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help. Call them, explain thewee difficulty Regan’s faced with, and ask for their advice.” A pause. “Not that it’s for me to tell you what to do, lassie.”
    A plan began to form in my mind, based on what I knew of the Good Folk already. Not that I had ever met a Northie, except perhaps for the owl-like creature that had saved me from dying of cold on the way along the valley to Shadowfell. A being of some power, it had summoned a pack of wolves and turned them small so they could snuggle around me in my makeshift shelter. So perhaps I already owed the Northies a favor.
    “We need to offer them something. A meaningful gift, not just the usual offering of food and drink. And it should be Regan who tells them about the rebellion, not me. When he talks, everyone listens; everyone is caught up in his hope and courage. I might only have one chance at this, Sage.”
    “If you ask me,” Sage said, “a council would be the thing. A grand council, rebels and Northies, with everything set out for them and a formal request made for their help. Regan could do it, I suppose. But you’d be the one would have to get them up here.”
    “Up here? You think they’d come, even if we shielded every scrap of iron in the place?”
    “Talk to Regan. Talk to that cook of yours. See what they’re prepared to offer. Then we’ll go down and you can call them out and issue an invitation. The sooner, the better, that’s my thinking on the matter. You’ll have heard what they say about Northies.”
    “What?”
    “Ask a Northie a question, and you’ll wait a year for an answer. Ask two Northies a question and you’ll wait two years while they talk it over. Ask three Northies and they’ll still be arguing when they’re dead and in the grave.”
    While she waited, I went to find Regan. He was in the dining hall with Tali, Big Don, and Andra, deep in discussion. Milla was stirring something on the fire and contributing a suggestion from time to time.
    “I know Lannan favors Keenan of Wedderburn,” Tali was saying. “But Wedderburn’s a high risk for us; I don’t need to spell out the reasons why. Any approach to Keenan’s household would have to be made with the utmost caution. There isn’t time for that now, and I don’t believe there’s need. We have Gormal of Glenfalloch. We have Lannan, and his army is the biggest in Alban, after the king’s. Shouldn’t that be enough?”
    Milla straightened with the ladle still in her hands. “Lannan’s hardly going to march his entire army south to Summerfort for the Gathering. That would be like waving a flag to warn Keldec something’s amiss. Not to mention the difficulty of moving a large force over those mountains, even in summer.”
    “Wedderburn is the closest chieftaincy to Summerfort,” Andra said. “If we had Keenan’s approval to cross his land, we could move men into place without using the king’s road.”
    “The risk is too great.” Tali was intent on Regan; I suspected this was an ongoing debate. “I don’t know why youinsist on pushing this argument. It’s quite simple: you can’t put your trust in anyone from that family. And besides …” She fell silent.
    “Go on,” Regan said, and the look on his face was one I had never seen before; there was a darkness in it, the shadow of something unspeakable. “Besides what?”
    “You know what,” Tali said, then looked up and saw me standing in the doorway. “Neryn. What is it?”
    “I’ve been talking to Sage. I think I might …” I hesitated, not wanting to confess that I could perhaps have spoken to the Folk Below much earlier, if I’d been prepared to compel them out. “I believe I may be able to speak to the Good Folk today, and I want your permission to invite them to a council. It would be on midwinter eve, and we’d need to offer good hospitality, a feast, maybe music. And a gift; I will arrange that.” All eyes were on me, showing varying degrees of surprise; it was known that I had