Page 119 of His Greatest Treasure

I was starting to squirm in my seat with excitement. “Do you think you could find Glenwise or Rhod?”

My rising excitement suddenly plummeted when Mrs. Wilson casually said, “They left.”

“Oh. I see. But they’re clan, though.”

“They left.”

“Are they too far away for you to find?”

“That would depend how far away they were.”

“So you can’t sense them because they left the clan?”

“They left.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. She was bustling around, but she wasn’t looking at me. I watched and began to get the impression that she was doing busywork that would keep her over the other side of the kitchen.

“Mrs. Wilson, can you sense them?”

When she opened her mouth, I added, “And don’t say ‘they left’ because that doesn’t answer my question.”

It was the most demanding I’d ever been, and a part of me was quaking at the sheer nerve of me to say that to her.

However, she put down her things and turned to me. She was watching me carefully.

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because Alfie’s worried about them. Rhod and Glenwise are out there all alone without the protection of our territory. He wants to make sure they’re safe and they know they can come home.”

She studied me for a long time, thinking, and then finally she said, “I can only sense clan if they want to be found.”

“They’restill your clan, though, aren’t they?”

“Yes. I got to know Rhod quite well, since he was always the one that arranged deliveries and finances and things. And Glenwise was the medic.”

“Did he heal you?”

“Yes. He did. He always healed the sprites, when we couldn’t heal ourselves. He’s a good doctor. If they want to be found, I can find them.”

I was back to almost bouncing in my chair. “Alfie’s going to be so pleased when he hears this!”

“Perhaps you should wait until I’ve found them before you tell him. We don’t want him disappointed if I can’t trace them and he’s got his hopes up.”

“Okay, you’re right. I wonder where they are? They must be somewhere quite safe or they’d have been found by dragon-hunters by now. When you find them, how are we going to get a message to them?”

Mrs. Wilson looked amused. “If I find them, I can go and get them.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Wilson! I didn’t realised you could leave the territory. Can you ever leave the Somervilles? If you want to?”

She went back to her cooking, and this time it was a much more relaxed pace, far more natural.

“We can leave. We’re not indentured servants, you know.”

“Have some of the other sprites left? Since you’ve been here?”

“Yes,” she said. “Things weren’t the same under the last Lord Somerville.”

“Like not being allowed to put protections around the territory, you mean?”

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