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hat's happened?"
Renier came forward and led him out of the room to a narrow passage beyond, out of sight of the others. "What is it?" Roland asked again.
"Elaine said there was a gunpowder store in the tower." Renier's face was so pale he looked sick.
"Yes. Elaine's here, they escaped? Where's my mother?" Roland couldn't understand Renier's expression.
"She was up there with them."
And Roland knew. To the last he had fooled himself into believing he had been sent for help, not sent away from death.
But part of him still failed to comprehend, and that part said, "What was that noise?"
"That was the tower."
* * *
The cold was a shock.
Thomas shook his head and blinked hard. It was almost twilight in a gray world of muted color and dim light. They were in an open square in front of Aviler's house. The walls of other town houses rose up around them, and snow had buried the fountain in the center. Around he and Kade the new fayre ring appeared in the snow as a shallow trench in the shape of a perfect circle.
The corner of the house loomed above them, the shingled roof dusted with ice and thin gusts of smoke issuing from the chimneys. It was quiet, the dim glow of candlelight showing through the shutters on the upper floors. Thomas said, "I didn't realize it was this late."
"It takes time to travel through the rings. We've lost an hour or so out of the day," Kade said, but she was looking up and frowning. She folded her arms and shivered. "Though the sky is very dark."
Thomas started toward the house, thinking that one over, and Kade followed him. He supposed it made sense that time would be lost traveling from ring to ring, even if it didn't make sense that one was not aware of that time's passage.
The spell that Kade hoped would show her the location of the keystone had still been inert in its bowl when they had left. Once Thomas found out if Lucas was still here, Kade was returning to Knockma to see if there had been a