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watching them from the windows. "Miszrial, where do you keep the rescue helicopters? I can't see you guys running rescue missions from the human airport."
    Miszrial smiled thinly, stopping at a two-story stone building with a small wooden porch protruding from the front like a tongue. "The helipad is on the other side of village, disguised as a barn." She opened the door of the building and stepped aside to allow them to enter first. The inside was almost empty of furniture, but lights glowed high on the walls.
    Keelie walked up to one. Not electric, and there was no fire that she could tell. "What is this?"
    "Fairy lights," Elia answered, before Miszrial had a chance.
    "I've seen these," Keelie said, remembering. "Back home, in Under-the-Hill. Barrow's house is lit with them." Barrow was her dwarf friend whose parents owned the town hardware store. He was currently dating a water sprite named Plu.
    "I am not surprised that you have been Under-the-Hill," Miszrial said.
    Sean tugged Keelie back when she headed toward the snarky elf. "Easy, tiger. She's saying that to make you angry."
    "Why would she want me to be angry? I'm here to help her." Keelie watched Miszrial walk up the stairs that filled the center of the building, followed by Elia. "Grandmother Jo used to tell me that when people were mean like that, it was because they were jealous."
    Miszrial was waiting for them at the top of the stairs. She motioned toward a door. "Your room, Lady Keliel."
    Elia stood in the doorway next to hers. "Will tonight's dinner be a formal meal?"
    "No, it will just be yourselves and Lord Terciel." She bowed and walked to the next door, leaving Elia to shore up her crestfallen face.
    "Lord Sean, your room." Miszrial pointed across the hall.
    Keelie didn't have a reason to linger in the hall, so she went into her room. It was tiny, which was good, because the warm fire that burned in the fireplace kept the evening chill close to the sole window, which looked more like an arrow slit set deep into the stone wall. A bed with tall, thick posts dominated the spartan room. The only things that brightened it were a colorful woven rug next to the bed and an arrangement, in a glass jar, of twigs bursting with bright red berries. Probably poisonous to humans.
    An hour later, Miszrial collected them for dinner. Keelie wore one of her Ren Faire gowns, a long blue linen dress with full skirts and hanging sleeves that swept from her shoulders to the ground. Tight white inner sleeves covered her arms, and she wore her charms on a silver chain around her neck. Miszrial led them out of the lodge and along a leafy path which, as it scaled a small hill, became stone stairs opening onto a small plaza in front of the largest building Keelie had yet seen in Grey Mantle.
    "This is the Council building," Elia said, breathless from either pride or the climb. "There's nothing like this in Dread Forest, is there?"
    Sean glanced up at the pointed roof of the circular building. "No, nothing like this. Why is the roof pitched so steeply?"
    "To keep the snow from accumulating." Miszrial smiled. "Although it's not a problem lately. This year we've barely had two feet of snow. The bears have not slept, either, and they're hungry."
    Keelie tried to remember what she'd learned about hibernating bears, but drew a blank. She glanced at the dense forest around them and threw a quick message to the trees. Let me know ifyou see any bears near me, please.
    No bears are here, but the Jae gather close, came the answer. The trees seemed to speak in a chorus.
    "Keelie, are you okay? You have a strange look on your face." Sean leaned closer. "I won't let any bears eat you, I promise."
    Before Keelie could tell him that it wasn't bears she feared tonight, Terciel appeared in the arched stone doorway, his figure darkened by the glow of the room behind him.
    "Greetings, guests of the Northwoods. Welcome to our forest home." He bowed, and invited them in with a graceful gesture.
    Elia