He gnashed his teeth. If only he knew his present location, he could at least guess as to the source. As it was, he could have heard anything from a fragment of a tavern tale to a piece of a plot by someone already aware of his return. The possibility of the latter occupied his mind for a long while.

He increased his pace and did not rest at the time he had planned. He decided that this hastened his good fortune, when he discovered a rainpool. He found it free of surveillance, approached it and drank his fill.

He could not quite make out his reflection in the dark waters, so he strained his eyes until his features became faintly discernible: dark face, thin, faint lights for eyes, silhouette of a man with stars at his back.

"Ah, Jack! You've become a shadow your self!" he muttered. "Wasting away in a cruel land. All because you promised the Colonel Who Never Died that cursed bauble! Never thought it would come to this, did you? Was the attempt worth the price of failure?" Then he laughed, for the first time since his resurrection. "Are you laughing, too, shadow of a shadow?" he finally asked his reflection. "Probably," he decided. "But you are being polite about it because you are my reflection, and you know I'll go after the bloody jewel again, as soon as I know where it lies. She's worth it."

For a moment he forgot his hatred and smiled, the flames that burned at the back of his mind died down and were replaced by the image of the girl.

She had a pale face, with eyes the green of the edges of old mirrors. Her short upper lip touched the lower moistly in a faint pout. Her chin fit within the circle of his thumb and forefinger, and copper, catenary bangs flowed over matching brows like the wings of a hovering bird. Evene was her name and she stood up to his shoulder in height. She wore green velvet to a narrow waist. Her neck was like the bark-stripped base of a lovely tree. Her fingers moved like dancers on the strings of the palmyrin. This was Evene of the Fortress Holding.