Felitïa let Zandrue go ahead into the conservatory, and turned to face Hedromornasta. Wait here.

He stared at her, a slight scowl on his face as always, but after a moment, nodded and stepped to the side of the door.

She would have preferred he be on the other side of the door, but the conservatory was big enough that he probably needed to remain inside in order to maintain the shield. At least there were trees and plants that would block his view, and she and Zandrue could talk quietly, and if he could hear them, she wasn’t entirely sure he could understand Arnorgue yet anyway.

Still, she looked forward to when the shield would no longer be necessary and she could have real privacy again. With luck, that day might be getting closer.

But she needed Zandrue’s help first.

Zandrue wasn’t waiting at the bench in the centre of the conservatory. Instead, she was a little ways past there on the path fiddling with a large green and red leaf. She looked up as Felitïa approached. “I stare at the plants in here a lot, but I never really see them. You know?”

“All those concentration exercises I do are supposed to teach me not to just look through things like that.”

“And do they work?”

Felitïa took hold of another one of the green and red leaves, and flashed Zandrue a grin. “Sometimes.” She did like looking at the plants in here, though.

Zandrue laughed and fiddled some more with the leaf. “It is a pretty plant, I suppose. The red veins on the leaves are…” She shrugged. “Interesting.”

Felitïa chuckled. “It’s called an elephant ear plant, or so I’m told.”

Zandrue lifted her leaf up higher, looked at it carefully, and then held it beside the one Felitïa was holding. “Elephants are grey, not green or red. Though I suppose I see a vague resemblance in the shape.”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never seen an elephant.”

“I have. Years ago. I saw a whole group of them when I was passing through Sanalogia on my way to Ostanith. Very big with monstrous tusks. I wouldn’t want to get in their way.” She let go of the leaf, which bounced about on its stem, and turned to face Felitïa. “I have some ideas on how to proceed now that Godran’s gone.”

Felitïa let go of her leaf as well. “Good. That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about though.”

With a sigh, Zandrue nodded. “Yeah, I figured.” She walked over to the bench and sat down. “Go on then.”

Felitïa approached her cautiously. Although the effect on her mind had been removed, Zandrue could still be a bit short-tempered. Well, that had always been true of Zandrue, but it was more so now, even if it wasn’t as bad as when she’d been under the spell effects. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

Zandrue didn’t look up at her. “Have I?”

“Yes.” Felitïa sat beside her. “For a couple weeks now.”

Zandrue shifted a little bit away from her on the bench. “Yeah, I suppose I have.”

“It’s okay. I think I understand why.” At least, she hoped she understood. “I know what we went through was...intrusive. But I had hoped—”

“Intrusive is an understatement.”

Felitïa smiled. “Yes, I suppose it is. I’m sorry I had to put you through it, but you begged me to, remember?”

Zandrue continued to look away, but nodded. “I know, and I don’t regret it. I’m unbelievably thankful.” She glanced briefly at Felitïa. “You have to believe me on that.”

“I do.”

“It’s just...awkward. You had complete control of my body. I…” She stood up and faced Felitïa. “I was just in there. Watching. I’m not sure that even describes it properly. I couldn’t tell what was me and what was you.”

“If it’s any consolation, I often felt the same.”

“Except you were the one in control.”

Felitïa tried to give her a comforting smile. A part of her desperately wanted to shred the shield around her so she could sense exactly what Zandrue’s response was, but that would probably make things worse. “I know.”

Zandrue turned away, rubbing the back of her neck. “I know you had no choice, and I’m not angry at you for doing it. Like I said, I’m grateful, and in some ways, it was kind of…” She shrugged and turned back to Felitïa. “Kind of beautiful. Intimate.” She sat again and gave Felitïa a sultry look. “Very intimate.”

“Tell me about it,” Felitïa said. “I spent time as you with Rudiger. It was…” Her cheeks warmed and she had to look away.

Zandrue laughed. “You get what I see in him, then?”

Holding back laughter, Felitïa shook her head. “No, not really, but also yes. I felt it from your perspective and that was…” Her cheeks were burning now.

“Next time, I get to experience you and Maneshka.”

Felitïa looked back at her. “Next time?”

Zandrue rolled her eyes. “Figure of speech. Look, I don’t mean to avoid you. I just need time to adjust.”

“I get it, and I’d give it to you, except we don’t have time.”

Zandrue sighed. “I had a suspicion that was coming.”

Felitïa resisted the urge to take Zandrue’s hand. “I need to master my abilities, Zandrue. I’m useless until I do.”

“Understatement again,” Zandrue said with a grin.

Felitïa chuckled. Then she looked Zandrue in the eyes. “I need your help. I’ve talked to Mikranasta. She says that, given my success with you, she’s willing to let me practise on a single person at a time, and I’d like to practise on you. It wouldn’t be exactly like last time. I wouldn’t be entering your mind, or at least, I’d be trying not to. The whole point would be to try to stay out. I need to learn how to put up blocks of my own. Blocks I can control and keep up under my volition. But I might slip now and then, especially at the beginning.”

“You can’t ask anyone else?” Zandrue said.

“I could. And if you say no, I will. I won’t force you to do this. It’s just… I don’t want to invade anyone else’s privacy.”

“But my privacy is okay?”

Felitïa shook her head. “No, no. Not like that. But you’ve been through it before, and you yourself said you don’t have anything left to hide from me.”

Zandrue shrugged. “Yeah, I suppose I don’t. You know all my deepest, darkest secrets, and honestly, I’m glad you do.”

“But the main reason I’m asking you before anyone else is, you’re my dearest friend. I couldn’t imagine asking anyone else first.”

Zandrue smiled, then sighed. “All right.”

“You’ll do it?”

Zandrue nodded. “Yeah, but give me a couple days first, okay?”

“Of course, but don’t take too long. The sooner we start, the sooner I figure this all out.”

Zandrue leaned round and hugged her. “Just a couple days. I promise.”

“Okay, a couple days.”

Zandrue jumped to her feet. “For now, I’m going to go try to smooth things over with Horaz Belone, like I told Anita I’d do.” She headed for the conservatory door, but spun around after a moment. “But any time you slip up and enter my head, I’m going to fill it with images of fun times with Rudiger. Got it?” With a laugh, she spun back round again, and headed out.

Felitïa chuckled and watched her go. That, thankfully, had gone better than she had expected. She hoped Zandrue knew how thankful she was for the help. She would do her absolute best avoid entering Zandrue’s head as much as she could.

To do that, she needed to work on her focus and concentration, so she straightened up on the bench and started with some basic breathing exercises.

* * * * *

Her face covered in splotches of red, blue, and black paint, Sinitïa stood in the centre of the room, practically throwing paint at an easel in front of her. She wasn’t literally throwing it; she was coating a brush and then lunging at the easel, sending the paint flying about in globs, only some of it actually landing on the canvas. Although the paint wasn’t reaching the door, Felitïa still instinctively ducked as she entered and Sinitïa dove at the easel. She stayed back and out of the way while she waited for Sinitïa to notice her.

After a minute or so, Sinitïa stopped her furious brushing and looked over at Felitïa. The intense anger on her face vanished and she broke out in a wide smile. “Hi!”

“Hi,” Felitïa replied. “Are you, um…?”

Some of the paint splotches on Sinitïa’s arms were moving—not dripping down, but crawling up! No, not paint splotches, but rather streaks of coloured light.

“Huh?” Sinitïa said, looking down at herself in response to Felitïa’s gesturing. “Oh this. They’ll go away in a moment. I know how to focus my energies now. Kind of.”

Sure enough the streaks climbing Sinitïa’s arms faded away. Felitïa had heard a little about Sinitïa’s unusual abilities, but this was the first time she’d seen it happen.

Sinitïa spread her arms and approached Felitïa, who backed up a bit. “No offence,” Felitïa said, “but…” She gestured at all of Sinitïa. While the coloured lights were gone, Sinitïa was still covered in paint—on her face, on the apron she was wearing over her kirtle, and on the parts of the kirtle that stuck out beyond the apron.

Sinitïa stopped. “Oh right, sorry.”

“My handmaid would not appreciate the mess,” Felitïa said.

Sinitïa looked herself over. “Yeah, Olla’s going to be really mad at me.” She turned about for a moment as if she wasn’t sure where she was trying to go, then returned to the easel and placed the brush she was still holding on the ledge. Then she looked down at the floor, which was also covered in paint near the easel. “I really made a mess this time, didn’t I?”

Felitïa approached a little closer. Mess was a bit of an understatement. She felt bad for the handmaid who had to clean this up and the one who had to get the paint out of Sinitïa’s hair. Rather than confirm Sinitïa’s statement, Felitïa decided to change the direction of conversation. “What are you painting?”

Sinitïa turned the easel so Felitïa could see. It was completely covered in wild splotches and streaks of paint. Yet somehow, amidst all the chaos, there was a red face contorted in pain, eyes wide with fear, and mouth open in a silent scream. There was something familiar about the face.

“Is that…?” Felitïa peered closer. “Godran?”

“Yep. That’s how I imagine he died.”

“You’re very...creative.”

“It’s all right if you don’t like it,” Sinitïa said, pushing the easel back against the wall.

“It’s not that I don’t like it. It’s just…” She really wasn’t sure what to say.

“It’s not meant to be good. It’s just me being angry.” Sinitïa pulled the apron off and dropped it on the floor beside the easel. Then she wet her finger with her tongue and started rubbing some of the spots on the sleeves of her kirtle. “I’m glad he’s dead, you know.”

“I know,” Felitïa said.

“And I don’t care if people think it’s bad for me to think that. I’m glad, and I hope he died in a lot of pain.”

“From what I heard, it probably was very painful.” Felitïa rubbed her own neck, the memory of Agranim trying to strangle her flashing momentarily through her head.

Sinitïa spat on her fingers and rubbed at another spot. All she was succeeding in doing was spreading the stain out. “Don’t worry. I’ll still apologise to Horaz. I know it was wrong of me to try to kill him myself, but that’s because Akna’s right. I was the wrong person to do it. I should have just asked her from the start.”

Felitïa rolled her eyes, then immediately regretted it. Fortunately, Sinitïa didn’t seem to have noticed. “How’s Meleng?”

Sinitïa frowned. “He’s supposed to be sleeping, but he probably isn’t. He just lies there—or sits there—staring at the ceiling or the wall. He counts the candles in the chandelier over and over again. He doesn’t even want to read. I offered to bring him some books, but he said no. He talks about having to learn how to write all over again because he lost his writing hand. He can’t cast spells very well anymore. He’s just so…” She sniffled loudly. “He’s so sad and…”

Felitïa approached her, put her arms around her, and held her tight while she burst into tears. While Sinitïa convulsed and shook in her arms, Felitïa shed a few tears as well. “I’m so sorry this had to happen, Sinitïa.”

“It’s not your fault,” Sinitïa muttered between sobs.

After a few minutes, Sinitïa’s shaking calmed and Felitïa let her go. As she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, Sinitïa gasped.

“What’s wrong?” Felitïa said.

“Hold on.” Sinitïa spun about, looking around the room. Spotting something, she rushed over to a table and grabbed a handkerchief. Then she approached Felitïa. “Hold still.” She dabbed at Felitïa’s cheek and forehead. “I got a bit of paint on you. And I’m kind of smudging your make-up a bit.”

Felitïa chuckled. “It’s all right. It’s easily fixed.”

Sinitïa stepped back and surveyed her work with a frown. “Yeah, I’ll get Olla to fix it for you before you leave.”

“That’s okay,” Felitïa said. “I’ll probably just go back to my room afterwards and wipe it off anyway.”

“Would you like to see Meleng?”

“Yes, I would. That’s actually why I came.” She also had something she was hoping to ask him to do, though if he was refusing to read…

Sinitïa’s eyes brightened. “He’ll be really happy to see you. Come on!” She practically skipped to the bedroom door.

“Just one moment,” Felitïa said. She hurried back to the door to the corridor, opened it, and let Hedromornasta in. I’m going in that room over there. She pointed. Wait in here. Then she returned to Sinitïa. “Okay.”

Sinitïa knocked a couple times on the door, then opened it. “Melly! Felitïa’s here!”

In the room, Meleng sat up in the bed. He was topless, the stump of his right arm and shoulder wrapped in bandages. His hair was a tangled mess, and his eyes were sunken and red.

There were a couple stools by the bed, so Felitïa pulled one up and sat by him on his right. He smiled as she approached.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” he said.

Sinitïa climbed on the bed beside him and put her arm around him. He smiled at her and gave her a quick kiss. She grinned back.

“How are you doing?” Felitïa asked.

He shrugged with his one good shoulder. “I’m fine.”

“Be honest,” Sinitïa said.

He sighed. “Well, as fine as can be expected, I suppose.”

“I understand,” Felitïa said.

“Sinitïa told me what happened,” Meleng said. “How’s Akna?”

“Doing pretty well, actually. We’ve learned she had a very interesting encounter with a time-travelling Isyar.”

Meleng’s eyes widened and he straightened up a little. “Time-travelling?”

Felitïa nodded. “So the Isyar claimed at any rate.”

“But how?”

“From the past before the discipline was lost.”

“But that’s just…” His face scrunched in thought.

“Insane?” Felitïa suggested.

He shook his head. “No, more like remarkable.”

Felitïa smiled. “Glad you think so.”

“Do we know anything more about this Isyar?”

“Just her name is Lisanacora and she works for an organisation similar to Feviona’s, only not existing anymore.”

“There’s so much we could learn from her. A lost discipline! Maybe she’ll know something about the Staff and the pearl, or maybe Corvinian! She could certainly teach us about the past, maybe even the future!”

“Maybe.” It was good to seem him looking excited.

Sinitïa had a grin on her face too, and was hugging Meleng more tightly—enough that he grimaced a little when she pressed against his wound.

“There’s actually something I wanted to ask you,” Felitïa said.

“Anything,” he said.

“It involves reading, and Sinitïa tells me you’ve been reluctant to do that.”

“Oh, uh…” He glanced at Sinitïa, then looked away. “That’s just...I mean…” He sighed. “I just haven’t been in the right mood.”

“I understand,” Felitïa said. “Feel in the mood now?”

“I guess it depends what you want me to read.”

“Anything you can find that might give us more information on these demons, as well as on the time-travelling organization called the Hgirrh. I think I got that pronunciation right. You can double-check with Jorvan and Feviona.”

Meleng nodded, though his expression drooped a little.

“I know it’s a lot to ask you about the demons after…” She indicated his missing arm. “After that. But maybe this will be your chance to get back at them.”

“I understand. I’ll do it.”

“I’ll help!” Sinitïa said.

“You hate reading,” Meleng said.

Sinitïa stuck her tongue out at him. “Not if we do it together. Plus, I can help you carry books and stuff. I just want to help.”

He nodded. “Okay.”

“There’s something about these demons that has been bothering me,” Felitïa said, “and I’m hoping maybe you can find the answer.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t want to make light of what the Tall Man did to you, but there has to be a reason why they haven’t killed us. Their behaviour doesn’t make sense.”

“I think I understand,” Meleng said.

“I don’t,” Sinitïa said. “They’ve killed lots of people and they nearly killed Meleng.”

Meleng ran his hand through Sinitïa’s hair. “Yeah, but they could have done a lot more damage. Except for the Tall Man showing up this time, they’ve come at us one at a time. Why don’t they come at us all at once and overwhelm us? And why wait so long between attacks?”

Sinitïa frowned. “I didn’t think of that.”

“The attacks have been exactly nineteen days apart,” Felitïa said. “That might only be coincidence since there have only been two gaps between attacks, but it might be significant. I need to know, but I’m stuck dealing with my head and learning how to use my powers. Agernon is busy trying to figure out the pearl and Staff.”

“I understand,” Meleng said. “I’ll do it.”

“Time is of the essence. If the nineteen days is significant, then we have seventeen days remaining until the next attack. Hopefully that’s time enough.” Given their usual luck with research, it probably wasn’t, but she had to believe something would go their way eventually.

“I’ll do my best.”

“We’ll do our best!” Sinitïa added.

Meleng smiled. “Yes, we’ll do our best.” He took a deep breath and sighed. “He talked to me, you know. The Tall Man, I mean. I’m not sure I told you that.”

Felitïa leaned forward. “No, no, you haven’t. Jorvan and Feviona haven’t said anything either.”

“I don’t know if they know. It was in my head. He spoke telepathically. He called me Scientist and said he’d like to talk to me except you need to suffer.”

“I need to?” Felitïa said.

“Well, his exact words were the Will-Breaker.”

Felitïa nodded. “Right. Scientist?”

Meleng nodded. “He’s definitely not mindless like the others, if they’re really mindless too. I mean, they keep saying those words over and over telepathically.”

“It’s possible there’s some sort of shielding around them, which is why Mikranasta can’t detect a mind in them, though she says that would require immense power.”

“She can’t detect a mind in Corvinian either, and he definitely has one.”

“I’ve thought of that,” Felitïa said. “It’s possible. There are too many questions. It’s time we found answers.”

“I’ll get on it as soon as my physician says I can get out of bed,” Meleng said. “Because of everything Feviona did, it probably won’t be long. Another day or so.”

Felitïa stood up. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

“Going so soon?” Sinitïa said.

“Work to do,” Felitïa said. “So much work to do. I’ll come back and check in on you tomorrow, okay?”

Sinitïa climbed off the bed and came around to Felitïa. They hugged and Sinitïa whispered in Felitïa’s ear, “Thank you.”

Felitïa gave her a kiss on the cheek. “You’re welcome.” She waved to Meleng. “See you tomorrow.” After he’d waved back, she left the bedroom.

In the front room, Sinitïa’s handmaid was attempting to tidy up the paint mess Sinitïa had made. Hedromornasta still stood by the door.

Scientist.

Will-Breaker.

Quilla was the Catalyst.

Corvinian, the Child of the Volgs.

Had she encountered any other titles applied to any of her friends? She felt sure she had, though she couldn’t recall any at the moment. They were probably placeholders used in prophecy for people who hadn’t been born and named yet, but it would be good to know what they all were. They might give clues as to the roles they had to play.

She sighed.

There she’d gone again and assumed prophecy had to happen, but no. There might be roles they were supposed to play, but she would be damned if they had to.