I choked on something which otherwise tasted wonderful.

A frosty crystal goblet of water appeared beside my right hand. I raised it and washed everything down. I took another sip.

“Ah, that reaction is worth something, anyhow,” Jasra remarked. “You must admit that having someone you once loved as executioner adds spice to vengeance.”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw that Mandor was nodding. And I, also, had to agree that she was right.

“I must acknowledge it as a well-conceived bit of revenge,” I said. “Was Rinaldo in on this part?”

“No, you two had grown too chummy by then. I was afraid he'd warn you.”

I thought about it for another minute or so, then, “What went wrong?” I asked.

“The one thing I'd never have guessed,” she said. “Julia really had talent. A few lessons from Victor, and she was better than he was at anything he could do-except painting. Hell! Maybe she paints, too. I don't know. I'd dealt myself a wild card, and it played itself.”

I shuddered. I thought of my conversation with the ty'iga at Arbor Horse, back when it was possessing Vinta Bayle. “Did Julia develop the abilities she sought?” it had asked me. I'd told it that I didn't know. I'd said that she'd never shown any signs... And shortly thereafter I'd remembered our meeting in the supermarket parking lot and the dog she told to sit that may never have moved again... I'd recalled this, but—

“And you never noticed any indication of her talent?” Jasra ventured.

“I wouldn't say that,” I replied as I began to realize why things were as they were. “No, I wouldn't say that.”

... Like that time at Baskin-Robbins when she caused a change of flavors 'twixt cone and lip. Or the storm she'd stayed dry in without an umbrella...

She frowned a puzzled frown and narrowed her eyes as she stared. “I don't understand,” she said. “If you knew, you could have trained her yourself: She was in love with you. You would have been a formidable team.”

I writhed internally She was right, and I had suspected, had probably even known, but I'd been suppressing it. I'd possibly even triggered its onset myself, with that shadow walk, with my body energies...

“It's tricky,” I said, “and very personal.”

“Oh. Matters of the heart are either very simple or totally inscrutable to me,” she said. “There doesn't seem to be a middle ground.”

“Let's stipulate simple,” I told her. “We were already breaking up when I noticed the signs, and I'd no desire to call up the power in an ex-lover who might one day want to practice on me.”

“Understandable,” Jasra said. “Very. And ironic in the extreme.”

“Indeed,” Mandor observed, and with a gesture he caused more steaming dishes to appear before us. “Before you get carried away with a narrative of intrigue and the underside of the psyche, I'd like you to try a little breast of quail drowned in Mouton Rothschild, with a bit of wild rice and a few amusing asparagus tips.”

I had driven her to her studies by showing her another layer of reality, I realized. And I had driven her away from me because I had not really trusted her enough to tell her the truth about myself. I suppose this said something about my capacity for love as well as trust. But I had felt this all along. There was something else. There was more...

“This is delicious,” Jasra announced.

“Thank you.” He rose, rounded the table, and refilled her glass manually rather than use a levitation trick. As he did, I noticed that the fingers of his left hand lightly brushed her bare shoulder. He sloshed a little into my glass as an afterthought then and went back and sat down.

“Yes, excellent,” I observed as I continued my quick introspect through the dark glass suddenly cleared.

I had felt something, had suspected something from the beginning, I knew now. Our shadow walk was only the most spectacular of a series of small, off the-cuff tests I had occasionally thrown her way, hoping to catch her off guard, hoping to expose her as – what? Well, a potential sorceress. So?

I set my utensils aside and rubbed my eyes. It was near, though I'd been hiding it from myself for a long while...

“Is something the matter, Merlin?” I heard Jasa asking.

“No. Just realized I was a little tired,” I said. “Everything's fine.”

A sorceress. Not just a potential sorceress. There had been the buried fear, I now understood, that she was behind the April 30 attempts on my life-and I had suppressed this and kept on caring for her. Why? Because I knew and did not care? Because she was my Nimue? Because I had cherished my possible destroyer and hidden evidence from myself? Because I'd not only loved unwisely but had had one big death wish following me around, grinning, and any time now I might cooperate with it to the utmost?

“I'll be okay,” I said. “It's really nothing.”

Did it mean that I was, as they say, my own worst enemy? I hoped not. I didn't really have time to go through therapy, not when my life depended on so many external things as well.

“A penny for your thoughts,” Jasra said sweetly.

II

“They're priceless,” I answered. “Like your jokes. I must applaud you. Not only did I know nothing of this at the time, but I didn't make any correct guesses when I did have a few facts to rub together. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“Yes,” she said.

“I'm pleased there came a point where things went wrong for you,” I added.

She sighed, nodded, took a drink of wine.

“Yes, it came,” she acknowledged. “I was hardly expecting any recoil from such a simple bit of business. I still find it hard to believe that there's that much irony running around loose in the world.”

“If you want me to appreciate the whole thing, you're going to have to be a little more explicit,” I suggested.

“I know. In a way, I hate trading that vaguely puzzled expression you're wearing for one of delight at my own discomfort. On the other hand, there may still be material able to distress you in some fresh fashion on the other side of it.” .

“Win a few, lose a few,” I said. “I'm willing to bet there are still features of those days that puzzle you.”

“Such as?” she asked.

“Such as why none of those April thirtieth attempts on my life succeeded.”

“I assume Rinaldo sabotaged me some way, tipped you off.

“Wrong.”

“What, then?”

“The ty'iga. She's under a compulsion to protect me. You might recall her from those days, as she resided is the body of Gail Lampron.”

“Gail? Rinaldo's girlfriend? My son was dating a demon?”

“Let's not be prejudiced. He'd done a lot worse his freshman year.”

She thought a moment, then nodded slowly.

“You've got a point there,” she admitted. “I'd forgotten Carol. And you still have no idea-beyond what the thing admitted back in Amber-as to why this was going on?”

“I still don't know,” I said.

“It casts that entire period in an even stranger light,” she mused, “especially since our paths have crossed again. I wonder..?”

“What?”

“Whether she was there to protect you or to thwart me-your bodyguard or my curse?”

“Hard to say, since the results came to the same thing.”

“But she's apparently been hanging around you most recently, which would seem to indicate the former.”

“Unless, of course, she knows something we don't.”

“Such as?”

“Such as the possibility of a conflict developing between us again.”

She smiled.

“You should have gone to law school,” she said. “You're as devious as your relatives back in Amber. I can be truthful, though, in saying I have nothing planned that could be taken that way.”

I shrugged.

“Just a thought. Please continue with Julia's story.” She proceeded to eat several mouthfuls. I kept her company, then discovered I could not stop eating. I glanced at Mandor, but he remained inscrutable. He'll never admit to magically enhancing a flavor or laying a compulsion on diners to clean their plates. Either way, we did finish the course before she spoke again. And I could hardly complain, considering.