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Rhea led Lin into the tower and down a steep set of spiral stairs. The stairway was lit, but only sporadically, and there were no sounds from below.

"Looks like this tower at least is abandoned," she whispered quietly to Lin. "I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing."

When they reached the bottom of the stairway, there was a closed wooden door. From the other side of the door, voices could be heard approaching. Rhea pushed Lin against the wall behind the door, flattening herself against the wall as well.

"... where that roc disappeared to," came a voice, speaking in Common Elvish, "unless she somehow tamed one of ours ..."

"Sure," a second voice replied, a bit louder as they drew closer, "but I don't know how that would be possible. If they'd been here long enough for that, we would have known about them - and if they were outside the walls, the gnomes would have had at them."

The voices continued to grow louder. "And what about that guy, claiming to be a prince?" the first one asked again. "Does he truly carry the Aldrich mark?"

"He does," the other replied, "but even if he is a prince, I can't believe he's telling the truth. There's no way that the Light Elves would ever do what he claims."

Rhea tensed as the voices approached the door, but rather than opening they door they walked past it, their voices growing more distant once more.

"So why has Aethos-sola locked him up?"

"Not just him, both of them," the second voice corrected the first one. "Seeing if he'll change his story. Though I admit, I think he might have put a few too many guards on them ..."

And then they were gone, their voices too quiet to hear.

Rhea looked just as shocked as Lin, but she shook it off quickly. She put one finger to her lips, then motioned for Lin to lean in closer.

"I'm going to try to sense the layout of the place, see if I can find them," she whispered quietly. "If a guard comes, poke me to let me know."

And she turned to the wall and put both hands on the wall, then bowed her head and closed her eyes in concentration.

It was several minutes before Rhea opened her eyes again, and she turned to Lin.

"They're being held separately," she murmured quietly. "Earendil is on the main floor, in a cell in the far eastern section of the castle. Haldia is being held underground, in the center of the castle. There are more guards on Haldia's cell than Earendil's ... but getting to either of them is going to be impossible. We're going to have to show ourselves and get an audience with the king ... though I'm not entirely sure how we're even going to be able to do that."

She leaned against the wall and lapsed into thought.

"Then do we do it now or in the morning?" Rhea asked in a hushed tone. "I know I would prefer sooner rather than later, but ... if we show up in the middle of the night ..."

Still, if they came back in daylight, they could go back to the ship and get some friendlier clothes on ... and actually look like travelers rather than assassins.

Rhea nodded. "Then we should go. Rest, get changed, eat again ... come back more prepared for speaking with a king."

She glanced back at the door behind them and whispered a very soft, "Sorry," before turning back to the stairs and starting up them.