The watchtower was usually unmanned. Hill's Water Mythal extended even farther over the sea, defending it from surface to seabed, and Water Elemental Spirits roamed freely beneath the waves. No one needed to stand guard in the tower.
The Elven Fleet had entered so easily only because Hill had authorized it in advance. Otherwise, all they would have seen was an impenetrable wall of white mist and Water Elemental Spirits launching a fierce attack.
Authorized ships, on the other hand, were guided in by diligent little Water Elementals. No harbor official needed to tell them where to dock.
Liszt could handle the merchant ships that normally came in. The Elven Fleet posed too great a risk, so Hill had to deal with it himself. At times like this, Water Mist obeyed only Hill's will; even his Tower Spirit could do nothing with it.
Were Lynn's cousins trying to hide from their grandmother while making a show of having come to welcome her? Were they hoping to look too busy to get away from work and forced to watch from afar?
Hill thought it over. Lynn was usually too tactful to say the wrong thing in front of his grandmother—unless he had wanted his cousins to get a beating.
That was possible.
Lynn had wanted to beat them up for ages. He had never been compensated for the fright he had suffered when Myth Drannor might have fallen into danger, yet seeing how miserable his foolish, painfully straightforward cousins were had forced him to give up on making trouble for them.
Hill thought Lynn still held a grudge, though. Every so often, he would remember it and mutter a few words.
Perhaps he had said a few nice things in his letters to keep the elders from worrying. But now Lynn's