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many decades exploring them in both Evermeet and Faerun. He thought he might be the only person alive who knew how to wake the one in the glade.
    He spoke the spells needed to activate the portal, and passed through. With a single step Evermeet’s misty forests vanished, only to be replaced by the high, windswept downs of the Evermoors. Dusk was falling, the end of a bright and cold spring day; the Evermoors were far to the east of Evermeet.
    “What becomes of the hours I missed?” Araevin wondered aloud.
    He studied the featureless moorland, speckled with the first small blooms of spring despite the lingering patches of snow that still lurked in the shadowed places. It was important to be sure of his exact location in case the portal had somehow malfunctioned.
    Satisfied, he closed his eyes, envisioning a small hilltop shrine he knew well, and uttered a spell of teleportation.
    There was a moment of darkness, a vertiginous sense of falling without motion, and Araevin stood in the small wooded bower of a shrine to Labelas Enoreth, a mile beyond the walls of Silverymoon, another hundred miles from the portal-stone in the Evermoors. Two large blueleaf trees had long ago taken root in the veranda, shouldering aside the shrine’s flagstones and forming a living roof over the elf deity’s altar. A small balustrade of old white stone, overgrown with green vines, offered a view of the swift river Rauvin and the city of Silverymoon, cupped around both the river’s banks
    “Well, there you are. I have been waiting for you.”
    Araevin turned at the words, and found himself looking on the face of his betrothed, the beautiful Lady Ilsevele Miritar. She was a sun elflike he, but she was much fairer than he was—in both senses of the word—with a radiant mane of copper-red hair and green eyes. She wore a tunic of green suede over cream-colored trousers, bloused into high leather boots decorated with tiny gold thread patterns. A slender long sword was sheathed at her hip.
    “Ilsevele,” he said, and he took three steps and caught her up in his arms.
    “It’s only been a couple of tendays,” she said with a laugh, finally pushing him away. “You’ve gone years at a time without thinking to look in on me.”
    “I have spent too much time around humans lately,” he answered. “After two hundred and fifty years, I believe I am losing the habit of patience.”
    “Well, you must wait a little longer. Our wedding is still two years away, in case you have forgotten.” Ilsevele looked out over the human city nearby. Hundreds of lanterns were flickering to life in its tree-shadowed streets and graceful buildings, reflections glimmering in the dark waters of the Rauvin, and the stars were coming out in the darkening skies. “I am glad that you told me of this shrine. The view is lovely. And I’ve had several hours to admire it.”
    “I am sorry. I had a later start than I’d anticipated.”
    “No matter. I enjoyed a couple of hours to myself.” She took his hand. “Come on, Maresa and Filsaelene are waiting in the city. They’re anxious to see you, too.”
    The two sun elves followed an old path leading down from the shrine to the human city below. This close to Silverymoon, there was little danger even as darkness fell, but Araevin noted that Ilsevele wore her sword, and he approved.
    “Where are you staying?” he asked. When he’d sent word to Ilsevele that he was coming, he had used a sending spell, and didn’t know where it might have found her.
    “An inn called the Golden Oak. It’s quite nice, really. I like it much better than that Dragonback in Daggerford.”
    “I know the Oak. You have expensive tastes,” he said with a smile.
    Ilsevele drew closer under his arm. “I decided that I owed Maresa and Filsaelene some comfort, after what we’ve all been through over the last few months.”
    “I certainly don’t begrudge you that.”
    They’d crisscrossed the Sword Coast and the North in search of the