Chance hesitated at the fringes, made cautious by experience, but he shrugged the Trickster essence around him like a cloak and proceeded.

The roof was vaulted timber with winged creatures—angels—carved into the beams that arched overhead. The floor was cold stone, dark and light, but on this occasion a labyrinth coiled thereon like a sleeping serpent. There were pillars, also of stone, which were like yet another maze, deceptively straightforward but bewildering in the quantity and sameness of arches and columns. The stone of the pillars glittered faintly; starlight from some other universe was shining through them.

There was a throne. The throne was . . .

. . . occupied.

Chance walked slowly to stand before the throne, taking it all in with a slow, sweeping glance that ended with a calm, forthright look into the eyes of his nemesis. “I see.”

He had never liked the practice of having a junior. It was common enough with the Lords of Misrule, who liked nothing better than to pinch off bits of their essence and send them, sentient and eager, to make fresh mischief with their new-bright imaginations. It was expected of the more senior of their kind, a way to diversify the tapestry of possibilities with a slight change of thread color here and there. Chance had not wanted it, and he had not done it, but it had been done to him. There he was, wearing that old, familiar shadow, robed in regal white linen—and yet . . . so different. It was not simply the fact that Chance was still clad in the Trickster’s shadow, the old man’s peasant form. It was in the other’s frown, the slight curl of his lip, the cold pride in his eyes. It was fascinating, like looking at a picture of a former time. The superior sneer faltered as the other detected Chance’s thoughts, which were filled with the quiet assurance of primacy and dominance.

“I, your junior?” he spat.

“Who came from whom?” Chance replied.

There could be no truthful rebuttal to that. He, Chance, was the core, the origin, the one who remembered what it had felt like when Patience had picked out a portion of his being, raveled it up, and sent him off without it to be born. The lesser one knew it even if he would not admit it, even if he wore the same shadow and crafted the same hall and sat on the throne that Chance had never liked. It showed in his bluster, his shallow villainy, his limited and two-dimensional view.

Chance had never thought to ask what had become of what had been taken out of him. He could not come up with a reason for his obliviousness, but he felt, perhaps selfishly, that ignorance had been preferable.

“Why?” he asked, raising his voice in anger. “Why this behavior, this unnecessary evil?”