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of tall pines, cracked gray rock faces, and a rushing mountain stream.
    “It’s filled with rocks,” Zealand said, staring down at the bottom of the wide, swiftly flowing stream.
    “It’s white, speckled with red, egg-shaped, almost as big as your fist,” Hannah said.
    Zealand saw the stone, half-buried among water-smoothed rocks. He pulled off his glove, pushed up his sleeve, and plunged his hand into the water. It was deeper than it seemed, and he had to submerge his arm past the elbow before he could reach the stone. He grasped it and pulled it out of the water. Zealand’s whole arm was numbed by cold, and he thought briefly how nice it would be to feel that way all over, inside and out, just cold and aching nothingness, the way he felt on a job, but forever. He couldn’t even feel the texture of the stone in his hand, just the weight, which was greater than he would have expected.
    He held Archibald Grace’s life in his hand.
    Dropping the stone into his coat pocket, he walked to where Hannah lay in the snow. “Thank you,” he said. “Would you like me to kill you now? I can be quick.”
    “No!” Hannah shouted, her eyes wide.
    “Your wounds are grievous,” Zealand said.
    “I’ll heal.”
    Zealand looked down at her for a moment, then nodded. He thought she probably would. She was Grace’s daughter. He squatted on his heels in the snow. “Tell me, before I decide what to do with you, how did you find Grace’s life?”
    “It was in his tower, at Cincaguas. I used to play there, as a child—there’s a room that opens onto the ocean, onto the caves where I was born, so I could travel freely between them. I went to the tower last year, and Father hadn’t changed the pass phrase, so the guards let me through. I thought I could make my father talk to me if I had his life, that I could use the stone as leverage. But I couldn’t even find him. Then I heard you were working for Father, that you’d been seen around his old haunts, searching for his life. I didn’t know he’d hired you to kill him, so I contacted you.”
    “I suppose you regret that now.”
    “I only regret not being able to talk to my father. I’d gladly give up a leg for that chance.”
    “Life is disappointment,” Zealand said, and he’d never meant any three words so completely. He pondered the possibility of mercy. “I can throw you into the stream,” he said, “or I can leave you for the coyotes.”
    “Stream,” she said, without hesitation.
    “And if I let you live today, will you come for me later, and try to kill me?”
    “Never.”
    “Liar,” Zealand said, almost appreciatively. He picked her up by her one good leg and the straps that bound her wrists, swung her a few times, and tossed her into the stream. He stood in the snow long enough to watch her wriggle away, eel-like, and disappear over the falls, flowing back down toward the lake.
    ***
    Zealand kissed Grace just behind his left ear, and Grace moaned and moved his body back against him.
    “I found your life yesterday,” Zealand said. “Not forty miles from here.”
    Grace went stiff in Zealand’s arms. They lay together in a wide, soft bed, mountain morning light filling the window and the room. “And now you want to use it to control me,” Grace said, his voice heavy with disappointment, but not surprise.
    Zealand put his hand on Grace’s slim, bare thigh. “No,” he said. “I just wanted to spend one more night with you, before smashing your soul apart.”
    Grace relaxed. “Good. That’s good. I’ve lived for eons. Another day doesn’t matter much.”
    Zealand shifted uncomfortably at this echo of Hannah’s words. He shouldn’t have treated her with such brutality. He was tired of doing things he regretted, tired of feeling ashamed, tired of bad dreams. How nice it would be to become immortal, and let his regrets drain away, or freeze over.
    Apropos of nothing obvious, Grace said, “It’s easier to be a sorcerer when you don’t have a