Dre asks for another

“Oh, Lar,” Dre smiled, “you truly are something of a tease.”

“What – ” Lar cried. He recovered quickly enough to finish in a hiss: “ – is that supposed to mean?”

He had not expected to be greeted like this. He had not expected to be knocked off his feet before he had stood to face his opponent.

“You wore the necklace I love so,” Dre chuckled. “I could almost think you had worn it for me. Vain of me, I know.”

The necklace! Lar was tempted to rip it off and fling it at Dre’s face – it could at least do that much for him.

The church-​​man had promised him it would protect him from demons, and instead it only seemed to make him irresistable to them. It was no more than he deserved for trusting a man.

“I did not even know you were in here until I was halfway down the corridor,” Lar said. “What do you want?”

“Besides you?”

Lar could hear Imin and Ilal chuckling to themselves behind him. He said nothing.

Dre stood abruptly.

Lar had been standing so close to his chair that he was forced either to stumble away or to stand uncomfortably close to him. He stood, but his skin shivered over his body in revulsion.

“I want you to tell me who is this ‘Vin’ that has everyone so excited.”

“Can’t you find out?” Lar growled.

“I could find out, but I can’t be bothered,” Dre said, breezily enough that Lar felt his cold breath blowing over his face. “And any news is so much more agreeable to me coming from your lips,” he added in a whisper.

Lar permitted himself to take a single step back: he did not see how he could bear not to.

“Vin is the son of the man Egelric and the half-​​breed elf Elfleda,” he said quickly. “He has been raised in the Khor’s hall since he was a baby – they stole him right after he was born. And now he’s run away, and they’re desperate to find him.”

Dre took a single step closer to him. “Why?”

Lar hesitated.

“Don’t forget,” Dre whispered. “I shall know if you lie to me.”

Lar lifted his head slowly away from the demon’s face. It seemed an odd thing to say, for Lar had not intended to lie to him at all. The half-​​breed elf Vin was of no concern to him. He simply did not know.

“I don’t know. But he must be important to them. Maybe it has something to do with the elf Iylaina, since they gave the elf Iylaina to Vin’s mother.”

Dre held up a finger to silence him. “The father is the man Egelric, you say? Is he not a Scot?”

Dre appeared distracted. Lar stepped to the side and backed slowly towards the other wall.

“I suppose so,” he said. “The man Aengus is his cousin. And the Cat-​​woman.”

“Was this baby baptized before it was stolen?”

“How should I know?”

“How old was it when it was stolen?”

“How should I know?” Lar cried. “I was a boy then! I was probably hiding in a cave at the time!”

“I want him,” Dre said. “Find him before they do and bring him here.”

“What do you want with these Scot-​​men anyway?” Lar shouted. “Unbaptized? What is that to you?”

Dre was magnificently silent for a long moment, long enough that Lar began to think he was about to learn something important, and longer still, until he began to feel foolish for his outburst.

Dre turned his back to them all, but he spoke a single phrase before he walked out.

“That is more than you need to know.”