do it on purpose, but it doesn’t matter. In some ways, it makes it worse.” She glanced at Celleriant; ice would have been warmer. Her voice dropped; the words, however, didn’t stop. “I did whatever I did at the Palace—and I’m sure someone will helpfully walk me past it on the way to the Hall of The Ten—because of the earth and the air. I could hear them. I couldn’t understand them, not the way I understand us—but I knew.
“I was angry,” she said, her voice dropping further. “I was angry at the damage. I was angry at their presence and their stupid fighting in the middle of The Terafin’s funeral. I was angry at the demons, at the death I couldn’t prevent. I didn’t think. I just reacted.” She laughed. It was not a happy sound. Angel’s silence wasn’t, either—but it was a comfort.
“Standing near the terrace—our terrace—I did something to the structure of Avantari. I might have killed people. I might have injured them—you don’t move chunks of stone like that and disturb nothing. I touched things I couldn’t even reach. Because I was angry.”
Angel shook his head. “Not because you were angry. You wanted to protect your home.”
“Most people can’t—”
“It doesn’t matter. They’re not you. You’re not them.”
“I was angry,” she said, denying the comfort he’d folded into the words. “I was angry because of what I’d already failed to protect. Morretz is dead,” she said. And then, because the bleakness was there and she’d already touched its sharp edge, she added, “The Terafin is dead. I’m not. It’s never me.”
“Don’t expect me to regret that.” The words were as low and intensely spoken as her own.
“I wanted the power. I wanted it because I could use it to protect my home. But I don’t want—” her breath was sharp, singular. “I don’t want a power that I don’t control. If I want to kill a man now—I mean seriously want a man dead—I can arrange that. But I’d have to be careful. I’d have to work. I’d have to plan my way around even the discovery of it. This way?” She laughed again. “I’d barely have to think. I don’t want that. I don’t want it to be so easy, because I can’t bring them back.
“I’ve had to apologize and grovel for the words that fall out of my mouth so many times I’ve lost track. But I can’t apologize and grovel to a corpse and expect to be forgiven. I can’t bring the dead back to life.”
“You have not killed,” Avandar said, in a voice that matched his expression.
“No. I was lucky.” She turned back to the window. “I know I’ll have to kill. I know it. I don’t know who, I don’t know when. But I know, Angel.”
“Let us do it.”
“No. If I can’t face it myself, if I can’t stain my own hands, how can I expect you to face it? I don’t want that, either.”
“We’re not your children,” he replied. “We’re your peers. Where you go, we go. If you kill, Jay, it’s because there’s no other choice.”
“Yes. Now. I want to keep believing that’s true.”
“Terafin,” Celleriant said, his voice twin to Avandar’s.
She grimaced. Half of his word was lost to the raised voices of irritated cats, and she was almost certain that one set of claws had pierced the roof from the other side. She didn’t, however, climb out the window to threaten them. The luxury of behavior that practical would never be hers again.
“If you will allow me?” Avandar said, lifting one hand and placing his palm very near where the damage had been done.
“Please. Just don’t piss them off so much they destroy the rest of the roof.”
* * *
The roads were, as expected, congested, even at this distance. Although it was early, and the army was not due to appear near the Common for some hours, The Ten, the Kings, and the Priests from the Isle were expected to arrive and arrange themselves before the rest of the citizens grew too numerous.
The Ten and the Kings did not divest themselves of guards, Swords, Chosen. They did not divest themselves of courtiers or attendants, counselors and advisers. If individually these companions were accustomed to the trappings and privilege of power, they were nonetheless constrained by the number of bridges and the guards that manned them. They were also, sadly, captivated by the sight of what Jewel assumed were Night and Snow, perched noisily above. Had she not been The