Ghan's desk was set apart, and behind it sat the old man himself, copying or annotating a bulky volume. He wore an umber robe, and his skin gleamed a peculiar parchment yellow, so that he seemed as much a part of the room as the ancient documents that filled it. His features were sharp—jagged, almost—harsh frown lines etched permanently in his flesh. Not a pleasant man, Ghe remembered. He had dreamed, on first meeting him, of slipping a knife into his heart. Later he had come to think of the scholar as brave—but he had never learned to like him.

Though Ghe was the only other visible person in the room, Ghan never raised his eyes to acknowledge him.

He approached Ghan timidly, as “Yen” might. The old man continued writing, obscure and beautiful characters licking from his pen onto the paper with astonishing speed. Ghe cleared his throat.

Ghan did look up then, his eyes hard pinpricks of annoyance beneath the wrapped black cloth that obscured his bald head.

“Yes?” he inquired testily.

“Ah,” said Ghe, suddenly not certain that his reluctance was entirely feigned. “Master Ghan, you might remember me. I am—”

“I know who you are,” Ghan snapped.

For a frozen instant, Ghe felt a stab of something like fear. Ghan's gaze seemed to tear away the brocaded collar and reveal his throat, his true nature. He was acutely aware of all of the things he had forgotten. Had Ghan ever known him to be a Jik?

“I'm sure you remember how to find your books on arches and sewers,” Ghan went on. “There is no need to bother me.”

Relief rushed from his feet, through his gut, up to the top of his head. Ghan was merely being himself, impatient and unhelpful. He still believed him to be Yen, the architect.

“Master Ghan,” he rushed out as the old man threatened to return to his work. “It has been some time since I have been in the library.”

“A few months,” Ghan replied. “A fraction of a year. Is your head not capable of holding information longer than that?”

Ghe shifted uncomfortably. “Yes, Master Ghan, it is. I…”

“Don't waste my time,” Ghan cautioned.

Ghe lowered his voice, willed his face into lines of distress. Inwardly he felt relief; he was now in complete control of the mask he wore, his worry evaporated into the stale air of the library. “Master Ghan,” he whispered almost inaudibly. “Master Ghan, I have come to ask you about Hezhi.”

Ghan stared at him for a moment, and something flashed behind his flat countenance, was mastered, and vanished. Ghe appreciated that; Ghan had a very well crafted mask, as well.

“Hezhinata,” Ghan corrected, adding the suffix to denote someone a ghost.

“Hezhi,” Ghe insisted softly.

Ghan trembled for an instant, and then the trembling reached his face and transfigured it, tightened it into fury.

“Darken your mouth!” he barked. “Don't speak of such things.”

Ghe persisted, though adding even more reluctance to his manner. “I believe you cared for her,” he said cautiously. “She was your student, and your pride in her was obvious. Master Ghan, I cared for her, too. We… she cared for me. Now she has gone, and everyone says she is a ghost. But I know better, do you understand? I have heard the rumors the priests whisper. I know she escaped the city, fled with her bodyguard.”

Ghan ticked his pen against the white page; Ghe noticed that the heretofore flawless document now had several irregular splotches of ink upon it. He knows! Ghe thought exuberantly. He knows where she has gone!

Ghan glanced away and then stared back up at Ghe.

“Young man, I can only caution you against repeating such things,” he said softly. “I know you cared for her. It was evident. But she is dead, do you understand? I'm sorry for you, but it is true. I myself am still in grief—I will be until the day I die. But Hezhinata is dead. She was laid in state with her ancestors in the vaults beneath the Water Temple.”

He glanced down at the ruined page and crinkled his eyes in exasperation. “If you need to use the library,” he said, “I will help you, as she would have. I will do that for her. If you do not want to use the library, then you must leave. I will call the guard if need be, and you will be embarrassed before your order. Do you understand?”

Ghan's eyes were mild now, but they were also inflexible. Ghe could think of no reply that might draw out more information.

“As you say,” he finally relented. And then, defiantly: “But I know.”

“Get out,” Ghan said, his voice as brittle and dangerous as broken glass.

Ghe nodded, bowed in respect, and left the library.

HE retraced his steps through the narrow corridors, eyes alert, brow furrowed. Ghan was more obstinate than he had imagined; winning his help would be no easy task—and he needed Ghan's help.

It had, at least, been good to speak to someone, to further prove to himself that he was indeed alive. He had been living in the palace for two days now, but furtively, observing and trying not to be seen. His only real encounter with a person up until now had been—well, less than cordial.

His first day had been spent trying to find a place to stay; that had been, actually, his easiest task. The old wing of the palace had many uninhabited sections, and beneath that were the even less frequented spaces of the earlier palace that the present one was built upon. Hezhi had spent much time in those abandoned places, and Ghe had followed her, now and then, exploring them himself at other times. Finding a place where the guards never went was far from impossible, and he had done so rather easily.

Finding clothes to replace his own ruined ones had been more difficult and more dangerous. Worse, he had discovered something unpleasant about himself. The apartment he entered for the purpose of stealing garments was that of a young man attached to minor nobility. Ghe had chosen him from a number of drunken revelers in the Red Blossom Courtyard, favored by the young for its remoteness. The fellow had the right build, no bodyguard, and was so inebriated he would likely never notice Ghe's entry into his apartment. Nor did he; and yet when Ghe saw him, unconscious on his bed, hunger suddenly replaced his desire for clothing. Feeding on a monster beneath the city was one thing; killing a man in the palace who would be missed was another. Nevertheless, almost without his own knowledge, he had torn apart the strands of life in the sleeping man and devoured them, leaving a body as cold and bereft of life as a stone. It had seemed incautious to leave the body where it lay—the Ah-w'en might have some method of determining how he died—and so now it rested beneath the palace, returning its substance to the River.

He wondered how often he would have to feed like that.

Indirect afternoon sunlight dazzled from stuccoed white walls as he stepped from the dark hall into a courtyard. He brushed past the fronds of a tree fern, savored the smell of bread baking and garlicky lamb singeing on skewers. The old woman cooking gave him a glance and then returned to her work, uninterested. Above, a second woman clucked something from her third-story window down to the cook, who merely waved indifferently up at her. He swept on through the small plaza, relieved when he gained the near darkness of the next hall, lit only obscurely by the blue patterns seeping through bricks of colored glass set in the roof.

He returned his thoughts to Ghan. He had learned at least three useful things from the old man. First, that he could still speak to other Human Beings in a normal fashion, something he had begun to doubt; not only normally, but as a Jik, concealing his true self—whatever that was now. Second, that Ghan did not, in fact, know his true identity. As far as Ghan was concerned, he was Yen, a young man infatuated with Hezhi. Finally, though denying it verbally, it was clear from various subtle signs—which he could still read—that the librarian knew that Hezhi was alive and probably knew where she could be found. That meant that he was on a productive trail, likely the only trail, since, as it turned out, he had lain in the depths of the palace for nearly five months. Hezhi must be far from Nhol, far from the River and his vision.