“Uriel can stop me if it’s not permitted,” Chance said harshly, and he realized as he spoke that he truly meant it. Taking the time to ponder the ethics of each move was exhausting him, and it was a respite to be able to place at least one responsibility on the shoulders of a superior.

He set a hand on the old woman’s chair and pulled her out of the room and into his own world. Miranda, who was still sitting in the center of the labyrinth going over some files from her briefcase, jumped back nervously and scattered pages as the chair legs scraped along an edge of the spiraling, brick-faced path, then dug into soft grass and stopped.

“Ahhhh!” the old woman gasped, fully awake at last. “I can see you.”

“Not as well as I would like. Not as well as you should. Not nearly well enough,” Chance said grimly. He gripped her thin wrist, uncaring and ungentle in his desire that she should know the reality of him.

She reared back as if trying to escape, the bleared eyes wide with recognition and fear. “After all these years, you appear! They said the amulet would give me protection and help, but because of it my boy is dead!”

“You should have kept a better lock on your possessions.” Perhaps he was doing this too soon after walking that memory, for the old bitterness and hatred seethed with fresh familiarity. “Don’t blame me for the boy’s death. Tell me about the amulet.”

“Which one?”

Chance let her go. He dropped down to sit cross-legged before her, rested his hands calmly on the cool grass, and repeated in a slow, measured tone, “Which one?”

“There was the one that was given to me in payment. Then there was the one that was made some time after—but not by me!” she added with fear and haste.

“What do you know about the making of amulets?” asked the Trickster, coming to stand next to Chance.

“N-nothing, I swear!”

The Trickster’s eyes flashed wide with fury. “Don’t think you can lie to a trickster. You were given the first one, and instead of setting it aside until the day of need, you let curiosity eat at you. Didn’t you?”

She began to cry. “If you knew all this, why didn’t you stop me when I was young? Why did you wait to torture me now I am old? Why did you let my boy die?”

“We don’t ‘stop’ anything, and we don’t ‘let’ anything,” said Chance dispassionately. “But you already know that.”

They waited in silence. They had time. She eventually stopped crying. Miranda watched from a distance, her expression appalled and helpless all at once.

“Tell us where your curiosity led. Tell us what you learned about us,” the Trickster said, calmer now, but as cold as Chance.