right to hold it. “What do you expect, after living with her four years?” she grumbled. She petted Chime. “And it’s true all the same,” she added stubbornly.
“The difficulty of actually binding you was a consideration,” Niko admitted, smoothing his moustache. “It would look very bad if we tried, and failed. Not that any of you would have had the bad manners to resist,” he added, raising his eyebrows at Tris.
She met his gaze defiantly, and saw a world of things in his dark brown eyes: the time they’d spent on the road, the many nights they’d discussed books, the way they looked out for one another.
He’d been the first person she’d ever known who understood her.
She smiled ruefully. “Well, maybe not,” she said. “Though I can’t vouch for Briar’s manners.”
Kethlun, steeped in depression, said gloomily, “Splendid. She’s a freak, and I’m a freak. We should be quite happy together.”
Tris scowled. “Get used to freakishness, my buck,” she informed him. “You have nowhere else to go, and lightning isn’t exactly the most biddable force in nature.”
Kethlun glared at her, red spots of fury burning on his cheeks. “I never asked for it! Never! I’d give it up if I could!”
“Well, you can’t,” retorted Tris. “Nobody can. Even the ones who want magic end up hating it sometimes. You have to work your life around it, not the other way around. Join the party and stop whining.”
“That isn’t kind,” Niko said with gentle reproof.
Tris lifted her chin. “I’m not a kind person. Everyone says so.”
“You mean you don’t want people to think you’re kind. You believe they’ll see it as weakness,” retorted Niko.
“Put yourself in this young man’s shoes,” added Jumshida.
“I don’t want anyone in my shoes,” Kethlun muttered, his voice slow. “I don’t want to be in my shoes.”
“Be silent,” Jumshida told him. To Tris she said, “Here is someone who has had this news dropped on him at an age when other mages are completing their studies. He — ”
“I was going to be head of the guild,” Keth interrupted, the slow words falling from his lips like stones. “Even without magic there was talk of me being named Glassmaker to the Imperial Court. You can always have a glass mage engrave signs or bless the sands for imperial work. I almost had enough to pay for a house. I had a good marriage arranged, with a pretty girl I like who doesn’t bore me. Then I had to go for a walk by the Syth. For inspiration.” A harsh noise that might have been a laugh came out of his mouth. “I got all the inspiration I can take.”
Tris propped her chin on her hands and glared at Keth. Lately she’d begun to think that her greatest flaw was her imagination. Listening to him, imagining herself in his place, she could see how it might have been easier if the lightning had killed him. Instead he was newly born, forced to grow up in weeks, not years, with all his thoughts as a man still in his head. He’d already mentioned the long struggle to make his body and his tongue work. Would she have the patience and determination it must have taken to do that for long, weary months, not knowing if she would succeed?
“Then we’re stuck with each other,” she told him, not allowing her surge of pity to touch her face or voice. “The sooner we get started, the sooner you can wield your magic, instead of it wielding you.”
“But first, I’ll tell Cook it’s two for supper, not one,” Jumshida said, getting to her feet. “Niko, we’re expected at Balance Hill at sundown. We must change our clothes.”
“What’s Balance Hill?” Tris asked.
“It’s where the Keepers of the Public Good live during their three-year terms of office,” Jumshida explained, walking towards the kitchen. “Our entire conclave has been honoured with an invitation to Serenity House.”
“Better you than me,” said Tris as Niko ran upstairs and Jumshida entered the kitchen. She looked at Keth. “Well.”
“Well,” he said, looking back at her.
Tris inspected him. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with strong, wiry muscles. His nose was short, his teeth white and even. His head was blocky, his gaze level, as if he were a rock she was not about to move. She’d noticed his short blond hair and the blueness of his eyes the day before, just as she had noticed his very large hands. Now she saw the burn marks that stippled his hands, and the