security, after all.

"It might be easier to lure him out," she said at last. "It's the only way I can think to get him where he might be more vulnerable."

Mari looked from Mathias and Chesnet and back. "What do you think, guys? Do you think the General would come out for a face from his past?"

"No!" Mathias said loudly, slapping his fist on the table to add to his point.

Chesnet wasn't any happier, though he was quieter than Mathias. "Mari, that's suicide!" he protested. "You can't!"

Kyrie sighed. "Should I have left the two of you in the cellar?" she asked them, glaring at the both of them. "Mari is not a child and she understands the situation better than the two of you seem to."

"Besides," Mari added darkly, "who else could get him out of the palace? What would he care about either of you? Or any of the foreigners? He was the one who tried to kill me, and there are times I can still see him over me, feel his knife entering my chest. If word gets out that I am in the city and that I never died, he wouldn't risk his men losing me - or worse, siding with me and letting me go. He would come out to find me personally."

"Inside a building would be ideal, then, though I don't like the idea of putting Tsara at risk," Mari mused. "Yet where else would work?"

"Unfortunately, anywhere out in the open would be safest for the people, though least safe for you," Kyrie said quietly.

Mathias glared at her. "No. Nowhere open. Lin is right. It's too risky."

"Even with Uruloki patrolling the sky?" Kyrie raised one eyebrow. "Like it or not, Mathias, Mari can't avoid risking some injury. And don't forget, she has Kasal to help her. He can protect her from any kind of attack."