"No harm done," I said, scrabbling at my feet for the contents that had spilled out of my purse.

"You are a tourist, yes?" the man asked.

"Yes." He seemed nice enough, with a freckled face and the same open, cheerful countenance that I was becoming convinced was standard in Iceland. "Just here for a few days, unfortunately. Oh, thanks." I tucked my bag under my arm, taking the books from him.

He stooped once more and picked up something else at my feet, offering it to me a second before he froze. The light hit his palm, flashing off of something held there.

I looked in surprise at the object he held: a narrow silk cord from which a stone hung, a small oval stone somewhat milky in color, blue and green flashing from the depths.

"Oh, that's nice," I said, taking it to admire it better. "Is it an opal? It doesn't look quite like an opal."

"It is a moonstone," the man answered, his voice kind of choked.

It looked like a bookmark, the kind you slid around the pages and cover of a book, but rather than a charm hanging from the end, as I'd seen before, this one had the moonstone.

"It's very pretty. Did it come from one of my books? I didn't know it was in there. I'll have to take it back to the bookseller. He probably didn't realize this was tucked away inside—"

The man suddenly broke into laughter. "You didn't tell me who you were," he said, chuckling a last couple of chuckles before he took my arm and steered me out of the alley in the opposite direction. "I thought you were just an ordinary tourist."

"Um…" I didn't quite know what to say to that. It seemed odd to insist that I was, in fact, perfectly ordinary, but I had a suspicion that the nice Icelander thought I was someone else. "I think maybe there's some sort of a mistake."

"No mistake," he said, smiling with genuine happiness. "We've been expecting you, you know. The Zenith said you'd arrive today, but we thought you'd be here earlier. I suppose you felt it necessary to maintain your cover as a tourist?"