When he arrived in the village, he was not surprised to find that the first angel had reappeared to meet him once again at the well.

“Well?” he demanded. He was not exactly angry, but he felt a greater energy and a stronger emotion that he could not identify.

The angel ignored his belligerence and greeted him with courtesy. “Hail to thee, begotten son of Earth. I see you are more awake than previously.”

Chance inclined his head, acknowledging both the salutation and the observation. “Are you satisfied? Have events unfolded as you anticipated?”

Cryptic as ever, the angel gave him truth rather than explanations. “So be it,” they confirmed. “So it was, so it is, so it will be.”

They vanished. Chance mused that it was the closest thing to a proper farewell that he had ever heard from any angel.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“I’m here too,” said a quiet, amused voice.

It was the Trickster. In the darkness his typically sardonic look appeared softer, closer to something like pride. Chance gave him a small smile. Raising his hands, he cupped them into a bowl and prepared to collect the Trickster essence that had served him so well in his task. “Let me—”

The Trickster shook his head. “No. Keep it. I don’t miss it now.”

Chance looked at him and realized argument would be useless. “Very well, but you can at least accept this.”

He did what he had never done willingly before and pulled a thread of himself from the core of his being. He did not have the spider’s skill to spin it as neatly as the Trickster could, but he remembered the blaze of a fire-star and the power of a lightning strike, and he wove his brother a banner of blue light and pale fire.

“Take it,” he said, extending it to the Trickster. “If a trace of you is to remain with me, then take this trace of me into yourself. Now, if you wish, you can move freely among the undying without depending on your humanity as mask and shield. No undying one other than Patience will ever be able to recognize you as what you once were.”

The Trickster captured the stream as it flowed out of Chance and tangled his hands in it, not so much holding it as allowing it to hold him. He glanced up once, the glitter in his eyes more liquid than usual, and returned to staring at the gift.

Now we are brothers in truth, Chance meant to say, but he too stayed silent and merely watched as the Trickster breathed in deeply, absorbing the colors. When he moved, the starlight glanced off his skin with a new muted iridescence, blue over black.

At last he spoke with warm affection in his tone. “Go home, Chance.”

—