they came out, Iselde's mother looked pale and out of sorts.  She didn't talk to anyone or do anything.  She said that the woman just stood there a moment with blank eyes, then walked out the door.  They never saw her again.  Renina said that that's what happened to their father too.  The Council showed up, took him into a room, and then he came out all blank and then walked out the door.  She was just a little girl when that happened, but she saw him walk across the lawn, out the front gate, and towards the center of town."
	"That is not half of it," Dolanna said.  "Renina's mother was a house servant before she became too old to work inside, and she said that Iselde's parents would talk long into the night about strange things, and acted very secretive, even among the servants.  That is very odd, for a Sha'Kar will make love to a spouse in the presence of a servant without thinking twice about it.  It is as if they do not exist to them unless they need something done."
	Tarrin nodded, pondering on their tale.  "So it sounds like the Council is behind these disappearances," he grunted.  "That seemed obvious before, now that I think of it."
	"It is something," Dolanna told him.  "Maybe the Council uses this obscure ceremonly to eliminate potential threats to their power."
	"That doesn't make much sense, Dolanna," Tarrin scoffed.  "I've been listening in on the Sha'Kar, and from the way it sounds, they don't have any ambition.  All they care about is the next party, the next meal, the next round of gossip, or who they can lure into their bed tonight.  They're a very shallow people, I've come to discover."
	"Are you sure?"
	"I've been eavesdropping on them using their amulets to talk to each other," he told her.  "It's all been a bunch of trivial nonsense."
	"Tarrin, the amulets are not secure.  Think.  They would not say anything important while using them.  That is why you hear nothing but trivial nonsense."
	He frowned.  "I guess you have a point there," he admitted.  "They must use the amulets as some kind of magical gossip rumormill.
	Phandebrass staggered into the doorway with Sapphire flapping in behind him.  His arms were loaded with books.  "I'm back!" he called, as Sapphire landed in Tarrins arms and rubbed her head against his chest in greeting.  "You won't believe what happened, you won't!"
	"Well, what did happen?" Tarrin asked as Phandebrass set them on the table near the door.
	"I say, they let me in, Tarrin," he announced.  "Isn't that remarkable?  They saw me coming at the fence, asked me what I wanted, and I told them, I did.  They just let me in and told me I could take any book I pleased, so long as I bring them back in three days.  I say, wasn't that nice of them?"  He grinned brightly.  "You should have seen their library!  It was fantastic, it was!  Three times bigger than this room!" he said grandly, waving his arms.  "Shelves and shelves of books, in every language you could imagine!  Sha'Kar books, human books in Sulasian, Sharadi, Mahuut, Arakite, Shou, and every regional language there is!  I say, they even had Dwarven and Gnomish books!" he said in excitement.  "But no Wikuni books," he amended.  "But it was amazing!  They wouldn't let me stay and read, of course, but they did say I could take home any books I wanted, so long as I bring them back in three days."
	"You already said that, Phandebrass," Dar told him.
	"I did?  Sorry, I guess I'm a little excited, I am," he said with a beaming smile.  "Where to start, where to start?" he wondered, looking hungrily at the pile of books.
	"Why don't you take them up to the family library, so you, Miranda, and Kimmie can go through them?" he offered.
	"Capital idea!" he agreed with a clap of his hands.  "Now then, I say, let's get these books gathered up and get along!"
	"Dar, help him carry them up," Tarrin said.  "Remember, nobody goes out alone.  Sapphire's staying, so you need to go with him.  You can stay up in the library and help them until one of them is ready to come back down."
	"Alright, Tarrin," Dar nodded.  "I'd like to look at some of the books myself.  Hold on, Phandebrass, you're going to throw your back out!"
	Tarrin and Dolanna watched as Dar and Phandebrass split the burden between them and left.  "I wonder how he managed to carry them all the way over here," Dolanna mused.
	"He used a magical spell," Sapphire answered.  "He remembered that you enchanted the room to block magic, so he cancelled it before opening the door and carried the books in."
	"Was there any trouble, little one?" he asked her.
	"It went as the crazy one said, my friend," she answered calmly.  "They saw us coming, and when they asked what we wanted, the Wizard told them.  It was that simple.  I thought he would at least try to use deception, but he is woefully inept at it."
	Tarrin chuckled.  "They just let you in?"
	"They did," she affirmed.  "One of the ones in yellow robes that Kimmie told me to watch for met us in a grand entrance hall, and then guided us to the library herself.  She told us we could take any book we wished, so long as it was returned in three days' time."
	"Perhaps they have nothing to hide," Dolanna speculated.
	"Or perhaps they know there's nothing damaging in the library," Tarrin grunted in response.
	"Perhaps.  But sometimes the greatest clues can come from the most innocent-seeming sources.  Perhaps what we need is waiting in one of those books for us to find."
	"I hope so, Dolanna," Tarrin sighed, scratching Sapphire between the horns with a claw.  "I really hope so."
	"What do we do now, Tarrin?" Sapphire asked.
	"I think today's been a bit too busy for something else, Sapphire," he answered.  "Let's give Camara and Zak a chance to return with new information, and give Phandebrass and the others a little time.  Tomorrow we're going to lead the Council around by the nose for a while.  I don't want to start anything else until we have them on the defensive."
	"And when we have them confused?" Dolanna asked.
	"Then we find our answers, Dolanna," he said calmly, yet there was intensity behind his calm veneer.  He looked down at her.  "You said the greatest clues can come from the most unexpected places," he told her.  "I have a sneaking suspicion that the answers we're looking for are all around us.  We just have to talk to the right Sha'Kar."
	"You sound as if you know where to start."
	"I know exactly where to start," he nodded.  "And if I play my cards right, I may get a chance to talk to them as early as tomorrow.  I should be able to talk to them without it looking too unusual."
	He knew exactly who he needed to speak to first.  A pair of adventurous children.  Tarrin had suspected from the start that Iselde knew something about the Firestaff.  And Auli...dear Auli, always getting into trouble, always going where she wasn't supposed to go, doing things she wasn't supposed to do.  Tarrin knew from experience that kids like that learned secrets.  Dark secrets, terrible secrets, things nobody else was supposed to know.  Secrets a girl like Auli was smart enough to keep a secret.
	Secrets.  Yes, Auli was a keeper of many secrets, whispered to her in the beds of the males, discovered in her foribben wanderings.  What secrets did she keep?  And how would they help him?
	He would find out soon.  Very soon, he hoped.  Maybe even tomorrow.  Soon, he would have Auli's darkest secrets, when he was able to talk to her without the Council getting scent of it.
	He only prayed they were enough.
 
Chapter 17

	It was a tense night for Tarrin, but in its own way, it had a gentle beauty that he would not soon forget.
	With all the insanity going on, with the pressure he'd felt over what happened with Allia and the Council, Tarrin had not had the chance to explore his feelings for Kimmie with her as he should.  He did that that night, after finding out from Camara Tal and Azakar that they had nothing worthwhile to report, after Phandebrass, Dar, Miranda, and Kimmie had gone through the books and found nothing of worth for them.  He sat her down on the bed, held her paws, and told her what he'd felt in his heart when she tried to comfort him after he returned from his traumatic fight with Allia.
	To say that she was ecstatic was a woeful understatement.  In their entire time together, through everything that had happened, with all of her confessions of love and loyalty and support for him, all she had ever wanted from him was his attention.  She knew he loved Jesmind, she knew that Jesmind had a claim over him with which she couldn't compete.  That he had told her that he loved her was far beyond anything she had ever dreamed.  She knew already, of course--it was hard to hide anything from Kimmie--but to hear him say it to her, to hear it for herself, it was what she had hoped beyond hope to hear, a dream not dreamed except in her happiest meanderings.  She laughed and cried and kissed him, then looked into his eyes and assured him that when they got back to Suld, she'd still be happy to step aside for Jesmind.  After all, Tarrin promised her he would come back to her, and a promise among Were-cats was as serious a thing as one could give.
	She was such a wonderfully understanding person.  Tarrin felt so lucky to have her with him, so lucky Triana had the wisdom to see what he could not.
	And after all, she couldn't hold onto him forever, just as Jesmind couldn't.  She and Jesmind and Mist would have to wait by turns, so there was no jealousy in her heart.  She had taken him for mate knowing that she would have to give him up.  But she knew that in time, the wheel would come full circle, and he would once again be standing on her doorstep.  That knowledge, that sweet knowledge, was all that she needed.
	Tarrin laid in bed after a very passionate night with Kimmie and pondered the change in his life.  Kimmie had made him forget all about Allia, if only for a little while.  She had indeed taken away the pain, a pain he still felt when he thought about it.  But it wasn't the pain of losing Allia now, it was the pain of uncertainty over what had motivated her to do as she did, the pain of knowing that she may be under the power of the Sha'Kar, the pain of knowing that maybe, somewhere inside her mind, there was the Allia that was his sister screaming and raging and struggling to break free, just as he had screamed and raged and struggled against the collar that had been put around his neck.  Screaming in rage yet unable to overcome the powerful magic that controlled her, aware of everything she did yet unable to do anything more than watch in helpless futility.  Tarrin knew that feeling well, still shuddered every time he remembered it.  Was Allia suffering as he had?  Did she know what she said to him, and how it had crushed his spirit?  Or was she blissfully unaware of what she was doing under the control of another?  He fervently hoped so.  It would be so much easier on her if she had no idea what she was doing, and wouldn't remember it when she was free.
	If she was under their control.  Keritanima was taking her damn sweet time finding out.  But then again, after the fight with Tarrin, Allia had to be very tightly wound, very defensive.  It was going to take Keritanima time to talk her down, relax her, get her into a position where Allia wouldn't feel it when Keritanima checked her mind.  Allia was a deceptive woman in many ways, and her power was the most deceptive aspect of them all.  She was actually a very strong and well-trained Sorceress, and she would feel it if Keritanima went poking around in her mind unless she'd been specifically set up to be probed without her knowing.  Only Tarrin and Keritanima could get her that relaxed, get her to lower her defenses that far.  And since Tarrin was now her enemy, that left only Keritanima.
	But that was a worry for tomorrow.  That night belonged to Kimmie, only to Kimmie, and he wasn't going to ruin it by dwelling on things that he could do nothing about at the moment anyway.  He held her close and mused contentedly how Jesmind was going to take this news.  That she had to share him was bad enough for her.  But to find out he loved Kimmie?  She would probably have a fit.  He'd have to break that to her very gently, and only after proving to her in lavish fashion that not only did he still love her, but he still loved her with a passion and enthusiasm that eclipsed what he felt for Kimmie.  That wasn't entirely true, of course.  Tarrin found that there was no love by degrees.  There was no loving one person a little, and loving another alot.  Love was love.  Tarrin loved Jesmind, but he also loved Kimmie.  He found that though his heart was divided, each one of them received all of his heart in their turn.  He loved them because what Jesmind was, Kimmie was not.  And what Kimmie was, Jesmind was not.  They were diametrically opposing females, each representing an extreme of the spectrum of Were-cat behavior.  Jesmind was blunt, coarse, direct, and exceptionally volatile.  She was a pain in his butt, constantly fighting with him, challenging him, forcing him to battle her for control.  She had a nasty temper, and she could hold a grudge forever.  But she was also an exquisitely tender woman whose outward personality masked an incredible ability to love.  When she was happy, when she was content, when she was feeling kittenish, Jesmind could be almost irresistably appealing.  It was those moments of softness that Tarrin lived for, those moments where their love for one another outshined Jesmind's need to be contrary and showed the radiant woman lurking beneath the rough bark of her pretty exterior.
	Kimmie could not be any different.  She was kind, she was gentle, she was compassionate.  She had no temper at all, and had a methodical intelligence about her that made her seem very wise.  She had an incredible patience that seemed almost unnatural to Tarrin, an ability to wait and endure that far outstripped any other Were-cat's limits.  Were-cats were not known for patience.  And she had such a sincere, understanding nature, a kind generosity that seemed so out of place in a Were-cat.  Kimmie would give of herself freely and expect nothing in return, finding contentment in the pleasure it gave her to help others.  She was just as direct as Jesmind, but she was much more tactful in the application of her opinion, guiding with gentle suggestion rather than direct, possibly explosive statements.  In many ways, Kimmie was the human wife part of Tarrin had always wanted, the kind, demure lady that would nurture him and help guide him through the pitfalls of life with her exceptional intelligence and her keen understanding of him and their world.
	Two women, so different, and yet so similar.  Both Were-cats, though Jesmind represented the wildest of the wild nature of the Were-cat, where Kimmie represented the human aspect of their dual being.  Jesmind was hot sensuality and passion, the intensity of the moment...the Cat, where Kimmie was gentle, boundless love, the comfort of long, nurturing relationships...the Human.  That didn't mean that Jesmind couldn't show boundless love, or that Kimmie wasn't as passionate as any female he'd ever known.  No matter how wild a Were-cat got, the human was always there.  And in Kimmie's case, the Cat lurked within her, waiting for its release.  Kimmie told him that she had a very vile temper, but it just took alot to set her off.  If that was true, he hoped he never saw it.  As calm as she was the rest of the time, when she did finally go off, it would be an explosion of truly monumental proportions.
	Two women, and yet both had found their way into his heart.  Jesmind had done it with her fiery nature, catching his attention, as his own personality had somehow gotten to her heart long before she had found his.  Kimmie had found love for him when she saw the compassion in him, the gentle giving nature that his ordeal had buried inside him, the gentle boy lost within the Were-cat's body.  His act of healing Mist had bound him into Kimmie's heart, and she had waited patiently, quietly, calmly, as was her nature.  She waited for her chance, and when it arrived, she got everything she had ever wanted when her own acts of kindness and love towards him had bound her in his heart as well.  His love for Jesmind was born out of conflict, where his love for Kimmie was born from gentle compassion.  Love and war, light and dark, smooth and rough, good and evil, they were two women who were opposite sides of a coin...but both sides were still the same coin.  So it was with Jesmind and Kimmie in his heart, each on one side of it, yet both sides still being only part of a unified whole.  He found that he could love them both without tearing himself apart trying to choose between them.  He was lucky...he didn't have to choose between them.  He could have them both.
	Sometimes he thanked every god that was listening that he had been turned.  All the pain he had suffered for it meant nothing when he thought of that one wonderful fact.  That he loved two women, and he didn't have to choose one over the other.  That he could have both.
	Not at the same time, of course.  Jesmind would have a fit, and Kimmie wouldn't be very happy about it either.  In their own ways, they were very similar in that regard.  Both of them wanted his undivided attention.  They wanted all of him, and weren't about to share him.  Not even with each other.  And given their personalities, he wouldn't be able to make both of them happy if he had to split time between them.  Jesmind was way too high-maintenance, and Kimmie would be extremely unhappy with his lack of attention.
	In that regard, Kimmie had to be worse than Jesmind.  It wasn't exactly a flaw, but Kimmie could be extremely demanding of his attention, even more than Jesmind.  She was almost like a human in that regard.  But then again, she had warned him of that when he first took her for mate.
	Snuggling with Kimmie could only last so long, though, for the sun had to come up eventually, and it would mark the beginning of what Tarrin expected would be an eventful day.  There was alot on the queue, and there wasn't much time to get it all done.  But until the day did begin, it was still the night, and that night belonged to Kimmie.  And he was going to enjoy every minute of it.
	He leaned over his smaller mate and kissed her gently on the lips.  Her eyes opened immediately, and those beautiful blue eyes stared up at him with undisguised happiness.  "Still feeling frisky, love?" she asked with an impish grin.  "Woop, nevermind.  I just caught your scent," she added with a hungry look, her own scent showing how his interest affected her.  "Come down here," she said with a throaty purr.  He leaned down and kissed her, and quickly forgot what he'd been worrying about.

	What they needed was cunning, sneakiness, and complete audacity.  They needed someone that could think up ways to make the Council run around like beheaded chickens, scrambling to block one carefully devised plan after another that would come flying at them with such speed that they barely had time to catch their breath.  They needed someone with no morals, someone that would take devilish delight in confounding the opposition, someone that they couldn't out-think in those fast-paced games of nerve.
	They needed Keritanima.
	And get her, the Council did.  All of her.  After a furious night of planning with Miranda, the devious pair visited Tarrin before dawn that morning still wearing their bedgowns and, first off, alleviated Tarrin's long anxious waiting with the most important news of all.
	"There is something there," she told him with a broad, utterly relieved smile.  "There's some kind of trace in Allia's mind of a spell.  I think it's a Mind weave, but it was too degraded for me to make anything out."
	That made Tarrin's heart absolutely leap for joy.  A great deal of the crushing pain he'd felt over his fight with Allia disappeared immediately, and Kimmie put her paw on his shoulder as he blew out his breath, then laughed in relieved delight.  "That's the best news I've ever heard, Kerri," he told her with a happy look.  "Mind weaves linger even after they dissipate, so she's probably still under the influence of it.  Why didn't you come tell me sooner?  I've been going crazy!"
	"You know how long it took me to get at her?" she retorted.  "I had to wait for her to go to sleep!  And she was too wound up to sleep, so I had to talk her down to where she could!  And then I had to get rid of Allyn!"
	"He was there the whole time?"
	"He wouldn't leave her side," Keritanima snorted. "I will say this.  I may hate him for what his people did to Allia, but I really think his feelings for her are genuine, brother.  No way what I saw was faked.  Allyn loves her."
	"That's going to cause a problem," Tarrin growled.  "When I told Allia about the torture, Allyn acted like it was as right as rain."
	"He's young, Tarrin.  We can train him," she said with a toothy grin.  "If Allia loves him, he goes with us.  It's that simple.  We'll make him see the light, even if I have to hang him naked off the mast and flog him."
	"I knew there was a gentle quality about you that I loved, Kerri," Tarrin said with a light smile.
	"I know.  I'm just the sweetest little girl you'll ever meet, aren't I?" she asked with bright eyes.
	After they revelled in the fact that they knew that their sister wasn't acting of her own right mind, Keritanima and Tarrin gathered with Miranda and Kimmie, and they got down to business.  Sitting on Tarrin's bed, Tarrin and Kimmie not bothering to dress--it was only Kerri and Miranda--and with Binter and Sisska standing in silent protection over them, Keritanima outlined her plan to Tarrin.  It was a devillishly clever plan that would send Azakar and Camara Tal, Dar and Phandebrass, Miranda and Kimmie, Dolanna and Keritanima, and Sapphire and Tarrin out on five independent missions, each with a totally separate goal.  She would set it up that morning with a talk with Allia, where she would give only slight hints at what each team would be searching for.  That would be enough for the Council to puzzle out what each team's objective was, and give them a chance to intervene.
	They were very widely scattered objectives.  Camara Tal and Azakar would try to talk servants at the Grand's palace to bring them a personal journal or private book of the Grand, even resorting to blackmail, bribing, sexual favors, or even physical intimidation.  Whatever it took to get a servant to do what they wanted.  Tarrin and Sapphire were going to take a worthless trinket that Phandebrass would enchant with a useless Wizard spell to throw off the Council and pretend that it could lead them to the Firestaff, then wander around the woods and hills surrounding the town like he knew where he was going.  Dar and Phandebrass were going to take the books back to the library and go crazy looking for one specific book, and be wild and adamant about finding it.  It was a book that they knew would be in the Grand's library, mainly because it was in Arlan's, and act like the secrets of the universe were in that book.  Keritanima and Dolanna were going to talk to some of the youngest Sha'Kar in their social circles, friends of Iselde and Auli, and try to find out if there were any rumors of old relics being hidden on the island, as well as any other interesting tidbits.  Kimmie and Miranda were going to do what they did last night, compile the information they'd received so far and see if they couldn't find a pattern or some bit of unnoticed information.  Zarina would spend her day with Kimmie and Miranda, since they would be staying in the house all day, and they could look after the girl.  She could even help, since she could read Sha'Kar.
	Keritanima intended to set the plans in motion first, give the Council a little while to panic, then whisper her secrets to Allia and let it get back to the Council just in time to counter the plots before they reached their culmination.  The plans centered on the Firestaff, not their primary goal, which was to dig up the dirt on the Council and blackmail them into cooperation.  That protected their interests while forcing the Council on the defensive, where they could only react and couldn't actively interfere with what they were really doing.
	Five separate plans with five separate objectives.  It would spread out the Council and make them respond by misdirecting the servants or outright protecting them from the two humans, hiding the book--and every other copy of the same book on the island, heading off Tarrin, making the chatty Sha'Kar girls tight-lipped (which would be by far the hardest of all their required tasks), and attempt to infiltrate Kimmie and Miranda and disrupt their work.  Some of the jobs may look easy, like hiding the book from Dar and Phandebrass, but those two could make it a very heavy chore by making a nuisance of themselves and interrupting the Council continuously to request the book. It also happened to put them right where they could hear what was going on.  Keritanima and Dolanna expected that they'd eventually hear something of use to them before the Council managed to shut the girls up.  Camara Tal and Azakar could quite effectively disrupt the smooth operations of the Grand's estate, where all the business of the Sha'Kar was done, by forcing them to pull back their servants and keep them away from the pair, thereby aggravating what could already be a very chaotic situation.  But by far the most important of the tasks to worry the Council would be Tarrin.  The sui'kun was very powerful, and if they thought that he may be on the trail of the Firestaff, he would take up a vast amount of their attention.  They'd leave him alone if they thought he was going the wrong way, but if he did start moving towards it, Keritanima was positive that they'd have no choice but attempt to intervene.  It would be obvious that they would, but they'd be forced to take steps to defend the Firestaff, as they all suspsected they were doing already.  That intervention may give them a clue where to look for real, depending on where Tarrin was when it came.  Keritanima didn't think they were quite so stupid as to draw attention to its location that way, but her plan depended on them being forced to show their hand before the bets were on the table.  They knew that Tarrin was powerful, and if he got close enough to the Firestaff by wandering around, he would sense its presence.  Above all things, the absolute last thing the Council wanted was for Tarrin to wander freely around the island.  That one plan alone, Keritanima surmised, was going to cause the Council to go absolutely crazy, and may even make them do something rash to prevent him from leaving the town and going out where he could do irreparable harm.
	Tarrin was impressed.  Not only did all of Keritanima's ideas succeed in causing mischief for the Council, but they also had tertiary qualities that advanced their own cause.  Keritanima was indeed extremely cunning.  Even in a plan of delaying tactics, Keritanima still sought to get them to their objective.
	Kimmie yawned languidly, stretching her arms over her head, even sticking her tail straight out behind her.  "I guess we should get dressed," she told Tarrin.  "We have alot to do today, and if we can get the Council out of bed early, maybe they'll be too sleepy or hung over to be very effective against us."  She grinned.  "Maybe one of us may actually succeed.  You never know."
	"Maybe," Miranda grinned.
	"The idea is to harry them, not beat them, Kimmie," Keritanima reminded her.  "But if one of us does happen to stumble over the location of the Firestaff today, I won't complain," she added with a toothy grin.
	"That would be nice.  We wouldn't have to keep playing with the Council.  We could sweep them aside and do what we came here to do," Tarrin grunted, scratching at the fur on his knee.  "Sapphire!" he called to the drake, which was sleeping on her little bed on the table across the room.
	She rose her head blearily.  "Yes, Tarrin?"
	"You feel up to some exercise today?  You and me are going exploring."
	"Outside?"
	"Outside."
	"Yes!" she said emphatically, jumping up and unfurling her wings.  "Get dressed, let's go!  I need a good fly to exercise my wings."
	"We have to stop by Phandebrass' room first," he warned.  "We need him to do something for us."
	"Let's go, let's go!" she said pushily, flying over the the bed and grabbing his tail with her forepaws, pulling on it.  "I've been dying to go flying!"
	"Let me put some clothes on," he told her.  "I'll look a little strange walking around the town naked, won't I?"
	"Why do you insist on wearing those ridiculous things?" she asked.  "They seem useless, and you never seem to wear them for very long once you get inside."
	"It's a foolish humanoid custom," Tarrin shrugged, crawling out of bed.  "I don't see much use for it myself, but we always have to respect the customs of our hosts."
	"True," she agreed calmly.  "You should grow scales.  They're much more useful than those clothes.  Scales will help protect you from harm."
	"If I could grow scales, it'd be something," Kimmie laughed.  "I think I'll wear that dress Iselde gave me today," she mused.  "I like the way it feels on my skin, and it doesn't pull at my fur the way wool does.   Besides, I want to look good for when the cronies the Council sends comes and tries to interfere with us," she added with a wicked grin.
	"You should wear silk, Kimmie," Keritanima told her.
	"I can't afford silk, Kerri," she replied with a smile.
	"Bother that.  You're my friend.  I have tons of silk dresses.  You can have them if you want.  We'll let you raid my closet when we get back to Wikuna."
	"Sounds good to me," she grinned.
	Tarrin dressed quickly, as Sapphire continued to impatiently urge him on.  "I'll stop by Phandebrass' room and wake him up, and let him give me a trinket," Tarrin told them as he leaned down and gave Kimmie a long kiss goodbye.
	"Be careful out there, love," Kimmie told him.  "The Council may decide to play dirty."
	"Out where nobody can see us, I think that's the last thing the Council wants to do with me," he replied.  "They got a taste of my temper yesterday.  I don't think they want to see me when I'm really mad."
	"Love, eh?" Keritanima said slyly.  "That's the first term of endearment I've heard out of either of you.  What's going on in here when I'm not around?"
