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Cordyan ran a finger along his pages of script. "Your handwriting is beautiful as well."

"Golsway never accepted anything less than my best," Baylee said. "He always told me that an explorer wasn't worth his salt if he made records no one could read."

"So what do you write in here?"

"Anything," Baylee replied. "What I think, what I hear, what I see. Any conjectures on my part. Sometimes information I can copy down from reference books."

Cordyan flipped the journal open to the first page. "You write a lot." She flipped through the pages, opening to maps of areas Baylee had walked through, seeing faces of people Baylee had seen, seeing a handful of pictures here and there rendered in ink and sometimes chalks of picturesque areas where the ranger had camped.

"It's a big world."

The watch lieutenant stopped at a page that had a drawing of the pirate ship that had attacked a merchanter Baylee had traveled aboard. "You've only been working in this journal for the last three months."

Baylee glanced at the notation on the front of the journal and saw that she was right. "Yes."

"You travel a lot," Cordyan said.

Watching the woman, Baylee tried to figure out what she was after. He'd questioned people himself in his own line of work, and he could tell she was closing in on a thread she pursued. "Yes."

She glanced at him, handing the book back. She appeared threatening in no way, merely interested in his journalizing. "You must fill up a lot of books like these."

"Three or four a year," Baylee admitted. "Sometimes more. It depends. When I worked some of the sites Golsway and I discovered, we sometimes filled up a half-dozen such journals each."

"What do you do with them when you fill one?" she asked. "I notice you keep a light pack."

Then Baylee realized what she was after. Evidently no one had found journals like his in Golsway's house. "I have a place that keeps them for me."

"What place?"

"Candlekeep. Perhaps you've heard of it."

"I've heard of it," Cordyan said. "You've been there?"

"Yes."

"I'm told the price of admission is quite high," the watch lieutenant said. "Usually a book of some sort, and worth no less than ten thousand gold pieces. If your journals are kept there, they must be highly regarded."

"I have a friend there," Baylee said. "Brother Qinzl, who claims to entertain a certain vicarious thrill of exploration when he reads one of my journals."

"I thought you would have kept your journals with Golsway's."

"No," Baylee said. "Not since Golsway deemed that my writing was strong enough to stand on its own."

"When was that?"

"When I was fourteen," Baylee answered.

"You've written journals at fourteen that are in Candlekeep?" She seemed amazed.

Baylee shook his head. "You have to think about the time period. During those years, Golsway was much more active than he has been of late. That was one of the things we argued over. I was still willing to go rushing after the vaguest whisper, while he was more content these days to look for a big strike. When he was younger, they were all big strikes, some just bigger than others. Those early journals detailed what members of the Explorer's Society deemed important finds."

"But they were still good enough to stand on their own?"

Baylee looked into the woman's copper eyes. "If you're asking if Golsway's journals are there, the answer is no."

"Why?"

"Because Golsway didn't want to chance a loss of the information we've discovered. If Candlekeep burned down, which won't happen because the magic wards within it prevent paper catching fire within their walls, then both sets of our works wouldn't be lost."

"Where did Golsway keep his journals?"

Baylee shook his head. "I don't know."

Her copper hued gaze remained on him, weighing the answer she'd received.

"Wherever they are," Baylee said, "you can be assured that it's a matter of record."

"Why wouldn't Golsway have told you?"

"It wasn't a matter of him not telling me," Baylee said. "I never