All of it? “Why were you low on power?”
Zan shrugs. “Hadn’t transformed in a while. This mountain is—was—the only place in Kameya where it’s safe for me to. I normally use dyes to hide among the people in this empire, but I’ve been active here for long enough that the priests have become cannier about preventing me from accessing their sages.”
An old, vague memory surfaces. It’s been so long since he’s told me anything, I hadn’t realized— “You’re still smuggling sages out?”
Another shrug. “These days it’s mostly only if I can find them before the Order does. That’s gotten harder, too.”
Oh.
He’s been doing that for so long. A dedication so profound my mind has trouble encompassing it.
I can barely imagine spending lifetimes traveling, hiding, for the chance ofmaybebeing able to help a few people.
No wonder he conceals his emotions so easily, never being able to be open with who he is. The bigger surprise is that he’s lasted this long like that.
And yet—the world hasn’t gotten better.
It’s difficult for me to know how to reconcile that.
“So you came up here so the priests couldn’t follow you?” I ask.
Zan looks me in the eyes. “No. I came here in hope that your magic might prevent me from involuntarily transforming after death, so the priests couldn’t strip me for parts.”
My breath catches.
I was right. He did mean to die here.
Is that why he’s annoyed with me?
If I’m feeling conflicted discovering how much hasn’t changed in five hundred years, what must it be like for Zan, who’s lived it?
“But then you transformed anyway,” I say, whichisn’tmy fault. “And how can you shift back to human form so quickly anyway? Especially when you were so low on power.”
“I’m fine for now.”
What?
I stare.
He stares back.
I swallow hard, the sweet creaminess somehow clogging my throat now.
There’s a gap between us. Zan and I have been in proximity to each other, we’ve helped each other, but we don’t know each other, not really. I shouldn’t feel hurt that he’s not telling me all his secrets. He’s under no obligation to.
I do anyway.
That’s not his problem, though; it’s mine.
So I take a breath and summon my extensive emotional regulation training and look away first.
And then I notice that unlike me, the temple is clean. Like,pristineclean.
I swipe a finger along the ground like I did to my arm, and it comes back with only crumbs from my bread. What in the world?
“How am I so dusty when the rest of the temple isn’t? People couldn’t get in, butaircould, and there should have been—I mean, from before, weren’t there—”
Zan clears his throat. “I did some spring cleaning while you were sleeping.”
