“Now there's a comforting thought.” I set the mirror down and turned to the task of making breakfast. “Your color has changed,” I observed a moment later as I broke eggs into a bowl. “But you yourself don't look a day older than the last time I saw you.”

The Fool was filling the teapot with steaming water. “It's the way of my kind,” he said quietly. “Our lives are longer, so we progress through them more slowly. I've changed, Fitz, even if all you see is the color of my flesh. When last you saw me, I was just approaching adulthood. All sorts of new feelings and ideas were blossoming in me, so many that I scarce could keep my mind on the tasks at hand. When I recall how I behaved, well, even I am scandalized. Now, I assure you, I am far more mature. I know that there is a time and place for everything, and that what I am destined to do must take full precedent over anything I might long to do for myself.”

I poured the beaten eggs into a pan and set them at the fire's edge. I spoke slowly. “When you speak in riddles, it exasperates me. Yet when you try to speak clearly of yourself, it frightens me.”

“All the more reason why I should not speak of myself at all,” he exclaimed with false heartiness. “Now. What be our tasks for the day?”

I thought it out as I stirred the setting eggs and pushed them closer to the fire. “I don't know,” I said quietly.

He looked startled at the sudden change in my voice. “Fitz? Are you all right?”

I myself could not explain the sudden lurch in my spirits. “Suddenly, it all seems so pointless. When I knew Hap was going to be here for the winter, I always took care to provide for us both. My garden was a quarter that size when the boy first came to me, and Nighteyes and I hunted day to day for our meat. If we did not hunt well and went empty for a day or so, it did not seem of much consequence. Now, I look at all I have already set by and think, If the boy is not here, if Hap is wintering with a master while he starts to learn his trade, why, then, I already have plenty for both Nighteyes and me. Sometimes it seems that there's no point to it. And then I wonder if there's any point left to my life at all.”

A frown divided the Fool's brows. “How melancholy you sound. Or is this the elfbark I'm hearing?”

“No.” I took up the shirred eggs and brought them to the table. It was almost a relief to speak the thoughts I'd been denying. “I think it was why Starling brought Hap to me. I think she saw how aimless my life had become, and brought me someone to give shape to my days.”

The Fool set down plates with a clatter, and dished food onto them in disgusted splats. “I think you give her credit for thinking of something beyond her own needs. I suspect she picked up the boy on an impulse, and dumped him here when she wearied of him. It was just lucky for both of you that you helped each other.”

I said nothing. His vehemence in his dislike for Starling surprised me. I sat down at the table and began eating. But he had not finished.

“If Starling meant for anyone to give shape to your days, it was herself. I doubt that she ever imagined you might need anyone's companionship other than hers.”

I had an uncomfortable suspicion he was right, especially when I recalled how she had spoken of Nighteyes and Hap on her last visit.

"Well. What she thought or didn't think scarcely matters now. One way or another, I'm determined to see Hap apprenticed well. But once I do

“Once you do, you'll be free to take up your own life again. I've a feeling it will call you back to Buckkeep.”

“You've 'a feeling'?” I asked him dryly. “Is this a Fool's feeling, or a White Prophet's feeling?”

“As you never seemed to give credence to any of my prophecies, why should you care?” He smiled archly at me and began eating his eggs.

“A time or three, it did seem as if what you predicted came true. Though .your predictions were always so nebulous, it seemed to me that you could make them mean anything.”

He swallowed. “It was not my prophecies that were nebulous, but your understanding of them. When I arrived, I warned you that I had come back into your life because I must, not because I wanted to. Not that I didn't want to see you again. I mean only that if I could spare you somehow from all we must do, I would.”

“And what is it, exactly, that we must do?”

“Exactly?” he queried with a raised eyebrow.

“Exactly. And precisely,” I challenged him.

“Oh, very well, then. Exactly and precisely what we must do. We must save the world, you and I. Again.” He leaned back, tipping his chair onto its back legs. His pale brows shot toward his hairline as he widened his eyes at me.