“Then, they have been speaking to you themselves. Listen, Geraint. Listen! If you do not, they will force you to hear. Take care.”

For some inexplicable reason, Geraint managed to knock a small trinket off the counter on the way out of the shop, diluting the impact of her words somehow. He hurriedly picked up the bracelet and replaced it in its wicker container on the polished glass counter. Serena stood with arms crossed, watching him half-seriously, half-amused.

"Acquaintance of yours was in the other day,” she said.

“Hmm? One of the elven nobles? Haven’t been seeing-”

“No, an elf from across the waters. Serrin Shamandar. I would not tell you what he was seeking, of course, but it was an interesting little coincidence." They both knew that neither of them believed in coincidence. Geraint shrugged, smiled away her raised eyebrows, and then headed into the flow of the faceless on Frith Street.

His bags were already packed as he held the focus within his hands. It would take a couple of hours for the bonding, to draw the magic of the thing into himself. He had handled and meditated upon the crystal and metal during its making, of course, and now he needed just a little time with the finished item. It was three-thirty in the afternoon, and within four hours he would be back in Cambridge, five or ten minutes from his old college, shaking hands with the rich, the fat, and the titled. He laughed, his good spirits returning, and sat down with the focus.

Within minutes, he was oblivious to the world, and he did not even register Francesca’s call on the telecom. Besides, she was only calling to wish him a prosperous weekend.

Serrin frowned as he parked the hired bike in the hotel’s underground garage. It didn’t help his mood to have baleful sodium-molybdenum lighting winking at him from the walls, with their flaking white-painted arrows pointing toward the elevator.