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Mericlou followed closely behind, treading through the sweet sh above, but the sh the canopy, to where she could al, froe, to the ever-present chords of chih the canopy

Aldrec stopped in front of a massive doorway at Vinta's base: an arch that was covered with runic script He brought Mericlou closer, and then indicated a specific rune in the center of the door It reseh the center by the top half of a circle

"Touch it, and say, Rirvuo," Aldrec said, placing her hand on the symbol He smiled as she shrank back as if it would burst into flah to tentatively reach out and touch it

"Go ahead," he said encouragingly "It's perfectly safe Just be sure you pronounce it just as I said: Rirvuo"

Her hand fully on the rune, Mericlou repeated the word that Aldrec said

"Rirvuo"

The rune caht, which spread to the other runes like flowing links of chain, until the doorway burned bright with the chain of script Afterwards there was a sound of a large steel lock falling open The door then creaked ajar on ancient hinges

For some reason, Mericlou had expected the inside to be dark But like the dwarven caverns that contained Aldrec's secret garden, a hanging wooden cone in the htly illuminated the inside

The inner chamber was circular, and nearly featureless like Aldrec's silence roorew fro to the walls like e decorative chairs sat on either side, and two carpeted staircases on the chamber's far side led upwards towards opposite sides of the tree

"This is theroom," Aldrec explained as the entrance door behind theht leads to the uestrooms, and bathrooms The staircase on the left leads to all the utility areas of the house: kitchen, office, library, reading rooame room, my silence roouestrooht staircase- "and that the silence room was on that side?" She then indicated the left staircase "The rooht? If so, then how could we have passed instantaneously fro any conjoining hallway, or going back to the sitting room to take the second staircase?"