The servant leads us through the courtyard to the only gated archway leading into the large central wing of the estate. Lit mundanely by exquisitely worked lamps and by glamourous paintings the broad, tiled corridor opens into a massive chamber thirty feet tall covered with an extraordinary stained glass dome depicting a field of lilies extending to a dark horizon caught at just the moment the setting sun's last rays hit the viewer's eye and lay a red-gold path through the waving flowers. It is lit from outside as though it were noon rather than night. The room seems set for dancing or some other activity requiring a wide-open floor.

Up one of the four grand staircases we go, along a hallway that is mostly darkened, and then through a door that leads into what appears to be one of the city's abandoned sections. Uneven, misfit doors and half-step thresholds, a strange mix of materials, rooms clearly cut in half by new walls... I find the space inspired, but it clearly makes the servants nervous, which puts me into a bodyguarding frame of mind.

It is a walk of nearly five minutes, mostly tending upwards, before the man comes to a narrow door set in a plastered stone wall. His unease is palpable. "This is Master Cuan's chamber today." He knocks on the door and steps back, bowing. "I will await to return you to the courtyard or wherever you will next be required."

A long moment later, Cuan himself opens the door. He is barefoot, wrapped in a heavy robe with the hood up. Seeing us, he smiles wearily and opens the door fully to allow us in. A short alcove barely wider than the door leads to a broad open balcony. Set into a north-facing curve of the building, the view beyond the crumbling marble balustrade shows the snow-capped knife-edges of Alfar's mountains under moonlight. Closer to the alcove, under the overhang from above, is a fully furnished sitting room.

Crescent footprints from his right foot trail back from Cuan in the terrazzo floor. I know immediately it must be blood, but he seems content enough with the situation, so I've no need to question him on it. What's a little blood?

"Please, do come in. You are welcome. Sit. We have much to do in a short time." His voice is lower, rougher than it was earlier in the day. He motions to the sitting area, where snacks and flagons of wine and water are set about.

Cuan's room fascinates me but I force down my curiosity to focus on him. He seems so grim; this should be interesting. I half nod, half bow at his words, and wait, despite my sudden need to leap into action.

"How may I help, Cuan?" Blythe asks from my arm.

"Blythe, I am not certain how this effort will progress. With Verhain here, and Eseld, Muirne herself, and my own power, we should all be able to be drawn in well enough to assist in our own ways. I would say in this case simply be ready, as one always should."

He's glowing gray, especially around his cut. Well. His way is pretty obvious. We sit and he joins us, sitting in one of two larger, wingback chairs, and helps himself to a tumbler of what looks like golden liqueur, of which he takes a significant draught. "Eseld, Verhain... are your abilities enhanced by physical contact?"

Eseld glances once to Verhain then back to Cuan. Nodding, she confirms, "Yes." Verhain nods, too, but his attention is on Muirne. He holds one of her hands in both of his own. "Muirne and I... we are both trained in such."

"Muirne will have her focus directed towards her experience, not with us, unfortunately," Cuan explains.

"I have no formal training in such things," Eseld explains. "I usually follow my intuition. So, please, if there is something you need of me that I am not doing, tell me or guide me."

"I will try. From what we discussed this afternoon, I believe we will attempt to progress as follows: Muirne will seek her dream, following her own footsteps. I will establish a link among us all, and Verhain and Eseld will keep it strong and lead us into the dream. I do not know to what extent we will be able to act. If nothing else comes, our primary goal will be to see the moment that Cliodhna's bind falls upon Muirne, and prevent it or break it at that point. If we remain within, we observe what transpires; if we do not, Muirne should at least be able to tell us what she observed." Cuan looks at us in turn as he ticks off the plan.

Eseld asks Verhain, "What is the nature of your Way, my friend? Mine is to feel, to hear with the heart, and to give back what is needed ... Shall I support you or shall we run along side each other?"

"It is my natural Way to perceive patterns, to align things. To See the focus of a moment... I am not sure how that will precisely assist. But through my training as a student of the Keepers I have learned to be see and hear truly beyond the distraction of dreaming and desire." He glances at Muirne, "Such things are tests of the Tower. All of us learned to find one another, know one another, and keep ourselves connected. If I knew you all better..." He finishes uncertainly.

Cuan gives the young man a serious look. "Do not doubt, Verhain. The link I will provide is not pleasant, but it runs close to the heart. You will know them well enough."

He raises his eyes to looks at us again. "If you each would take up a glass, I have prepared an essence." He lifts a long glass stopper out of an obsidian vial from the table beside him. A drop of reddish oil clings to the stopper's tip. He touches it to the inner edge of his glass and swirls his drink to mix it in.

He returns the stopper and lifts out another drop of oil, holding it towards me, the closest to him on his left. "Do not drink until we are all ready. Muirne, you will have to be first."

I lift a glass and smile at my anticipation in the midst of such grimness, leaning toward Cuan to take my droplet and let these liquids mingle. I am not unaware of the metaphor, and wonder if he's tying us all together with his own blood.

I should, yet again, quail at the thought, and yet again, do not. I swirl my drink, and return to watching and waiting.

Muirne glances about the room, eyes filled with emotion. Taking the glass, she nods her appreciation to Cuan, then slowly repeats the gesture to all of us. "Thank you, my friends," she utters, hardly more than a breath on the wind. "You know my heart better than any, Verhain. I am not afraid."

"I will not lose sight of you," he returns.

Quickly, she quaffs the elixir.

"Where would you have me?" Eseld asks Cuan, glancing at the seating provided. "There, opposite Verhain," he nods towards the other side of the rough circle, still next to Dagnir. He touches a droplet to the inner edge of Eseld's glass and Verhain's, and offers last to Dagnir and Blythe.

At Muirne's quick drink, Cuan looks to her with concern.

Muirne arcs rigid, her glass flies out of her hand and rolls on the carpet, and then she slumps into her chair.

Verhain has time to look shocked and worried and angry before Cuan hisses, "Quickly friends, those who are going," he raises his glass, and on a silent count of three, downs it...

I shrug, and drink smoothly but quickly. It just tastes of liquor, not of blood. I brace my feet as I do it, so if I'm to be thrashing around in any way, I might stay in my seat. There is at first just the lightest sense of something coating the back of my mouth and throat. Suddenly the acid hits. I barely have a moment to think as every nerve in my upper chest burns, blood explodes upwards into the back of my throat, frothing with foam from my lungs. As I try to draw breath to scream, confused but madly determined to survive this, it hits the front of my spine carrying this pain to every fiber of my body. And then it touches my heart, and the world goes gray...

What is worse than my own pain is that I know, again and again, all my friends are going through it. I can see them, in the gray nothing - we're outlines, ghosts. Their bodies become clear chest first, as though the sites of their pain bring them into focus. We're dead, we must be, but we staggering upright, some bent over retching, the vile light spilling from my friend's mouths and floating upwards away. The light around Cuan is so thick that he is almost not visible, only a dark figure within the glow, arms thrown back in these first moments.

The pain ends abruptly, leaving every nerve afire, hypersensitive. If I knew such would ever visit me again, and the choice was that or death, it would be a hard choice. Anger flares up in me, a passionate burning anger. I may not be among the living, but even if I am, I can not stand it that my friends have been put through this.

Muirne is slightly ahead of me; I can see her, turned facing away from us in the monochrome landscape. She faces the King's Tower, a stone spear thrust into the sky, impossibly tall. At its top, a light like Cuan's burns brightly, calling...

The anger burns lower, but doesn't entirely leave. "Blythe?" I whisper, desperate to hear my own voice, and hers as well. Suddenly I am feeling reassurance from Eseld, though she says nothing.

Her words come thick with unsung sobs. "I am here... I am here."