Spirit’s End

CHAPTER 11

Sara lashed out. A wave of fire followed her motion, washing Banage under. For a moment he was lost in the flames, but then cool mist fanned out around him, quenching the fire in midair.

When the flames were gone, the mist returned to its master, circling his body in a protective blanket. Sara drew the remains of her fire back, the wind and flame hissing together as they retreated. Behind his wall of fog, Banage glared and stretched out his hand to touch the metal wall of the closest, unspilled tank.

“Stop!” Sara cried, holding up her hands. Her eyes went wide as Banage’s fingers pressed against the metal, the great black ring on his thumb glowing like the sun through smoked glass. As the ring’s light grew, the cavern floor started to rumble as a great stone hand yanked itself from the ground. It rose up with a grinding sound, folding its dark, rocky fingers in a mirror of Banage’s own around the tank’s metal supports.

“Etmon, please,” Sara begged, eyes locked on Banage’s stone spirit as her tank began to wobble. “Do you even know what you’re destroying?”

“Oh, I know.” Banage’s voice was as cold as his fog. “For the first time, Sara, I know. I always suspected, but I thought surely, surely I couldn’t be right. You were a Spiritualist once. You couldn’t possibly have strayed that far. Now, I know better.”

The metal tank groaned as the stone hand began to push.

“This isn’t the Spirit Court,” Sara said calmly. “You have no right to come in here and shove your morals—”

“I have every right!” Banage roared. “Morals don’t change with location! There is truth in this world, Sara. Right and wrong. These things don’t vanish when you close your eyes, and you can’t make them go away by burying them in a cave.”

Sara flinched at the scorn in his voice. “I’ve nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Of course you do,” Banage said, his deep voice rich with power. “Or you wouldn’t be hiding down here. You always were a show-off. You’d done the impossible, created a spirit that could be broken into three parts separated by any distance and yet still be connected enough to pass words between them. The Relay is possibly the greatest innovation in the history of magic, and yet you’ve never said anything about how it works. Nothing. That alone was proof.”

“Proof of what?” Sara snapped. “That I was guarding the Council’s secrets? The Relay is the base of the Council’s power. Of course I hid it.”

“So you really think you’ve done nothing wrong?” Banage said, looking at the tank. “Well then, since I’m a traitor and no one will listen to me anyway, it won’t matter if I see for myself.”

“Etmon,” Sara said, her voice ringing with warning. “Etmon, no.”

She flung out her hand, too late. Banage’s ring flashed as his stone spirit pushed up, breaking the tank’s metal supports like straws. The tank fell with a groan of twisting metal. The floor shook as it hit, and the metal casing broke with a loud, cracking pop. The only thing that didn’t make a sound was the water that spilled from the tank’s sundered side.

The water shone bluer than blue as it fell. Heartbreakingly clear, even as it mixed with the dust and grime on the floor below. It made no sound as it fell and no sound when it landed, not a splash, not a burble, nothing at all. Banage was just as silent as he watched it pour, but when he raised his eyes to Sara again, they were full of fury.

“I thought it would be happy,” he whispered. “When I broke the first tank, I thought the water would leap to freedom. Even then, I didn’t realize how bad it was. I didn’t know you’d taken everything from it, even its voice.”

Sara watched the blue water pouring from the tank stoically, resisting the urge to scrub her eyes. All her work, gone.

“You collected the water,” Banage went on. “You picked the small spirits, the ones too weak to have a full consciousness of their own.” His voice grew disgusted. “I saw the hole where you combined them below your office. You poured the water together in utter, oppressive silence, quieting and mixing them in that stone hole in the ground until you had a new spirit large enough to be awakened. And you did awaken it. That’s the worst part. You kept the water awake, but you never let it speak. You never even let it discover its name, did you? You couldn’t. In order for the spirit to be quiet enough, still enough, empty enough to transfer voices clearly, it had to be isolated. Stunted.”

“It’s not like that,” Sara said. “You’re skipping several key—”

Banage’s hand shot out, his finger pointed accusingly at the silent fountain flowing from the broken tank. “You created something pure, a distilled water spirit, and you locked it in the dark. It’s water’s nature to flow and mix and create new spirits wherever it pools, but you, you trapped it in a tank and pushed it down. You and your wizards took a newborn spirit and locked it away like a child in a closet.”

“There was no other way,” Sara snapped. “I needed to transmit a human voice instantly between one place and another. Any human voice, wizard or spirit deaf, and the only way to accomplish that was through vibrations. Water worked excellently, but I couldn’t just run a hose between whoever was talking. If my plan was going to work, I had to divide the water, but even the largest, most alert spirits forgot about their water as soon as it left them. I’d take a bucket from an awakened fountain, and by the time I’d lifted it, the water in the bucket was its own spirit, disconnected from the first and utterly useless.”

“That is the nature of water,” Banage said scornfully. “To disconnect and reconnect, to flow.”

“It was a problem,” Sara said, standing straighter. “A problem I solved. Quieting spirits is nothing new. Your own rings are quieted to make room for the spirits they house.”

“Rings are different!” Banage shouted. “Jewels and metal are still by nature. Water moves constantly. To quiet water is cruel.”

“It was brilliant!” Sara shouted back. “I was the one who discovered that if you took a water spirit and isolated it from everything from the moment you woke it, something extraordinary happened. The quieted water never realized it was part of a larger world. It never learned its name, and it never connected with the greater spirits above it. This disconnection gave the quieted water an extraordinary property. With only its own spirit for comfort in the world, the water had Spirit Unity like nothing else I’ve ever seen. I could chop a tank in half and sail it across the Unseen Sea and it would still be one spirit with the half I’d left behind.”

Sara took a step forward, her voice trembling with the excitement of finally being able to explain her Relay to someone who would understand, if not appreciate, her cleverness. “Don’t you see, Etmon? It was perfect. The quieted water was still enough to pass voices, and its ignorance of other spirits besides itself meant I could divide the water up and send the pieces across the Council. I could pass voices instantly over thousands of miles, and even better, I could do it without wizards. Oh, I kept wizards with the points to make sure the water stayed isolated, but the Relay passes sound, not will. Even Sparrow could use them. It was brilliant. The only downside was how long it took me to make a point and how much water was required. I needed enough to make sure the spirit was big enough to have a cohesive soul, but in order to preserve the isolation, the majority of the water had to be locked in silence. That’s where I got the idea for the tanks. Hundreds of spirits all held together, and each one thinks it’s alone in the world.”

Sara took a deep breath. “Absolutely brilliant. Someday I hope to find a way to make the tanks smaller, but even if I never figure it out, the Relay was the discovery of a lifetime. The foundation of my career. Even you have to admit it’s genius.”

“It’s cruelty!” Banage screamed. “Inhuman, unforgivable cruelty! I’d call it Enslavement, but you found a way to subjugate a spirit without touching it. You’ve shackled living spirits with their own ignorance, their fear of being alone, and for what? Sending trade deals? The business of running a Council?”

Sara heaved an angry breath. “Powers, Banage, it’s only water.”

“Only water?” Banage’s cry was horrifying. “Are you truly that far gone, Sara? Look around you!” He threw out his hands at the remaining tanks, the water lapping at their feet. “Every one of these has a mind. They feel pain, loss, suffering. Far more than their share of suffering, thanks to you. What if you’d had to Enslave a person for your Relay. Would you have done it then? Would you have kept a child locked down here alone in the dark if it served your career? Would you have done this to Eli?”

“Don’t be stupid, Etmon,” Sara said, forcing her voice to stay measured, stay calm. “There’s a world of difference between people and spirits, even between the spirits themselves. You said it yourself, water flows. Its ability to flow in and out of itself is unique in the spirit world. Cut a rock in half and you have two spirits with half the power and intelligence of the original. They can never be rejoined, only reforged and born again in the molten fires beneath the mountains. But water is different. Pour out half a bucket of water and the half that remains is diminished. But, unlike a rock, you can pour that water back in, and the spirit is restored. Or you can pour the whole bucket into a river and it becomes the river, which becomes the sea.”

She pointed at the water that covered their feet. “All this water is draining away. Maybe it will flow to the Whitefall River. Maybe it will evaporate and become rain. Maybe it will just stay here forever. But whatever happens, this water you’re so deathly concerned about will eventually become part of something else, and anything I did to it will be forgotten. An abused child is damaged forever, but water can forget a hundred years of torment between one wave and the next.”

“So if suffering is forgotten, that makes it forgivable?” Banage said, his voice low.

“There’s nothing to forgive,” Sara said, crossing her arms. “The water is ignorant. It doesn’t even know it’s being wronged. And when you look at the larger picture, even you should see that I’ve actually been doing a great good. Think about it, the Relay gives the Council of Thrones power the individual kingdoms cannot touch. This power provides a lasting peace and prosperity that will ultimately make everything’s life on this continent, spirit and human, better. So yes, I think the temporary suffering of water spirits who will forget all about it as soon as they’re released is perfectly forgivable considering what we all get in return.”

Banage’s face twisted into a look of pure disgust. “I would never believe anyone who’d bound a spirit in service could think such thoughts.”

“Well, you never were any good at knowing what I was thinking,” Sara said bitterly, crossing her arms. “And I only ever bound one spirit.”

“I remember,” Banage said. “I was there. Ollor was a calm, deep water spirit. When I first heard that the Relay’s full name was the Ollor Relay, my heart lifted. I thought it was proof that a part of you remembered your oaths. Now, I’m not so ignorant.” His eyes darkened as he stepped forward. “Which tank is he in, Sara?”

Sara stiffened, then forced herself to relax. There was no point in lying anymore.

“The center one,” she said. “He was the first, the spirit who helped me learn how to make the Relay work. It seemed only fitting the final product should bear his name.”

Banage closed his eyes. “After such loyalty,” he whispered. “That spirit stayed with you when you renounced your oaths. He followed you here, let you experiment on his water. He served you faithfully, and this was how you rewarded him?”

“I put him to sleep,” Sara countered. “I’ve seen your own protégé do as much to the sea she shoved down her throat. And now that sea is lost to the waves while my Ollor is the anchor for a network of spirits that are helping to bring world peace.” She lifted her chin with a haughty stare. “Who served their spirit better, Etmon?”

Banage looked away in disgust. “Enough,” he said, raising his arm. “This ends now, Sara.”

“And what will you do?” Sara said. “Destroy everything I’ve built? Make yourself a true enemy of the Council? Whitefall will have to kill you for this, you know. The Spirit Court won’t be able to stop him, not that they’ll want to. The Relay is the heart of the Council. Destroy it and you’ll be known forever as the man who killed our best hope for peace.”

Banage hesitated then, and Sara bit her lip, reaching down to call her fire spirit for a surprise attack on his open back. But before she could reach the red jewel at her waist, a slow smile, the same one she’d once found so handsome, spread across Banage’s face.

“Better to be the man who destroyed peace than the man who saw suffering and did nothing,” he said, clenching his fist.

“No!” Sara shrieked, but she was too late. Even as her fire spirit roared forward, Banage brought his fist down.

As it fell, the ground began to rumble, the quiet water shaking in delicate waves that grew larger and larger, soaking her legs. All across the cavern, the tanks were shaking, bobbing back and forth like corks. And then, with an enormous rumbling crack, Banage’s fully opened spirit struck her like a hammer, and the ground exploded.

Deep black stone shot up from the floor, but it wasn’t her bedrock. It was Banage’s stone spirit in its full glory, the huge rocky outcropping he’d won over years ago, when they were still in love. Then, it had been the size of a small castle. Now, with the help of his will, the rock had broken itself into hundreds of enormous hands, and each one was gripping the bottom of a tank. High overhead, the fire bird screamed. The jade horse galloped through the water, bucking in triumph while the tangled roots retreated to form a ring around her and Banage, a barrier against what would happen next.

Banage flexed his fingers, and the black stone hands responded in kind, filling the air with the squeal of crumpling metal. Etmon’s eyes never left hers as he flipped his hand over, his wrist turning in a quick, snapping motion, like he was breaking a neck.

The stone hands mirrored his movement, and the tanks collapsed, each one falling like a felled tree. They hit the cavern floor with a deafening clang that knocked Sara to her knees. She fell hard, too stunned to catch herself, and then curled in a ball, her face inches from the dirty water as the silent tide poured out. The water hit the ring made by Banage’s roots with a soft rush, but otherwise there was no sound at all.

If Sara had not known already, she would have had no hint that her life’s work, the great discovery that had launched every other, was draining away. Ollor was somewhere in that flood, but she didn’t call him. She’d given up that bond long ago, just as she’d given up another.

When Sara raised her eyes at last, Banage was standing over her. His face was hard, set in firm approval at the rightness of his actions, the justification of his wanton destruction.

“You have no idea,” she whispered, staring up. “No idea at all what you just destroyed. What you’ve done.”

“None of us know the full extent of our actions,” Banage replied. “But I know I was right, Sara. I know I was right.”

And it was those words, spoken with such conviction, such blind, mindless faith, that undid her.

“Right?” she screamed, heaving herself off the ground. “You’ve undone the work of nations, set us all back decades, and all you can say for yourself is that you were right? Right by what? Some water that won’t even remember to thank you? Do you even understand the concept of the greater good?”

“Good built on exploitation is no good at all,” Banage said calmly. “And you know it.”

He would have kept preaching forever, but Sara didn’t give him the chance. The moment he closed his mouth, she threw open her spirit.

It had been a long time since Sara had opened her spirit fully. She preferred more delicate instruments, and besides, opening her spirit in the presence of the tanks would undo all the effort she’d put into keeping them quiet. But Banage was a blunt man. Blunt tactics were needed, and the tanks were already broken beyond repair. So, with nothing left to lose, Sara threw herself open and let her power pour out, doubling and tripling until she filled the room.

Sensation flooded through her. She could feel the weight of the stone, the heat of Banage’s fire bird, the cold water of her broken tanks. More important, though, she could feel the lines of power, thin as thread but stronger than steel, connecting Banage to his spirits, both those who were out and the ones still in his rings. Focusing on those thin lines, Sara kept going, opening herself as far as she dared. And then, when the power was throbbing through her, surrounding and filling every inch of the cavern, she shoved it down.

The effect was immediate. Banage’s spirits slammed to the ground when her power crashed into them. The root wall collapsed, the stone horse fell to its knees, the stone hands crumbled, and the fire bird plummeted, its light going out in a puff of smoke. The room went pitch black for a moment before a red glow bloomed from the ring of tiny rubies at Sara’s waist.

She stood in the red light, her soul still roaring open, and glared down at her husband lying prone on his stomach, pinned by his connection to the spirits she was grinding under. His head lay sideways in the water that was beginning to leak through the sundered wall of roots, the flood slowly rising to cover his mouth and nose.

“I should let you drown,” she whispered, panting under the strain of her own power. “How fitting it would be if you died under the water you’d worked so hard to free. It wouldn’t even notice, you know. It would fill your lungs just like any other crevice and drown you without a second thought.”

“As it should be,” Banage said, rolling his eyes up to look at her. “If you think I did this with a care for my own life, then you understand nothing, Sara Banage.”

Her whole body went rigid. How long had it been since anyone had called her that? Twenty years at least. Not long enough.

“I never should have married you,” she hissed. “I never should have let you near my work. You break everything you touch.”

“It’s not my fault your work breaks when it is held to a standard of morality,” Banage said, coughing a bit as the water filled his mouth. “You were the one who chose to build your greater good on a flawed foundation. If I did any wrong in this, it is that I did not act sooner.”

Sara closed her eyes. Her open spirit was vibrating with her rage. Through it, she could feel the water flooding through the cavern, still creeping along under the pressure of her will. How easy it would be to lift her hand and let it rush over Banage, silence his arrogance forever. But as soon as she thought it, Sara shrank away from the idea. Even in her fury, she couldn’t do it.

She sighed bitterly, trying to decide her next step when she felt a familiar but unexpected twinge against her chest. She welcomed the signal with a smile and turned her head just in time to see Sparrow slip silently out of the cover of a fallen tank. Without his coat to draw her attention, she had trouble keeping her eyes on him, but she could see well enough to know he was alone. Her smile faded.

“Sparrow,” she snapped. “What are you doing back? Where’s Eliton?”

Sparrow shrugged and kept walking, his feet moving silently through the still water.

Sara scowled. She didn’t have time for his games. “Forget it,” she muttered, returning her attention to Banage. “You can give your excuses later. For now, I need you to help me secure the former Rector. There should be some rope on the floor.” She glanced at Banage, lips lifting in a haughty sneer. “This time we’re going to throw his rings in Whitefall’s vault. Let’s see them get out of that.”

She paused, waiting for the splash of Sparrow’s hands moving through the water for the rope, but she heard nothing. “Sparrow, this is not the time for—”

The knife was in and out before she felt it. It slid into her back, between her ribs, twisting up once before pulling out. She gasped as she realized what had happened, only to find she couldn’t. Her lung, her mind scrambled as the left side of her chest blazed up like a fire. He’d hit her lung.

Sara didn’t realize she’d fallen until she felt the cold water lapping against her burning skin. It was a bad fall, her arms hadn’t moved to catch her, but she felt no pain. Or, if she did, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except reasserting her control. Her hands shot up, patting her chest, fumbling under her coat through the half-dozen Relay points she kept on her at all times, but the one she was searching for wasn’t there.

As she began to panic, her eyes drifted up, squinting against her darkening vision to see Sparrow standing over her, his mouth curled in a smile. One hand held the knife, still dark and dripping with blood. Her blood, she realized with a twinge, but she dismissed the thought as soon as it came. None of that mattered. Her eyes darted to Sparrow’s other hand, the one clenched in a fist. A deep red, viscous liquid dripped between his fingers, and Sara’s burning blood went cold.

Sparrow’s smile widened at the realization in her eyes.

“What?” he said, opening his hand. “Looking for this?”

A chain dangled from his fingers, and at its end was a shattered glass shell no thicker than a soap bubble. Deep red liquid dripped from its broken edge, falling into the water below. Sara blinked in disbelief. She hadn’t even felt him take it. But then, she hadn’t felt the knife either.

“You never were any good at seeing what was around you,” Sparrow said, dropping the remains of the broken orb into the water. “Especially when you have your spirit open.”

Sara stared at him, her mouth moving to shape a word. Why?

“Why?” Sparrow sneered. “Because I’m done taking your orders. Because I don’t want to spend the rest of my life as the Council’s errand boy. And because, in the whole Council, you’re the only one who could ever be my jailor.” He wiped her blood off his knife, smearing it across his dull pants. “I’d say it’s nothing personal, but I can’t think of anyone who deserved that stabbing more than you. And the best part of this is everyone will think he did it.” Sparrow pointed his newly clean blade at where Banage was lying.

Sara rolled in the water, gathering her spirit as she struggled to breathe. Sparrow just sheathed the knife in his boot and dropped to his knees beside her.

“Catching Eli was your fatal mistake, you should know,” he whispered, leaning down so she could hear. “Banage was bad enough, but the minute you decided to reason with your son instead of handing him over to Whitefall, I knew I had my chance at last. All I had to do was make sure Whitefall knew enough to push you. Of course, the idiot Oseran king almost ruined everything. How was I supposed to know he’d move that fast? But everything worked out in the end.”

Sparrow gave her a blinding smile. “Eli was sent back to his cell with no more reason to stay. True to his reputation, once he decided to escape, he was out in a matter of minutes, and with both Banage boys on the lam, you were far too busy to keep your eyes where they should be.” Sparrow’s smile turned cruel. “On me.”

Sara’s mouth began to work, trying to form any of the biting responses she had to that, but Sparrow was already rocking back on his heels.

“I’d give you some parting advice about the dangers of hubris,” he said, his voice so glib it was almost singsong. “But since you’re not going to be around to use it, I don’t think I’ll waste my breath. Good-bye, Sara dear, and remember—you deserve every bit of this. Let that be the last thought that takes you to the mists.”

He patted her cheek and straightened up, his face leaving her field of vision. Sara tried to follow him, but her body had gone rigid. The pain was finally starting to bleed through her shock, and it was quickly crowding out every other concern.

Powers, she hurt. The world was spinning now. She blinked hard, trying to see around the dark shape swimming across her field of vision, but it wasn’t until she heard his voice that she realized the shadow wasn’t an illusion caused by her failing eyes. It was Banage.

He was on his feet, hands out, his rings shining like miniature suns. Of course, she realized, her spirit had closed when she’d fallen, freeing him. Banage was shouting something. She couldn’t make out the words over the ringing in her ears, but his voice was full of command and, unexpectedly, rage.

She was still trying to puzzle it out when stone hands burst from the floor, breaking through the water with a great crash. They grabbed for Sparrow, but he dodged them neatly, laughing. Sara frowned in confusion before she remembered Banage’s spirit couldn’t see Sparrow. None of the spirits could. She heard Banage swear above her, calling another spirit as he dropped to Sara’s side.

His hands, surprisingly hot, pressed into her back, fingers fumbling to stop the blood. A shock of pain went through her as he touched her wound, clearing her mind. The world, which had seemed so far away only seconds before, suddenly snapped into focus, and she knew with absolute clarity that if she did not pull herself together right this instant she was going to die.

The realization was like another knife in her chest. At once, with the discipline she’d learned as a Spiritualist and perfected in her own work, she forced everything out of her mind and turned all her power, all her will, toward the only two goals that mattered.

From the outside, what happened next probably looked like a miracle. All at once, Sara’s convulsions stopped. She lay still, her eyes closed, and then, quietly, she took a deep, deep breath. Banage froze. Gingerly, he lifted his hands from her back. Her wound was still open, but the flow of blood had slowed to a trickle. When Sara took another breath, it stopped altogether.

But a few feet away, the story was very different. Between the stone hands that were still blindly looking for him, Sparrow fell to his knees, grasping his throat. His handsome face turned red and then blue as his mouth opened and closed, desperately trying to force air down his throat.

It didn’t work. He started to flail, his eyes bulging as he fell onto his back. He rolled in the water, but as the seconds ticked by, his thrashing slowed until he lay still, his head slumped beneath the dark, dirty water. He didn’t move again.

Banage stared at Sparrow’s still body for several seconds, and then he looked at Sara, his face pale as paper behind his graying beard. “What did you do?”

Sara shook her head and closed her eyes. Each breath came easier than the last, but she didn’t dare relax her control. She kept her focus inward, turning all her concentration onto her own soul now that Sparrow was down. She wasn’t nearly as good as Tesset at this sort of thing—her initial panic proved that much—but she’d learned enough from him to patch up a little knife hole. Ah, Tesset, she thought longingly as the pain began to fade. How I miss you.

She opened her eyes just enough to steal another look at Sparrow’s still body. If Tesset had been here, this never would have happened. Despite the fact that she had saved his life, it was no secret that Sparrow hated her. Still, they’d worked through it for a decade thanks to her vigilance and Sparrow’s refusal to take any opportunity that wasn’t a sure win. But between the extra workload Tesset’s death had left and this business with Banage, she’d gone sloppy, and now look at things. Sparrow was dead, her workshop was destroyed, Eliton was gone off who knew where, taking her answers with him, and her Relay was crushed under the weight of Banage’s moral hardline.

All her work, everything she’d dedicated her life to, had been washed away in a matter of minutes, and all she had left now was Banage hovering over her like a mother hen. Sara blew out her hard-won breath in a huff. He was probably staying only because he couldn’t stand the thought of her dying before he’d dragged her before the Court, the pompous, self-righteous fool.

Even so, her frown softened a little, it was nice to know Etmon still cared.

When she had her bleeding under control, Sara opened her eyes to find herself lying on her side on a dry stretch of stone. Etmon’s roots had surrounded them again, blocking off the flood, and Banage himself was using his mist spirit to evaporate the last of the water over the barrier. His rings glowed as he worked, lighting him in a rainbow of color. It was a nostalgic sight, and Sara smiled before she could stop herself.

Gingerly, she rolled onto her back. It didn’t hurt as much as she’d feared, but the movement sent her into a coughing fit. Banage jumped at the sound.

“Sara?” he said, grabbing her hand as he knelt beside her.

“I’ll live,” she muttered, glancing at their entwined fingers. She thought about breaking free, but then relaxed. Etmon’s hand was warm. Comforting, she realized, lying back. How long had it been since she’d felt his hand like this? Not since Eliton was a baby.

Sara winced. Her brush with death must have taken more out of her than she’d realized if she was getting sentimental. She was about to tell Banage to help her up when he rolled her onto her side without so much as a warning, peeling back her ripped coat to examine her wound. His breath hitched when he saw it was closed, and Sara smirked. It was about time the man was impressed by something she’d done.

“Let me down,” she said, forcing her voice to be stern. “I told you, I’ll live.”

“How—” Banage began.

“A trick of Tesset’s,” Sara answered, cutting him off for time’s sake. Whitefall’s troops would be down soon enough, and she wanted to savor the pleasure of explaining her cleverness before she was forced to order around a bunch of frightened guardsmen. “If the only human soul a wizard can touch is her own, then it’s a shame not to control it thoroughly. I never quite managed his level of mastery, but I can stop small things like this.”

She arched her shoulder to show him, ignoring the painful hitch of the wound that was not quite as closed as she was making out. Banage, however, just folded his arms over his chest. “That much I can understand,” he said. “What I don’t get is him.”

He nodded across her, beyond the wall formed by his roots where, Sara knew, Sparrow’s body lay still in the water.

“A wizard cannot touch another human soul,” Banage said. “It’s the core rule of magic. How in the world did you break it?”

“Are you sure you want to discuss this now?” Sara asked. “The guards are coming.”

“I might not get another chance,” Banage said. “And I’ve blocked the guards for the moment.” He sat on the ground beside her. “Humor me.”

Sara frowned, searching for the best way to describe what she’d done without sending Banage into one of his fits of morality. She didn’t want to destroy the momentary truce that had grown between them, and she actually relished the idea of explaining Sparrow. He was, after all, one of the most interesting puzzles she’d ever stumbled across, and bombastic as her husband could be, Etmon always had been one of the only people who could understand the intricacies of her work. Provided she could distract him from his moralizing, of course.

“Sparrow is, was an anomaly,” she said finally. “Most human spirits encompass their bodies naturally, and these are what spirits see when they look at us. Wizards shine brighter, so I’m told, but even the spirit deaf have some kind of presence. Not so with Sparrow. For whatever reason, he was born with a soul so small, so faint, as my spirits would say, that he’s basically invisible. Unless he wraps himself in something they can see, spirits look right through him.”

Banage eyes widened. “The hideous clothes?”

“Exactly,” Sara said, nodding. “A simple, elegant solution. Though even wrapped in bright spirits, he’s hard to focus on. Or so I’m told, anyway. But that wasn’t what I was interested in. The most interesting part of Sparrow is that, when he wears dull clothes, he’s basically invisible to humans as well.”

She stopped to let this knowledge sink in. Banage hovered over her, his brows knotted, deep in thought. She could almost see him putting the pieces together—click, click, click—in rapid succession, coming to the same conclusions she’d ended on. It made her smile. Ah, if only he weren’t so stubborn. What a pair they would have made.

“If humans have trouble seeing him just as spirits do…” Banage trailed off. “Sara, are you implying that, on some level, we see as spirits see?”

Sara’s smile spread. “That’s exactly what I’m implying. Sparrow is a known blind spot for all of us. If we share this blindness with spirits, then perhaps humans are not completely unseeing as spirits say we are. Maybe we do see, but we don’t know it, or something blocks our sight.”

“It makes sense,” Banage said, scratching his beard. “The spirits call us the Shepherdess’s creations, but I don’t think that’s quite right. Miranda told me that the Shaper Mountain claims the Shepherdess does not truly create. If we can see as spirits see at all, even if it’s only in a shared blindness, then maybe we’re not newly created spirits, but changed ones, modified to fit whatever it was the Shepherdess wanted us to be.”

“Slorn told me much the same thing once,” Sara said. “Though the real question now is, if we could see at the beginning, why would this Shepherdess go through so much effort to take the sight we already had away?”

“Make us blind, you mean?” Banage said. “If you’re right, then all we have are more questions. Why would the Power who was created to watch over the world make a race that can control everything else and then actively take our sight away? That sounds more like destruction than preservation.”

“It’s a heady problem, isn’t it?” Sara was grinning now. Talking like this with Banage, exploring the possibilities of magic freely, without his dogma getting in the way, made her feel like a teenager again. She gripped his hand. “Now do you see why I risked so much to keep Sparrow with me?”

Banage’s face darkened. “I see,” he said. “But I don’t understand. You must have known from the beginning that that man could not be trusted. I can see keeping him for research in a cell, but what possessed you to let him roam free?”

“Because he was useful,” Sara said. “And I was always in control.”

He gave her a suspicious look. “How?”

Sara bit her lip. For a moment, she considered lying. It had been so long since she’d had a civil conversation with her husband, she’d forgotten how pleasant it could be. But Banage was glaring at her now, and she knew the look well enough. He’d never let up until he had an answer he was satisfied with, and she didn’t have a lie ready that was good enough to trick him. The truth, then, she decided with a sigh. Such a pity. Their truce had been nice while it lasted.

She settled back on the ground, bracing for impact. “I could control him because I’d bound him as a servant spirit.”

“What?”

Sara winced at his roar. Banage loomed over her, dark and terrible, his rings glowing like multicolored suns. Then, unexpectedly, he eased back down.

“How?” he said as curiosity finally overcame his inherent rage. “Even if it was as faint as you claim, his soul is still human. How did you bind a human soul into service?”

“I didn’t bind his soul,” Sara said. “Remember what I said earlier about how a human’s soul usually encompasses their entire body? Well, Sparrow’s didn’t. It wasn’t large enough. This meant that the vast majority of his physical body wasn’t actually part of his soul.”

“Impossible,” Banage said. “Everything has a soul.”

“It did,” Sara said. “Just not a human one. As I said, Sparrow was an anomaly. He had a human body, but not enough human soul to fill it. So his body developed a unique coping mechanism to keep itself alive. Each organ developed a tiny soul of its own. That was why spirits never saw Sparrow as human. To their eyes, he’s closer to a pile of pebbles.”

“That still doesn’t explain how you bound him,” Banage said.

“I told you,” Sara huffed. “I didn’t bind him. I bound his lungs.”

Banage blinked. “His lungs?”

Sara nodded emphatically, smiling at the memory of that genius idea. “It was really simple, actually. I called in Whitefall’s surgeon and took a tiny piece of Sparrow’s lung. I kept it with me, feeding power into it just as I would a Spiritualist spirit. I had to fudge things a bit, but in the end I basically made Sparrow’s lungs into a servant spirit who was always out of its ring. That way, if I ever needed to find him or discipline him, I could just tug on the thread connecting us. After all, he can’t go anywhere without his lungs, can he?”

She finished with a grin, but Banage wasn’t smiling. He just stared at her, his face horrified. “You made a Spiritualist pact with a spirit too small for consciousness, with a man’s lungs…” His voice trailed off.

Sara put up her hand. “Before you start to lecture, remember, the lungs were a part of Sparrow, and he gave his consent to be my servant in exchange for salvation from the Whitefalls. I just took him a little more literally than he intended.”

Banage’s face grew even more severe. “Then I suppose the red orb he crushed was the equivalent of his ring?”

“More or less,” Sara said. “But as you saw, I didn’t need it anymore. His lungs still knew who their mistress was.” She set her jaw at Banage’s scornful look. “Powers, Etmon, it wasn’t like I wanted to kill him. After all the work I put into that man? But he tried to kill me, and he would have died anyway when Whitefall—”

“Enough,” Banage said, running his hands over his face with a long sigh. “I don’t want to hear any more about how you’ve twisted the most sacred bond of the Spirit Court. Honestly, Sara, how can you be so clever and yet understand nothing about what’s actually important?” He shook his head. “Truly, Eliton is your son.”

Sara arched an eyebrow. “Really? From his stubbornness, I’d say he’s more yours.”

Banage laughed at that, and the noise made her jump. It was such a nostalgic sound, and such a sad one.

“We’re a miserable excuse for a family,” he said, leaning back on his hands beside her. “A traitor, a thief, and a woman who’d give her right arm for a hint at the secrets of the universe.”

“Left arm,” Sara said, fumbling for her pipe before remembering she’d left it upstairs. “I’m right-handed.”

“Left arm,” Banage repeated. “Or another man’s lungs.”

“It is all a bit monstrous,” Sara admitted. “But it was necessary, Etmon.”

“Was it?” Banage said, his voice soft in the dark. “Did you ever think about maybe not striving so hard?”

Sara’s only answer to that was a scoff, and Banage sighed.

“You know,” he whispered, “I didn’t set out to be Rector. What I really wanted was to live with you and Eliton together. To be a family. A real one.”

“Well,” Sara said, “if that was what you wanted, you could have had it at any time. I was always willing. You were the one who left because you didn’t approve of my work, remember?”

“How could I forget?” Banage said. “You rub my face in it every chance you get.”

“Well, we none of us are quitters,” Sara said. “I don’t think I could have loved you were it otherwise.”

Banage reached out and grabbed her hand, squeezing her fingers so tight against his that his rings cut into her skin. For a moment, Sara could feel his power in the air, warm and heavy and wonderfully familiar. Then it was gone, and a great scraping of metal and stone filled the silent chamber.

“The soldiers will be coming now,” Banage said. “I wanted to make sure the water had a chance to drain away before they arrived.”

“Can’t have it falling back under my evil ways, eh?” Sara said, lying back against the stone.

Banage didn’t answer. But then, without warning, he leaned down and pressed his lips against her cheek. It was a soft, sad touch, filled with regret. It lasted a few heartbeats, and then Banage was standing, his shape vanishing into the dark.

“I’m sorry.”

The words were out before Sara could stop them. She didn’t even know what she was apologizing for. Hurting him, maybe, or putting him in prison, or just not being the person he wanted her to be. Maybe it was everything, but it didn’t matter. His answer came quickly, the words so sad they ached.

“So am I,” he whispered. “Good-bye, Sara.”

She tried to speak, but her voice wouldn’t come. Her throat was stuck, her tongue dry and useless. Powers, she wanted a smoke. A good pipe on a sunny balcony somewhere far away from the ruined shambles of her life. Instead, she got glaring lanterns and the thunder of boots as the soldiers surged into the cavern.

“Down here!” someone shouted. There was a string of curses and clanging metal as the men climbed over the downed tanks, and then she heard a man shout her name. The light moved to shine right in her face as a pair of young guardsmen dropped to their knees at her side.

“Lady Sara!” the one in the officer’s coat cried, holding his lantern high. “What happened?”

Sara pressed her fingers against her eyes, trying in vain to blot out the glare. “Too much,” she muttered. “Help me to the Merchant Prince. It looks like I get to ruin his day twice over.”

There was a chorus of shouts as the soldiers ran to obey. Sara let them lift her, too tired to protest when the pair of guardsmen slung her between them like an oat sack. She closed her eyes as they carried her past the destruction, past Sparrow’s body, still lying where it had fallen. Only when they’d climbed the stairs and emerged into the noise and light of the Council Citadel on high alert did she let herself look ahead to the long, painful, hateful, slow process of rebuilding, or at least patching over, everything that had shattered today.

“What was that, Lady Sara?” her guard asked, looking down.

“I said, get me a new pipe.”

“Yes, Lady,” the guard said, and then he turned to shout the order over his shoulder.

Sara scrubbed her eyes, breathing shallow against the growing pain in her back. Through the windows she could see the sunset painting the white walls of Zarin in bright oranges, as bright as Banage’s fire bird. Feeling slightly ill, Sara turned away, letting them haul her up the endless stairs to Whitefall’s tower.

Powers, this was going to be a long night.