"I can't say we have the entire staff," Kryschenn admitted. "Just the orb part of it. But I'm keeping it safe." She glanced hurriedly at Cassandra's necklace, glad the Mystic seemed to be keeping up the pretense. If Venger came for it, hopefully he would never realize Cassandra had the real object and instead would come after the counterfeit that Kryschenn held and WAIT A MINUTE IS THIS SUPPOSED TO BE A GOOD THING?!?!Yes, you idiot, a part of her mind told her, and for some reason it did not occur to her that her mind was speaking to her in Gallic. Let him come after you. Keep the orb safe any way you can... besides, you have a better shot at defending youself than you realize.
"A week, huh," she asked aloud, hoping that wasn't all the time she had left to live. "Why is he giving us that long? He must not give us any credit. We could probably find the other staffs by then. And if we can use one staff to find the others, how much you want to bet that we can use this part of the Yarfell staff to find the other pieces?"
Noticing the angle of light in the window, she guessed, "It must be getting on dinner time. We'd better make ourselves presentable for the princess and see if there's anything we can find out from her. After we check on Cole and Terri." She realized Zak might need a little filling in on the events since they reached the castle. "Last I saw, Cole was using his mental powers, the mind gem, and Iris to try to reach Terri. Maybe he got her to wake up. Come on, let's go see."
