Niall roused himself from his reverie. He was long out of Munich, through Ingolstadt and Regensburg, and now had come to the owl-blessed forests outside Schwandorf. The conifers stood like sentinels, the forest not carpeted with the riot of vegetation he so loved in his homeland. With midnight near, Niall had completed the shrouding of himself, all the illusions and barriers and concealments, and he knew Mathanas had been weaving his own powers into patterns, changing the aura around them. The elf wasn’t tired, even though he’d been awake for many hours. Energies beyond anything he’d ever dreamed were at his command. It felt like they could keep him awake and alert forever. He also knew the dangers of that seduction.