"I cannot believe it," says this smiling spectre from the Fool's near-recent past, and with that cherished face comes an onslaught of too vivid memories--of a flight across a sea on a dragon's back, of a quest to preserve the honour of the Farseer prince, of a journey through an icy cave towards certain death--of pain beyond imagining, beyond description, and the death that followed.

Of living in the liminal space between his body and Fitz's. The pain--the slow, aching pain--of healing, and the gift of life given back to him, for the love of him.

Fitz. His Catalyst, his friend, his beloved--he cannot be here.

The Fool's jaw works, but words don't come at first. He takes a hesitant step backward, rather than forward. "How...? How are you here?"