"The phaerimm are here-they must be-and have they attacked?" Galaeron asked, facing the prince. "No, they haven't. So, you're wrong. Absolutely wrong."

Escanor's copper-glowing eyes flared. "How am I wrong, elf?" He began to wade toward them, a bugbear-sized silhouette limned in silver spell-light "Explain."

Galaeron looked as though he were about to answer, then he cocked his head and, passing within a lance-length of an astonished shadow lord, vanished through a breach in the curtain. Vala followed as quickly as she was able, but the steel greaves on her shins made her slow. Escanor, swimming as well, beat her through the gap. She cringed at what was likely to follow. One did not ignore a prince of Shade Enclave.

Vala passed through the gap and found them standing close together in the shallows, Galaeron's lean form submerged to the waist and Escanor's to the knees. Like all the shadow lords, the prince was swarthy and powerful, with a mouthful of ceremonial fangs and a long, raw-boned face that lent a demonic aura to an already otherworldly mystique. They were standing close together, speaking intensely but quietly.

"… are spell collectors," Galaeron was saying. He sounded less irrational but just as intense. "They haven't attacked because they want to watch the Splicing." "You suggest they're spying on us?" Escanor asked.

"If I can learn to use shadow magic, why can't the phaerimm?" Galaeron replied. "If they understand it, they control it."

"What you say stands to reason, as far as it goes." Escanor glanced over as Vala touched bottom beside them, then looked back to Galaeron. "But if the phaerimm were here, we would have detected their magic. They cannot hide that from us."

"Only phaerimm know what the phaerimm can do," Galaeron said. He was looking past the prince into the darkness, studying it as though he could find the enemy by sheer force of will. "And only a fool would believe otherwise."