But where did she stand?

She was aware after a while that there were eyes watching her, and she glanced around cautiously. The shabby, sad-eyed Native Americans whom Two Bears had dismissed from their bench were staring at her from a short distance away. They huddled together on the grass, sitting cross-legged, their coats pulled over their shoulders, their heads hunched close, their dark eyes haunted. She wondered what they were thinking. Maybe they were wondering about her. Maybe about Two Bears. Maybe they just wanted their bench back.

I’m afraid, she had said five years ago to Two Bears. And he had replied, Fear is a fire to temper courage and resolve. Use it so.

She was afraid again, and she wondered if she could use her fear now as he had taught her to use it then.

Speak my name once more, he had asked her, and she had done so. O’olish Amaneh. Yes, he had said. Say it often when I am gone, so that I will not be forgotten.

Speak my name, he asked her again, just moments ago. As if by saying it, she could keep him alive.

The last of his kind, the last of the Sinnissippi, appearing and disappearing like a ghost. But his connection to her, while she didn’t pretend to understand it completely, was as settled as concrete. They were linked in a way that transcended time and distance, and she felt her kinship to him so strongly it seemed as if they had been joined always. She wondered at its meaning. She knew now he was a servant of the Word, just like John Ross. So he shared with her a knowledge of the war with the Void, and they were possessed of magic, and they knew of demons and feeders, and they walked a line between two worlds that others didn’t even know existed.

But there was more. In some strange way, she knew, they needed each other. It was hard to explain, but it was there. She took strength from him, but he took something from her, as well. Something. Her brow furrowed. Something.

She rose and walked to the railing, abandoning the bench. She stared out over the bay to the mountains, their jagged peaks cutting across the horizon. What was it he took from her? A hope? A comfort? A companionship? Something. It was there, a shape, a form at the back of her mind, but she could not quite put a name to it.

The afternoon was lengthening. Already the sun was sliding rapidly toward the horizon, its light tinting the clouds that masked it in myriad colors of purple and rose. It would be dark soon. She glanced at her watch. Four-fifteen. She wondered what she should do. She had already decided to meet John Ross for dinner, to tell him of her conversation with O’olish Amaneh, to try again to persuade him of the danger he was in. But it was too early yet to go back to the hotel and call him.