A part of Cayal was certain that he ought to be speaking now. He understood that answers followed questions in the normal order of things and that the ghost of a woman he had loved, dead for many millions of years, had just asked him a question and was therefore, in all likelihood awaiting an answer. His answer. He still had the wherewithal to maintain his hold on the Tide and the lockdown on the minds and bodies of the Cape Canaveral's crew, but he was quite unable to form any words, let alone phrase a response to the phantom of Arkady Desean.

It was definitely her though, the body at least. She was still breathtaking, even in the shapeless, pale blue overalls she wore. He knew that his memory of her face, her figure and her voice had faded somewhat over the eons since he and the other Immortals arrived on prehistoric Earth, but seeing such a life-like mirage of her standing in front of him brought back memories and emotions so long lost he'd forgotten ever having had them.

He was in a cell on Recidivist's Row and she was sat outside it questioning him. They were inside Maralyce's cabin in the mountains of Glaeba, their limbs tangled, her dark hair on his chest. He was in the desert, striding through a sandstorm and pulling her unconscious body from Torlenia's sands. They sat at the table in Ambria's simple hut in the Senestran swamps. He was in Caelum, in some ruins where Arkady was protecting a family of Crasii scards. He stood in the Ice Chamber beneath Lukys's Palace of Impossible Dreams in Jelidia, her supine body laid out on a frosty bier. And now he stood dumbfounded, struck so by the sudden return of old feelings and memories, struck by her beauty, flawless now in her immortality, but most significant of all, he could not remember the question.

"Tides!" he managed.

"You already said that Cayal." said the phantom. Tides, even the mannerisms were the same. Her blue eyes suggested she was still expectant, but for what, he had no idea.

"Arkady." he managed when he felt time begin to return to normal.

"Cayal." she crossed her arms. "Are you going to tell me what's going on or not?"

He stared at her for a moment longer before returning to himself...and his mission. "Yes, right. I will Arkady, I will but not yet. I know you've been stuck here for a while now..." He stopped at her raised voice.

"A while? Weeks. Months maybe. I don't even know where here is Cayal. The last I remember we were in Jelidia and I was in agony, in no small part thanks to you. Where is this place? It's not cold enough for Jelidia. No one here speaks Glaeban or Caelish, everything is made of metal and I haven't seen the sky even once since I've been here."

He was back in control of his brain again, but every second was a struggle to maintain it. He wanted to stare, to walk around and view this living sculpture from all directions, full of animus and questions. But he had to establish something first and there was only one way to put his doubts to rest.

"Arkady, I will answer all of your questions soon, I promise. But first, I need to ask you one."

"No Cayal, first you help Randy here," she gestured to the still man on the floor, "then you can answer my questions and then maybe I'll answer yours."

Cayal looked down and noticed for the first time the still form of a young man, likely in his late twenties or early thirties, and American judging by his appearance... and name. The Immortal Prince was manipulating the blood flows of all the crew members aboard, slowing them to the barest trickle, just enough to keep the body alive and thus knew precisely where all were located relative to himself, but he didn't register the one lying in the room with them until that moment.

"There's nothing wrong with him, I'm doing that so he can't see or hear anything. Was he on the floor already or did you move him?"

"Is that your question Cayal? Why are you doing that to him? I can feel an...aura around him as though the air is trapped." Her concern was genuine. Cayal was reminded of the first conversation he ever had with Lukys. Then, the unassuming, white-haired Tide Lord had stopped a waterfall with a wave of his hand. Cayal sensed what he'd done and was told that being able to do so was compelling evidence that he may himself be a Tide Lord, not just Immortal. He wondered now about the implication that Arkady was too. But first, he needed to establish that it was her.

"I'm holding him and the rest of the crew frozen so that I can get you out of here without them seeing it. They'll regain consciousness as though no time at all had passed the moment I release them. Now can I please ask my question?"

The phantom eventually gave in. "If you must."

He took a deep breath to steady himself. "Do you remember when we were in Maralyce's cabin, that night after we..." He was cut off abruptly.

"Is now really the time to talk about that Cayal?"

"Tides woman, let me finish, this is important." He waited for her nod to continue, it was a long moment in coming.

"When we were in bed, I asked you tell me something you had never told anyone else. You spoke about a time when you accompanied your father to Lebec Palace and wandered into a music room."

"I remember. That wasn't a question Cayal."

"My question is, what was it you saw in there that caught your attention?" Finally he'd asked it, the only question he had been able to think of to which none in all of existence but he and Arkady could know the answer.

"You're not sure I'm me." Evidently she understood that too. Tides, but she was sharp. "You're afraid that I'm Elyssa since you promised her my body in exchange for helping you die." She said nothing that wasn't true.

"Yes to both." He struggled to keep his voice dispassionate when all he wanted to do was beg her forgiveness and weep for her return to the living. "Please Arkady, I need to hear you say it."

She paused a long moment, watching him, searching for something. He couldn't tell if she was remembering or deciding whether or not he was worthy of an answer. He wished he could, wished he could decode what was going through her mind just then. Was she feeling anger? Betrayal? Relief at his arrival...well, it was a possibility, even if a remote one. She gave nothing away however, for a moment he knew could not have been long but to him felt tortuously so. But she did answer.

"I was mesmerised by a dulcimer, the grandest I'd ever seen, enameled in..." She didn't get to finish her sentence since Cayal had crossed the gap separating them in an instant, sweeping her into an all-encompassing embrace. Her answer was the dam breaking on his stresses and uncertainties about what he'd find when he arrived here. It was her! Tides, it was Arkady. He had encircled her body in one arm, and clutched her head to his shoulder with the other, his fingers entwined in her dark, silken hair.

"Cayal, Tides what are you doing?" she struggled until she heard his words fall softly on her ear.

"It's you, it's really you. I thought I'd never you see you again." He sniffed, tears falling in earnest. She relented at his obvious emotion, sinking into the tight embrace and for a moment, allowing herself to return it. He could feel her presence on the Tide too, though it was faint, placid, unlike what he was sure she must be feeling. He had Arkady Desean in his arms and she was alive. Not only alive but like him...an Immortal. He couldn't have said how long they remained that way; he, as though afraid that she might disappear for countless millennia more if he let her go and she, grateful to see someone she recognised and as far as she knew, the only person actively searching for her. Remembering their tight deadline and the message he owed The Rodent he slowly, reluctantly let her go, holding her at arms length to to look at her uncertain face for a moment longer before stepping back and wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

"Arkady, Tides where to begin. Okay look, right now we are on a very tight deadline. I need you to trust me on this. The Rodent and I worked hard to come get you and..."

"Declan? Declan is here too?" She glanced to the door, her face alarmed.

"No no, I'm the only one who came but he's just as much a part of this as I am. I'll explain everything once we're away from here but for now I have some other things I need to do here and you can help me."

"Cayal, grateful though I am for your help I'm not in the mood for any of your games and honestly, every Immortal I've ever met has only brought me more trouble. I'd prefer not to be a part of any more of your schemes since it hasn't worked out well for me in the past. Would you...would you please just let me leave?" Her posture was defiant, but her eyes were pleading. She was so vulnerable right now and he sympathised with her, for her, his guilt at his involvement in her predicaments over the years she'd known him hadn't engendered an abiding trust between them. Lust certainly, fondness also, love perhaps, but not real trust. But now wasn't the time for her doubts and he still had one last betrayal for her if he was going to get her back to Earth.

"Once we've arrived to our destination Arkady, I promise you'll be free. If you never want to see me again after that, then I will respect that, difficult as it would be. But for now, I need you to trust me and help me. We don't have much time and I'm sorry I can't explain any more right now. I promise you this time the Rodent and I are both trying to do right by you. No other motives."

She considered what he said for a moment and threw her hands in the air, resigned to another scheme of the Immortals that had brought her nothing but trouble. "Okay Cayal, fine. But I need you to be honest with me from now on. I couldn't face going through another experience like Jelidia again. It would probably kill me."

He smiled a sad smile for her. No Arkady, nothing can kill you now that you're immortal. You'll live forever.