For a little while they tarried in the borders of the garden, clinging to each other in their first great joy, and the dim alleys and dusky trees took on a brightness till now unknown to them from these two figures radiant with a pure and innocent love.
At last the Shadow Witch remembered all that she must leave behind. “Listen,” she said, and her voice was very gentle, “I have been long gone, and my servants still wait for their mistress. They love me and are faithful. They will mourn for me when I have left them—Creeping Shadow most of all. I must bid them farewell and tell them why it is that I depart from them to return no more.”
So they left the confines of the garden and turned their steps toward the Palace of Shadows. They had not yet reached it, when its mistress saw a pale figure approaching through the tall shrubs that lined their way.
It was Creeping Shadow, stealing sadly along the paths once dear to her mistress, thinking of Prince Ember who had promised succor, a promise which she had begun to fear he had not been able to keep. “Alas! what hope could there be after all?” she thought, “that this Prince should be able, single-handed, to meet and conquer such powerful enemies as the Wizard, and his many evil friends?” She shook her head doubtfully, yet even as she did so she lifted her eyes to look once more along the familiar path by which she had hoped her mistress might return.
“See,” exclaimed the Shadow Witch to her lover. “She comes, my good and faithful servant, still seeking, still hoping!”
At that moment Creeping Shadow saw her and gave a loud cry that rang through the spaces and reached even to the palace halls. She rushed to throw herself at the feet of her mistress, to clasp her knees in an ecstasy of thankfulness and rejoicing. “Mistress, dear mistress!” she exclaimed, “At last, at last, you are here!”
And now from the palace doors and from everywhere, the Shadows came gliding swiftly, to burst into exclamations of joy when they saw, in their turn, who it was that had come.
Among them came the traitor, Black Shadow, hastening to learn whether what she had believed to be impossible, had, in spite of her treachery, been brought to pass. She saw Prince Ember and her mistress surrounded by the welcoming Shadows, saw that her plots had been in vain.
She would have turned at once to flee to the Wizard, to make known to him what had happened, had she not been arrested by the voice of her mistress speaking strange words, words such as she had never thought to hear.
“I have come to show you that I am set free,” said the Shadow Witch, “have come, also, to bid you, my loyal servants, farewell.”