"No."
"Yes." Simple. Certain.
"If you come back—"
"You'll what? Have another shadow tantrum?" She gestures at the ravaged roof. "This was very dramatic but ultimately unproductive."
Shadow tantrum. She called my complete loss of control a tantrum.
The worst part is she's not wrong.
"My guild thinks I'm up here murdering you."
"Good. Maintains your reputation while we discuss meal planning." She pulls out a folded paper. Of course she has lists. "I've organized by nutritional priority—"
"Stop." The word comes out exhausted. "Just... stop."
She does. Tilts her head. Waits.
I sit on the destroyed roof. Right there on the cracked stone. My shadows pool around me, no longer violent. Just tired.
"I was supposed to die." The words fall out. "Shadow users don't make it past thirty-five. I'm forty-one. Every day is borrowed time."
"Not anymore."
"You don't understand. I built everything knowing I had an expiration date. Made plans. Trained replacements. Accepted it." I stare at the city below. "You took that certainty away."
"I'm sorry." She sits next to me. Not close enough to touch but present. "Would you prefer to be dying?"
The question hangs there. Would I? The constant pain, the blood-taste, the spreading numbness—all gone. Replaced by this terrible wellness.
"I don't know how to be healthy." Another admission. "I don't know how to run things if I'm not dying."
"The same way but with vegetables."
I look at her. She's serious.
"It can't be that simple."
"Most things are simpler than they appear." She stands, brushes off her skirts. "Should we go back?"
"I just had a breakdown on my roof."
"Yes. Very dramatic. But your guild's probably worried."
"They're assassins. Everything they do is dramatic."
"Then we should return before they do something dramatically inconvenient."
She's right. Again.
I stand without her help. Gather my shadows. They respond sluggishly. The trip back down will probably hurt. Good. Pain makes sense.
"Tomorrow," I tell her. "You come in the back entrance. No audience. No converting torture chambers. Just... vegetables. And then you leave."
"Deal." Too easy. She's planning something. "Although the mold really does need immediate attention."
"One crisis at a time."
