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“Trust Kithri to distract us with gnoll trinkets and trash,” Lucan said—but he went right along with the rest of them. “What wonders have you found? And which ones went into your pockets before you told us about the rest?”

“Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies,” Kithri said as she spread her findings out on the rock. There was nothing in the way of coins—gnolls had no use for them—but there were four things of interest. An armband worked from silver in the shape of entwined snakes, with tiny jewels as their eyes; a human jawbone with its teeth replaced by cut gems; a gold ring set with a square green stone; and a pearl, a single pearl, worked into an earring with gold wire.

“And this was tied around the cacklefiend’s neck,” Kithri said, drawing a pendant from her pocket. “I thought I would save it for last.”

Biri-Daar took it and handed it to Keverel. “Do you see what I see?”

“Demon’s workmanship,” Keverel said with a nod. “I can feel it even if I can’t see it. Erathis knows.” The god’s name brought a pale gleam from the pendant and Remy realized that gleam was what had first alerted him to the presence of something beyond the firelight.

“This pendant is a demon’s eye,” Biri-Daar said. “It guided the cacklefiend and the gnolls to us.”

“Or to him,” Lucan said, pointing at Remy with the dagger he had not yet put away. Remy began to feel that a fight between him and the elf was inevitable, and he did not feel confident of winning it.

Biri-Daar’s response made him even more uncertain. “Or to him,” she echoed. “Which means that we need to know more about what he carries, and why. But the wilderness is no place for such investigations. Lucan, we didn’t rescue this boy just to kill him. Put the blade away.”

Lucan did, with a last cold glance at Remy, who was a bit nettled at being called a boy. Yet now was not the time to challenge the group any more than he already had. He bit his tongue. Biri-Daar swept all of the treasures into cupped hands. “We’ll sell this, or have it appraised at least, when we get to Crow Fork Market,” she said, holding her hands out to Iriani. “Iriani, is any of it of use to you?”

The mage floated a palm over the items and closed his eyes. “There is some power in the jawbone,” he said after a moment. “But nothing I would dare use. Corellon would turn his back on me, and for good reason. There is evil in it.”

“Then we must be careful who we sell it to,” Biri-Daar said. “But maybe we can wring some good from it.”

Everything went into a pouch at her belt. “We ought to sleep now,” she said. “First watch to the unwounded. That means me and Remy.”

“For someone without much experience fighting in a group,” Biri-Daar said after everyone else was asleep, “you did well.”

Remy nodded, accepting the compliment.

“And it’s a good thing you can fight,” the paladin went on. She looked from the campfire to Remy. “Even though you should maybe have been more careful about picking a fight with Lucan. He was right that the cacklefiend was looking for you. That’s what the demon’s eye was for.”

The fire was burning low. Remy poked at it and watched the swirl of the glow in the embers. “I understand if you’re not sure what to say,” Biri-Daar said.

“I said everything I know,” Remy said. “I don’t know what’s in the box. I only know that Philomen wanted me to take it to Toradan.”

“So you don’t know what it is and you don’t know why Philomen gave it to you. Let me ask you this: what do you know about Philomen?”

“That he’s the vizier in Avankil, and has been since well before I was born.” Remy said nothing about the darker rumors of sorcery that Philomen’s enemies propagated throughout the city.

“Do the people of Avankil trust him?”

“If they don’t, they’re shy about saying so,” Remy said.

“With good reason.” Both of them watched the fire for a few minutes. Remy wondered what Biri-Daar was thinking behind the roundabout questions about the vizier.

Out in the darkness, something growled and there came the sound of tearing flesh. “Scavengers are out,” Remy commented.

“Worried?”