to go after the hound and the parchments spilling everywhere around the table. Leesil reached out first, setting his bowl aside.

"Get down. Stop that."

Chap turned his head and snarled at Leesil, partially baring his teeth. His growl faded to a low, continuous rumble. Instead of dropping down, he shoved his muzzle into another stack, knocking half of it across the table. Wynn made a quick grab for the teapot before it toppled.

"Chap, please!" she said in frustration.

Just once the hound glanced at Wynn with an extra rumble.

"All right, that's enough," Magiere snapped.

Wynn sat back in fright, but watched as Chap continued digging through the parchments. "Wait," she whispered. She hesitated a moment longer, and then she whispered again, this time to the hound. "a'Creohk, mathajme."

Chap froze, almost appearing startled, and looked up at her.

Magiere stepped closer. "What did you say to him?"

Everyone's attention was now fixed on Chap, ignoring even the disarray he'd created. The hound lowered his head as if aware he was the center of attention. Muzzle on the table, he glared at the young sage with a low grumble in his throat.

Wynn's breaths were quick and shallow as she stared back at the dog. "a'Creohk, mathajme," she repeated.

Chap dropped down, rumbling still in his throat, and belly-crawled under a nearby table.

As suddenly as Chap had attacked the parchments on the desk, Wynn bolted across the room and began rummaging though the contents of other tables. She didn't seem to find what she was after and turned instead to the room's rear shelves.

"What are you doing?" Leesil insisted. "Just what is going on here?"

"He understood me." Wynn gasped. Shoving books roughly aside, she dumped small boxes out on the table and sifted quickly through their contents.

"So he understands Elvish," Leesil said in confusion. "My mother gave him to me and likely got him from her own people. He's heard it before."

"No," Wynn said. "I requested that he halt what he was doing."

"So you told him to stop," Magiere added. "He's smart enough to know that, though I don't know why he listens to you now instead of us." But she still stepped to the side, trying to see where Chap had gone.

"No!" Wynn shouted this time, and both Magiere and Leesil were taken back by her tone.

Wynn tried to compose herself and panted as if out of breath.

"It was not an order," she continued more calmly, "and he could not have… should not have known, even if raised hearing your mother speak some of the language."

"Make sense," Magiere snapped at her.

Wynn took several more deep breaths. "I requested—not ordered—that he end what he was doing… formally." She paused, then held up a hand before anyone could interrupt. "I formed it in the Elvish that I speak. Any one root word in Elvish can be transformed into an action, thing, or rather verb, noun, and so on. The little Elvish I've heard or read since arriving in Bela is not formed the same way as from my region, though I'm not certain why."

Magiere was utterly confused now and only barely followed what the young sage was saying. Wynn gasped in exasperation.

"I formed the request in the Elvish I know, not what Chap would have heard. And even so, a dog would not have understood without interpreting the differences of dialect, let alone the formality of phrasing."

Finished, she waited for the words to sink in.

An unsettling chill crept over Magiere as she began to comprehend the explanation, though it didn't quite explain much. Leesil crouched down to peer through the legs of the room's furniture.

"Chap?" he said, half-voiced.

Magiere crouched down as well.

The dog hunkered in the shadows beneath the table in the farthest rear corner of the room. His glittering eyes sparked, shifting between her and Leesil. He looked in Wynn's direction with a slight show of teeth, as if she were a threat he wouldn't even come out to face.

Wynn returned to her frantic search and then suddenly stopped, snatching up an item from a box of quills, styluses, and charcoals. She scurried to the middle of the room between the dog's hiding place and Leesil and dropped to the floor.

"Please stay behind me," she instructed. "I think he knows what we are saying… and is very upset."

Chap twisted about beneath the table, eyes fixed on the young sage. He snarled at her with exposed teeth.

"Chap, stop it," Leesil ordered, but the dog barely glanced at him.

"That is ridiculous," Magiere muttered, but readied to jerk Wynn back if Chap