The rest of the journey was a tense, five-minute disaster. I tripped over a perfectly visible tree root. I yelped when an owl hooted. I was performing the role of the Useless Sidekick so perfectly that by the time we reached the clearing, Stefan looked like he was about to burst a blood vessel.
"The ruin is west, you idiot, not north!" he hissed, finally shoving past me to take the lead.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I was just..!" I whimpered, dutifully falling in line behind him. He was fuming, but at least his sense of superiority was temporarily restored. He was the genius, and I was the load.
We finally burst into the central clearing. The mock-ruin was a pile of intentionally crumbling stones, with a small, glowing blue crystal—the "Griffin's Tear"—sitting on a pedestal at the top.
And sitting on a pillar right next to it, casually polishing a pair of enchanted glasses, was Lucien de Montaigne.
