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She slipped her shapely leg into the stream, then drew it forth and rubbed at her sore and still discolored foot She looked at the unsightly puncture and shook her head with obvious disgust

"Which is real and which the illusion?" Drizzt asked, skipping down the steep incline to stand beside her He noted that she wore a new piece of jewelry, a black dia the ten diamond studs in her left

"Both and neither," Dahlia answered dis forth some pus and blood from the wound

"Are you so afraid that the truth of Dahlia will be revealed?"

Dahlia looked up at him sourly, and shook her head as if his question wasn’t worth her trouble

"We owe a great debt to Meg the farmer woman and Ben the Brewer," Drizzt reain?" Dahlia snapped back "Had you returned to the farhter Or both of them would’ve lain dead at my feet"

"They would’ve taken your foot only because they thought it the only way to save your life"

"They would’ve tried to take my foot and I would’ve killed them both," Dahlia insisted

"You would’ve killed a mother in front of her children?"

"I would’ve asked the children to turn around first," Dahlia sarcastically replied

Drizzt laughed at her unrelenting sourness, but Dahlia only glared at him all the more For a moment, just a heartbeat, Drizzt almost expected her to juo," the woain

"He provided the antidote," Drizzt said

"Then he’s a fool, because he saved the life of one ill kill hio who set the traps," Drizzt reo who forced me from the rope to the floor"

"He defends the wares of Ship Kurth"

"And you would defend him?"

"Hardly Didn’t I arrive to chase hiain A dribble of blood and greenish-white pus slipped out "Killing him ound Ship Kurth, and make it clear that I’m not one to be toyed with"

"Ah, that’s it, then," Drizzt said with a grin "It’s your e outfoxed"

Dahlia narrowed her eyes threateningly

"High Captain Kurth, or yes, perhaps Beniago, understood that you would return to the jewelry shop to appropriate the piece, and so they were quite ready for you," Drizzt said "In fact, I suspect that the only reason they even took us to that particular emstones"

"I knew they’d know," Dahlia insisted "I wanted them to know"

"And you wanted theinary darts into his face, Drizzt knew, but he grinned all the ainst Dahlia for once For all of her stubbornness, she couldn’t, with true conviction, claim she’d expected the trap

"I already told you I’d sorted out the design of the trap and deduced how to defeat it," Dahlia said, biting each word off short for eo would’ve died if you hadn’t intervened"

"With poison in your foot?"

"I would’ve stripped Beniago’s corpse naked and found the elixir And had it not been for your foolish intervention, I would have had the time to tend the wound then and there, before the poison had spread up o at that

"We will return to Luskan," Dahlia announced, standing and facing to the north up the road

"To repay Ship Kurth?"

"Yes"

"What of Sylora? I thought it was she you hated above all others"

Despite her stubbornness--and she was possessed of great quantities--Dahlia couldn’t resist glancing back over her shoulder, back to the south

"I go with you now to find Sylora," Drizzt stated flatly, "as I corym I, too, would like to repay her for her actions that have so devastated Neverwinter But I won’t return to Luskan beside you, should you choose that course"