She was seated on the couch. "Come sit with me," she said, without glancing back to see who had come in. I started to take one of the chairs. "No. Here, by me." So I settled on the couch. "What is it?"

Her eyes were fixed on something far away. Her face said she was in pain. "I have decided."

"Yes?" I waited nervously, not sure what she meant, less sure I belonged there.

"The choices have narrowed down. I can surrender and become another of the Taken."

That was a Jess dire penalty than I had expected. "Or?" "Or I can fight. A battle that can't be won. Or won only in its losing."

"If you can't win, why fight?" I would not have asked that of one of the Company. With my own I would have known the answer.

Hers was not ours. "Because the outcome can be shaped. I can't win. But I can decide who does."

"Or at least make sure it isn't him?"

A slow nod.

Her bleak mood began to make sense. I have seen it on the battlefield, with men about to undertake a task likely to be fatal but which must be hazarded so others will not perish.

To cover my reaction, I slipped off the couch and added three small logs to the fire. But for our moods it would have been nice there in the crispy heat, watching the dancing flames.

We did that for a while. I sensed that I was not expected to talk.

"It begins at sunup," she said at last.

"What?"

"The final conflict. Laugh at me. Croaker. I'm going to try to kill a shadow. With no hope of surviving myself."

Laugh? Never. Admire. Respect. My enemy still, in the end unable to extinguish that last spark of light and so die in yet another way.

All this while she sat there primly, hands folded in her lap. She stared into the fire as if certain that eventually it would reveal the answer to some mystery. She began to shiver.

This woman for whom death held such devouring terror had chosen death over surrender.

What did that do for my confidence? Nothing good. Nothing good at all. I might have felt better had I seen the picture she did. But she did not talk about it.

In a very, very soft, tentative voice, she asked, "Croaker? Will you hold me?"

What? I didn't say it, but I sure as hell thought it.

I didn't say anything. Clumsily, uncertainly, I did as she asked.

She began crying on my shoulder, softly, quietly, shaking like a captive baby rabbit.

It was a long time before she said anything. I did not presume.

"No one has done this since I was a baby. My nurse…"

Another long silence.

"I've never had a friend."

Another long gap.

"I'm scared, Croaker. And alone."

"No. We'll all be with you."