The next morning Lara might have debated going on alone, but Aeric never gave her the chance. At dawn he was at her door with a light breakfast of fruit and bread.

"We'd better be going. Too many people know you're here as it is."

Lara smiled as she nodded and gathered her things together, but it was clear from the tightness around her eyes that she wasn't at ease.

"I'm sorry." She met his eyes before glancing down. "I didn't mean to come between you and your friends."

"You're a pretty girl. How could they not fight over you?" He tried to grin her apology away, but faltered.

"Thank you." Lara's eyes warmed as she touched his arm on the way out the door.

"Now let's leave before anything else can go wrong."

They fetched the horses and headed diagonally across the city. It was too early for the streets to be crowded, but even at dawn the vendors wew busy with their trades.

It was in the central market square that Lara broke the silence between them.

"By the grace of the goddess!"

At her hiss of surprise and sharp halt, Aeric turned in concern. Lara's wide-eyed gaze was fixed on one vendor's stall.

"What is it?"

She shot him an incredulous glance before staring rapt once more.

"A man with a monkey with silks and pearls."

"What?"

"Maester Durik had said a guard had seen this."

"Had seen what? A turnip farmer?"

She turned her head to look at him earnestly.

"No. A faerie." She barely breathed the word.

"What? Where?" He spun around, but all he saw was the turnip merchant in his plain, green wool tunic. He searched Lara's face for an explanation.

"You don't see it, do you?" Her brow wrinkled. "You don't see that shining being over there dressed in shining silk, a monkey perched on his shoulder."

"I don't see anything like that. Are you sure?"

She nodded, and looked to the turnip stall again with awe evident in her sparkling eyes.

"It must be faerie glamor," she whispered. "If so, it's the most marvelously executed I've ever heard of. Only one person in this entire city has noticed anything extraordinary, and he's dismissed as a drunk."

"You're saying this is a spell? That man isn't human?"

"Yes. It's illusion."

She took his hand in hers.

"I wish I could help you see it."

Aeric examined her face diligently, but found no evidence of duplicity or hysterics. He was forced to admit that she truly thought she saw a faerie.

When Lara saw that acceptance flash through his eyes, she dropped his hand, relieved. A gasp drew her attention back to him."

"I..." he looked from Lara to the merchant and back again. "I...thought for a second I saw something."

The hand Lara had dropped hung by the hilt of his sword, just barely out of contact with it.

Her jaw dropping, Lara spoke quickly.

"The sword! Maerys Bethen's sword! She said it had something to do with breaking magic. Maybe when your hand brushed it, whatever magic the sword holds allowed you to see through the glamor."

Doubt and distrust urging him to cast such a thing aside, Aeric fought to stay calm. If what Lara said was true, best to find out now for certain.

He gingerly raised his hand, fingertips a hair's breadth away from the gleaming steel. He didn't like the idea that something bespelled was so close to him.

"But I held it before, and nothing happened to me..." he muttered.

Closing his eyes, Aeric took a deep breath. He grasped the hilt and opened them again.

"I see it," he said in a hollow tone. He let the sword go and rubbed his hand on his shirt. "And the sword...it tingled."