"They said yes," I whispered. "You were welcomed at their fire."
"They did welcome me." He looked at the heads as if in thought. "The lion was cautious, but the dwarf had already offered before the lion could stop him. Dwarfs are like that. It is one of the better things about them… and it is the reason they will be the first race to vanish from this world."
"Even after you were welcomed, and you knew they were not the ones you were looking for, you still killed them."
"Not immediately." He seemed to think this was an important distinction. "We talked for most of the night. I asked about you, and they lied to me very badly, all of them, which is how I knew the painting had the right faces." He paused. "The boy was the worst liar. He said he had never heard the name at all, and then twenty minutes later he said it in his sleep."
