Sabriel was looming. Her natural height helped, but what really did it was the black dress festooned with skulls and the ridiculous eyeshadow.

Then she smiled as she approached, and the entire impression of a sinister necromancer vanished, replaced by a resigned and amused young woman.

"They do love stories, don't they? I just hope they don't expect you to do in the Arena." Her own inability to enter Death even on the occasions she had her powers had helped her to explain to disappointed sponsors why she never enacted any of the bloody rituals she described, but this young man didn't seem to have such an excuse.