“I’m sorry she wasn’t there,” he said. He suspected he knew what was bothering his friend.
Barlo looked up at him with a startled look. “Huh?”
“Paige,” Iarion said. “I know you were hoping she would be at Lomolud.”
In fact, the dwarves had said Paige had been in the city recently, but she had left a few weeks ago, heading north on some unknown quest of her own. Iarion cursed himself for not having realized sooner that Barlo might not take the news well.
Barlo shrugged. “She needs to do her own thing, I suppose. I would have liked to see her though. It’s been a while since she visited Melaquenya.”
“And you probably wouldn’t have minded if she had decided to come with us, would you?”
Barlo uttered a gusty sigh. “That thought had crossed my mind. It would have been like old times. The F
