A leather volume on a lower shelf catches my eye: "Anatomical Studies of Shadow Beings." I drift toward it.
Päivi blocks my path, becoming a wall of swirling text. "Don't."
"I was just looking."
"Looking leads to touching. Touching leads to reading. Reading leads to ideas above your station." The pages forming her face rearrange into contempt.
"You seem certain."
"I've seen it before. Humans arrive with weapons and plans. They last days, maybe weeks. Then they're gone, dead, dismissed, or mad from the impossibility of this place."
"Maybe I'm different."
"You're not." She starts dispersing, then pauses. "Although... you made him solid for seventeen minutes during training. That's unusual."
Before I can ask what that means, Mikaere's footsteps announce his arrival. He carries a tray, a bowl of steaming, purple stew that smells of mushrooms and lightning, and a flask of cool water.
"Meal," he says, setting it down.
I eat while he watches, the silence heavy. He's waiting for something. The food has an odd taste, not unpleasant, but unlike anything from my world. The water is impossibly cold, tasting of stone and deep earth.
"You're expecting me to attack," I say between bites.
"You will. The question is when."
"And you'll be ready."
"Always."
"Must be exhausting."
"Less exhausting than reconstituting my master from scattered shadow."
I set down the cup. "That's happened?"
"Three times this year. Each time takes more effort. Each time, he returns less solid."
"Why tell me?"
"So you understand what your delay costs."
"My delay?"
"Every hour you spend plotting is an hour closer to his dissolution."
"Maybe that's what should happen."
The temperature plummets. Mikaere's form shifts, crystalline veins pulsing with cold light.
"You know nothing. You see a monster who bought you. You don't see the being who held back the Void for two millennia. Who saved seventeen civilizations from extinction." He leans forward slightly. "You don't see the being who has hunted your sister's killer for three years."
My blood freezes. "What did you say?"
But Mikaere is already walking away. "The master has requested your presence tonight. Be ready."
"Wait, what about my sister?"
He's gone, the archway sealing behind him.
