James watches as he reaches the end and turns onto the main road. Glancing at Jiron, he says, “Not only do I have the bother of people coming here to gawk at me, but now I have to travel for days for the King to.”

“This may prove beneficial to you,” he replies.

“In what way?” James inquires.

“Ellinwyrd, the Royal Archivist in Cardri you mentioned before, may be able to help you with what you discovered in Saragon,” he explains.

Nodding, he says, “You may be right.” To Illan he says, “I’d like you and Fifer to accompany me to Cardri. I’ll also bring along Miko, Jiron and Dave.”

At the mention of Dave, Jiron gets a dark look. The thought of traveling with him brings back the anger from the night before.

Seeing his reaction, James turns to him and asks quietly so only he may hear, “Would you rather me leave him here?”

Realizing that would be even worse he shakes his head. “No,” he says, “best to bring him along.”

“You know, he really isn’t a bad person,” James assures him. “I’m sure last night was just as he said, he simply went into the wrong room. He probably got confused being in a strange house in the dark.”

“Maybe,” Jiron says, though the tone of his voice tells he doesn’t believe that. His eyes dart to the door and he sees Dave standing there. Turning around, he stalks away from the house.

James can hear Illan mumble under his breath, “This is going to be a fun trip.” Shaking his head, he knows that if they just give Dave a chance, they’ll come to find out he’s not nearly as bad as they think. They’ve just gotten off on the wrong foot.

He returns to the house and takes Dave out through the kitchen where he picks up a couple of towels. Leading them through the back door, he leads him out to his bathing pool.

“What are we doing?” Dave asks as they approach the water.