‘And there are Laws in magic. To the best of my knowledge, there is nothing that once done, can’t be undone; the undoing is part of the doing. No one knows why this is, but it has always been so. It is not the same thing as dropping a glass and breaking it. If a spell is used to break a glass, that spell can be undone, the glass thereby made whole again.’

The implications of this prompted Mraan to ask, ‘But does that mean the Kingdom can be made whole again?’

His father huffed in response. ‘The end of the Elven Kingdom has been brought about only indirectly by the Lore. As a people we went too far; it should never have been. Such is the penalty for our excess.’

‘Excess?’

Haloch’s gaze became rueful. ‘This much you must take on faith; the excess I speak of has been all around you for all of your short life . . . you haven’t known anything else, so you are blind to it. Did you know that we are related to the other Faerie folk?’ Mraan’s doubtful look prompted him to smile without humour. ‘Well, we were, long ago. Over time we changed. They didn’t, except in their feelings towards us.’




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