“Hate you? Don’t be silly. I could never do that.”

“Everyone else in this gallery seems irritated with me.

“It’s only a dream, Merlin. You’re real, I’m real, and I don’t know about the others.”

“I’m sorry my mother put you under that spell to protect me — all those years ago. Are you really free of it now? If you’re not, perhaps I can —”

“I’m free of it.”

“I’m sorry you had so much trouble fulfilling its terms — not knowing whether it was Luke or me you were supposed to be guarding. Who’d have known there’d be two Amberites in the same neighborhood in Berkeley?”

“I’m not sorry.”

“What do you mean?”

“I came for directions. I want to know how I can find Luke.”

“Why, in Kashfa. He was just crowned king the other day. What do you need him for?”

“Hadn’t you guessed?”

“No.”

“I’m in love with him. Always was. Now that I’m free of the geas and have a body of my own, I want him to know that I was Gail — and how I feel. Thanks, Merlin. Good-bye.”

“Wait!”

“Yes?”

“I never said thanks for your protecting me all those years — even if it was only a compulsion for you, even if it got to be a big bother for me. Thanks, and good luck.”

She smiled and faded away. I reached out and touched the mirror.

“Luck,” I thought I heard her say.

Strange. It was a dream. Still — I couldn’t awaken, and it felt real.

“You made it back to the Courts in time for all the scheming, I see” — this from a mirror three paces ahead, black-bound and narrow.

I moved to it. My brother Jurt glared out at me.

“What do you want?” I asked.

His face was an angry parody of my own.

“I want you never to have been,” he said. “Failing that, I’d like to see you dead.”

“What’s your third choice?” I asked.

“Your confinement to a private hell, I guess.”