“What do you mean they haven’t returned yet!” Dammen said. “Didn’t they come back through the ga’lif?”

“We have not seen them, Your Majesty,” Iddo Aemons told him with complete honesty.

“Nor have we heard from Cambra Vernier since your departure.”

Dammen’s fury knew no bounds at that moment. Here he was, believing Jeiel and Jenny to be okay, only to learn that they had never even made it back from Vendra.

“Something must have happened to them,” he said. “Damn it, it’s not like Jeiel to do this. He must be in trouble.” Dammen paced back and forth like a caged kur beast, running an anguished, frustrated hand through...