CHAPTER 4

He couldn't have failed to notice how evasive she is, and there's a casual flippancy in her voice that the Mandalee he knows would never have used. The Mandalee he knows is a throw-caution-to-the-wind young woman who often uses 'get very drunk, armed to the teeth and go for it' as the way to catch her mark. What Daelen doesn't know is that for so long, she has been the White Guardian, not the White Assassin and that has led her to adapt. Living outside Time, she has aged no more than ten years in the traditional sense, due to accumulated days within the Timestream. Even so, one day, a few years ago, when I asked her how she was truly feeling, she admitted to me, "I feel old." As an immortal, gentle reader, I am beginning to understand what she meant. After she has assisted me with this Illegal Time Intervention, she has vowed to resign from the Guardianship, both in protest at the others' refusal to act and, as she put it, "Because it's time," which is a strange concept for one who lives outside Time, but I could see the sense of it. Take it from one who knows: Timelessness is wearying. If all goes well, Mandalee will return to the timestream to live out the rest of her natural human life. It is my hope and my prayer that she will recapture her youth and rejoin the hunt. When I project that possible future, the early signs are promising. Her feline friend Shyleen's coat seems to already have a new glossy golden sheen to it, as well. Yes, no doubt her resignation is the best thing for her, even though I know it means I will lose her as I have lost everyone else. As I have said, I am not merely Timeless; I am immortal. I just wonder, gentle reader: how exactly does one resign from immortality?