either. Max imagined they must be newcomers. Sipping from a flask, one of the women gestured at his bloodstained clothes.
“Where’d ya bury the poor bugger?” she laughed, passing the flask.
“The blood’s mine,” said Max. “I’m looking for someone.”
“I’ll bet you are!” she exclaimed, getting a chuckle from the others.
He asked them several questions, but they merely shrugged until one thought to elbow a dozing man who was using his grizzled mutt as a pillow. The man woke with a start and glared at his neighbor.
“What gives, Jim?” he demanded irritably.
“You been here longest, Sam,” said the other. “Boy’s asking after someone named Umbra.”
“Umbra who came here with Ajax and his bunch?”
“That’s right,” said Max. “Do you know where I can find her?”
“Shoot,” said the man, beckoning for the flask. “I can’t be steering chaps to a young lady’s door at such an hour. For one, I’m a gentleman. For another, that lady’d feed my nose to Pepper here.” The dog wagged its tail. “Besides, how do I know she ain’t the one who bloodied ya?”
“She’s the one who rescued me,” Max explained.
“He wants to thank her properly,” laughed Jim. “C’mon and tell the boy, Sam! You were young once, weren’t ya?”
A sigh. “So they say.”
“Please,” said Max. “It’s important.”
“Well, you didn’t hear it from me. I don’t need no trouble and least of all from her. That Umbra doesn’t live in this camp. She sets up in that gypsy caravan by the big oak just north of here.…”
Max had seen the caravan before. It sat alone on a shallow rise at the edge of the woods, shaded by the boughs of an ancient oak and rooted to the spot by many brambles that twisted and twined through its spokes. Its door faced east, its planks worn and weathered by sun and sea. No lights peeked from inside. Climbing the first step, Max reached up and knocked. When there was no answer, he walked around and stood on tiptoe for a peek through its curtained window.
“The last one to try that lost six teeth,” said a voice behind him.
With a start, Max turned and saw Umbra leaning on her spear.
“I just wanted to talk with you,” said Max, holding up his hands.
“Funny. That’s what the last one said.”
Max studied the girl’s hard, unyielding face before speaking. “Ajax says I should be dead,” he said simply. “He says that you saved me.”
“The Cheshirewulf saved you,” she said. “I just pulled my commander from the fire and drew poison from his wound.”
“There is no wound,” Max observed, touching his neck. “That’s quite a trick.”
“That’s your magic, Commander, not mine.”
Max stepped toward her slowly. “It wasn’t Grendel that drove that assassin off,” he said. “It was a shadow.”
“Poisoned people see all kinds of things,” she remarked, raising her spear to keep him at a distance.
“Fair enough,” said Max, stopping at its point. “I just have one more question.”
The girl stared at him, both cautious and curious.
“I understand why you’d retrieve my sword,” Max mused. “But I don’t get why you’d bother with the brooch. All that commotion, an assassin on the run, and yet you run back into a burning tent to find it?”
Closing her eyes, Umbra bowed her head in silent self-reproach.
“Only one person would do such a thing,” Max continued.
“And who’s that?” she muttered, her voice quiet and forlorn.
“The one who gave it to me.”
Smiling bitterly, the girl raised her head and met his gaze.
“Greetings, Scathach.”
Even as Max spoke the name, Umbra’s appearance began to change. She grew taller, her features shifting in the moonlight to reveal a young woman with pale skin, raven hair, and eyes that gleamed like gray pearls.
Brushing past him, she climbed the caravan steps. “Come in out of the wind.”
Lighting a lantern, Scathach hung it from a chain. The caravan must have belonged to a fortune-teller once, for upon the walls were faded images of towers and chariots, hermits and hierophants, matched lovers and a fool hanging upside down at the gallows. The caravan was old, but it was snug and neat with a small bed and tiny table with a single chair. Offering the chair to Max, Scathach reached for a towel and wiped the grime from her face. All the while, she stared at her shadow as though it were grimly fascinating.
“You’re a long way from the Sidh,” said Max.
She nodded, absently handing him the towel and sitting on the edge of the bed as though wrestling with a host of conflicting emotions. At length, she simply shook her head and stared at the worn red rug.
“I came here for you,” she said, smiling sadly. “Lugh first sent me after your father was murdered. When you sailed to Blys, I followed. It took me a year to catch up. When I finally found you in Prusias’s Arena, you were cloaked in a metal skin and a demon’s mask, but it made no difference. Bragha Run fought just like my Max; he had the same style and genius. I’d have known it was you just by listening.”
“I remember,” Max breathed, recalling his bloody contest with Myrmidon. “I was nearly finished when I saw you in the stands. You inspired me to get up. And I remember the woman in a black veil at my father’s funeral. She slipped away before I ever saw her face. Why didn’t you just come to me directly?”
“I was forbidden to speak to you,” she replied. “But I could not help myself at the funeral. You were so broken, Max. I had to touch you, embrace you, and remind you who you are. Lugh was angry. He was angrier still that I let you see me in the Arena.”
“Why?”
“You are the son of Lugh the Long-Handed,” she answered, gazing at him. “You are a prince of the Sidh. But I am not a princess. I was born a mortal, and it is only by the High King’s grace that my spirit was ferried to his lands and I was blessed with the life eternal. My lord believes I disobeyed him because my interest in you is personal. He would never approve of such a match. As punishment, he banished me from Rodruban for one year. But even as I went into exile, I heard disturbing rumors, whispers that the Atropos had risen anew and that your name had been written in the Grey Book. I returned to Rodruban and petitioned the High King to let me protect and watch over you as best I could. He agreed, but insisted on one condition.”
“What is it?” asked Max.
Scathach stood from the bed and walked toward her shadow, gazing at it as though it were a stranger trapped within the painted planks.
“The condition was simple,” she said, her fingertips touching the shadow’s. “If you ever discovered my identity and addressed me by name, I would forsake eternal life. This has happened and I am mortal once again.”
“But that’s ridiculous!” said Max, standing up. “You didn’t mean to reveal your identity. You didn’t do anything wrong!”
She gave a rueful smile. “It does not matter. The rules are the rules, and this shadow says I have broken them.”
“I don’t understand.”
“My name means ‘shadow’ in my native tongue,” Scathach explained. “When I was reborn, the High King declared that I had left the mortal world behind and must therefore relinquish a part of my mortal identity. My name puzzled him; he thought it was strange—even unlucky—for one person to possess two shadows. Thus he offered me this choice: I could keep my name or my shadow, but not both. I chose to keep my name, and from that moment I cast no shadow … until now.”
She turned and examined Max’s stunned and downcast face.
“Do not grieve for me,” she said sternly. “I knew the risks and accepted them.”
“But it’s just a brooch,” said Max, aghast. He pulled it from his pocket, tempted to break the thing in two.
Scathach smiled. “Do you really believe I’d delay pursuing that assassin just to recover some bauble? The High King himself made that brooch for you, and it is very special.” Coming over to him, Scathach took the ivory ornament and held it on her palm as though it were an exquisite, even living thing. With a finger, she traced its
