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I punch the floor beside me in frustration, something I instantly regret as pain flares in my hand.

'Temper, temper.' I turn and see Caern standing over me. She's wearing her Keeper robe. Red tear tracks stain her cheeks.

'Do you know what you just cost me?' I leap to my feet, raging.

'Never mind that.' She sniffs and breaks down. Although I try to keep my anger burning she cries so long that it fades. I sit on the ghostly table and wait for her to cry herself out.

After an age she stops. 'I overheard Artemus talking about me. He said that once they have the Star Stone they will be able to use me as a source of power in complicated glyph spells, spells they think might be possible but have never been able to perform before. They said I mustn't be allowed to leave the compound as I am too valuable. I don't want to be a prisoner all my life. They told me once I had the Star Stone I would be free and could do what I wanted. I've run away. I'll find the Stone myself and the Keepers can rot in the Eight Hells.'

I have to laugh. The irony is just too much. 'You kidnapped the wrong person. Artemus was in my apartment. We were bargaining for the Stone just as you pulled me here.'

Hope lights her face. 'You have it?'

I have to disappoint her. 'No. I left it on the table. Artemus has it now. You'll have to slink back to him and hope he forgives you for running away.'

She closes her eyes, utterly defeated. 'If I do, he'll never let me go. If I stay away I'll die, and cause so much destruction in passing that many others will die too. I have no choice.'

For the briefest second I pity her. I remember only too well what it was like to have the Keepers dictate my every move. But I can't afford such feelings and I squash it.

She looks up at me. Her red face has a blue tinge to it. She frowns, looking down at herself.

'I feel strange,' she says. Her hair has a blue tint now. The air around her suddenly sparks with eldritch light. I step back toward the door. She reaches out a hand, stretching her arm an impossibly long way and digs her bitten fingernails into my shoulder.

'It's taking over!' she wails. I try to pull away but the air around me has hardened. I can't move.

The blue glow intensifies quickly. I close my eyes against the brilliant light. A wave of hot air blasts my face.

And then it's gone, dazzling radiance replaced by dull ambient glow. The air is cool, almost chill, and smelling of damp.

It is almost too strange for words. I am riding in Caern's head as she did to me, but I have no knowledge of where my own body is. And she is not the Caern I know, but a tiny girl, clutching her mother's hand as she's led through the Keeper Halls and presented to the Matron. We watch as Mother walks away, fat childish tears rolling down our cheeks.

The scene changes again and again as her life flashes before our eyes. We watch her blossom from the small girl abandoned in the hall to a confident apprentice with many friends, good at her studies and generally well liked. We sit through the first lesson in power raising and we feel the changes in her as the power swells uncontrollably. We watch her become a social pariah, treated as if she had the plague when the Keepers realise what is happening. Her friends avoid her, her teachers fear her and as we watch I feel her hatred for what she has become as if it was my own. All the while the power is growing, always taking form in new, unexpected and often dangerous ways.

As she grows we accept that she will die. She no longer fears it and often prays that the end will come as life gets steadily more unbearable. But then comes the rumour of the Star Stone. Our hopes are painfully dashed when we realise it has been taken. I see myself through her eyes, a threatening creature stealing her last chance at life. I feel her disdain of me turn to desperation, an overpowering need to have someone, anyone, help her.

After that it's my turn. She ploughs through my memories, unearthing all the times I thought buried and forgotten. I try to keep her from the most deeply buried things but she's a howling gale in my mind and I am powerless to fight her. Oh no… I don't want to live that again… I scrabble to push her away… anything but that look at anything but that… I can't fight you hard enough.

It is a winter night. We're in the heart of the City, by a canal. We remember the chill air on my skin and the steaming clouds my breath made, the way my breath collects as wet drops in the short beard I have grown to keep my face warm. I have an unconscious watchman on my shoulder. His armour digs in to my neck and I shift him carefully. I have to hide him somewhere out of sight. I hurry down some steps to water level, intending to put him on the ledge by the water's side.

Halfway down I slip. The steps are treacherously slick and green and my foot slips out from under me. I fall backward hard, crack my head on a step and crash through the thin skin of ice into the freezing water. I'm dazed and disorientated and the man slips from my shoulder as I panic. I start swimming. I can't tell which way is up. I don't know if I'm heading for the surface. When I finally emerge I'm almost out of air and I gasp in the icy air gratefully. Then I remember the watchman. I pull him out of the water, hauling his heavy body onto the side. He's already dead. With his armour to drag him down he never had a chance.

I expect her to shy away in revulsion, but she is not judgemental. She neither condemns me for the watchman's death nor tries to console me by explaining it away as an accident. I respect her for that. She knows it won't do any good now.

She observes our encounters from my point of view with amusement and a hint of humiliation she can't quite hide. I hear her chuckle, a warm sound, and I laugh too. The sound borders on hysteria.

The blue light comes again and I'm alone in my head once more. I have an empty second before blackness envelops me.

I wake slowly. The first coherent thought I have is that I'm being knocked unconscious far too often these days.

I become aware of pressure on my chest. When I recover enough to lift my aching head I look. I'm lying on the floor of my living room. Caern is sprawled there too, also out cold. Her head rests on my chest.

I struggle up on my elbows and sit forward massaging my temples. The pain is rapidly subsiding but there's a long way to go before it's bearable. As I sit straight she slumps down so that her head is in my lap. I move my leg, shake her off. Her head strikes the floor and I feel an unexpected pang of guilt.

The easiest and most sensible thing I could do would be to pick her up, carry her to a back alley a few streets away and dump her. She'd be found, robbed and killed before I even got home.

But I don't do this. I feel disgusted with myself for even thinking of it. It seems like a betrayal.

So instead I pick her up, cradling her in my arms instead of throwing her over my shoulder. I carry her into the bedroom and lay her on my bed. She doesn't stir. I check she's still breathing. She is.

I pull a chair close to the fire in the living room and sit down. I stare into the twining, dancing flames for a long time.

I hear her stir behind me. I turn around but she is still sleeping. It seems a more natural sleep now.

It isn't comfortable, sleeping in my chair, but I manage to doze fitfully. I wake in the evening as the sun's beginning to set. Caern still sleeps behind me.

Idly I take out my dagger and start carving slices from the arm of my chair. Firelight plays on the grimy blade. I've owned this dagger a long time. It was one of the first tools I bought, before I realised I am too good at what I do to need it. Since then it has stayed sheathed. Long nights spent getting wet and dirty have dulled the blade's sheen. This is probably the first time I have taken it out since I bought it. I have an oily rag somewhere. I root around in cupboards until I find it and start to polish the blade.

Once I have it shining again I put the point on my chair arm and spin the hilt between my finger and thumb. Reflected fire and sunlight makes ghostly patterns dance on the walls. As it turns I can see mirror images of the room around me. I still the dagger. The blade reflects Caern, lying on the bed.

After a few minutes she wakes. She sits up and rubs her eyes. Her head hurts too. She's moving carefully and trying not to make it worse. She sees that I'm awake and she walks over to sit on the rug in front of the fire. As she passes she rests her hand absently on my shoulder. I'm surprised at this but more surprised that I don't' flinch away.

She tucks her knees up under her chin and gazes at the fire. The light plays on her pale hair and white skin, rendering her a golden woman where before she was a wraith.

'I'm sorry,' she begins. She wants to say more but she bites it back.

'Don't be. It wasn't your fault,' I say. I know she's apologising for intruding on my mind again, and this isn't what I meant to say but I can't form the right words.

'I can't always control it,' she continues, as if I'd never said anything. 'It's like the sea. Sometimes it's battering the seawall and I cannot fight it, and sometimes it's far off, down the beach, and I feel almost normal again.' Unbidden I remember what life was like for her before. She looks up at me and smiles warmly. 'But then, you know that now.'

I nod. I'm not comfortable with the familiarity that she seems to think is acceptable now. I admit it is reassuring to know that one person knows my darkest secrets and is not afraid of me, but the novelty may soon wear off.

I go into my small kitchen and start preparing some food. My stomach is reminding me loudly that I haven't eaten for almost a day. She follows and stands in the doorway, watching me. She's making me nervous.

We eat in silence.

She takes my plate from my lap and goes into the kitchen. I follow her. She pours some warm water from the kettle over the plates. I take a rag and dry them, all unspeaking. This isn't what I would have chosen. But it is good not to have to wash the dishes.

'Artemus has the Stone,' I say to her. She looks up from the sink. She was far away, thinking about something else. 'You could go back to him and use it. At least you would be alive.'

She shakes her head. 'I won't be his prisoner. As long as the Keepers have the Stone I will not be free. I can't live like that.' She dries her hands on the rag I'm holding.

'Artemus has the Stone now,' I say, carefully emphasising the last word. 'But an ancient artefact like that is valuable. They run the risk that someone will steal it.'

She nods slowly. She understands. 'And without the Stone to control me, I am too dangerous to keep around. If I left, they wouldn't stop me. Thank you Garrett.' I look away. She says no more.

'It's rising within me again,' she says. 'If I am to reach the Keepers in time I need to go now. If the Stone is stolen, what should I do?'

'Come back here,' I say, before I can think better of it.

She smiles again and leaves. She knows there is no way to say goodbye that would not be awkward.

As the door closes behind her I remember the sorcerer's book. He wants her power too. I know it shouldn't worry me but I don't want him to have her.

I hastily gather my equipment and I follow her outside.