Traveling home by way of the Black Forest, Ilya is accosted by a highwayman who unexpectedly breaks free of his magic by dissolving into smoke. Not a highwayman, he learns later, but rumored to be the malcontent spirit of a despised dead emperor killed centuries ago.

Ilya dismisses the tale as superstition and clever shadow magic ... until he sees the thief again in the very last place he expected.