Candor woke the next morning with a sense of both relief and dread. Examining her memories of the day before as she dressed, Candor grew excited at the thought of training again with her sword. Even as she considered the Aiadar she would do that afternoon, the thoughts soured as she considered Choah’s machinations.
Did he leave me? Candor wondered yet again. Or did he exploit a problem he knew would seem accidental? Candor disliked that she leaned towards the latter. She missed being able to trust people. Thorn had seemed trustworthy, and indeed, the girls had trusted him quickly, only to feel unsafe in his presence. Well, Candor thought bitterly, relatively unsafe. She had chosen to remain with him until her departure for the Citadel. She missed Letti. She missed her moms, though, Candor paused, I don’t know how much I should have trusted them either.
Thoroughly irritated, Candor left her room for breakfast with a foul taste in her mouth. She was determined to find Choah that morning; she needed to know if he had helped her or abandoned her.
Choah was not at breakfast. Nor was he in the library; Candor scoured it after the meal. Distracted, Candor attended Carza’s class before wandering dejectedly to Merigold’s quarters. She caused no scene during class, though found herself working alone as the students gave her wide berth. Candor tried to focus on her work, and found delightedly that delving into her limitless mind, she could both accomplish majik fairly easily and wallow in angst about young men. Merigold gave Candor an odd look as she extracted essence after essence of the herbs, swirling them into the vials Merigold had left for them. Candor’s table was littered with glass tubes by the end of class. Some of the students, those who had only a few vials on their tables, gave her dark looks as they swept from the classroom.
“You might do well to make friends, Candor.” Merigold said gently, as Candor helped her replace the new additions to her apothecary.
Candor grimaced, dragging herself back to the present.
Growing annoyed, both at herself and Choah for his absent behavior, Candor jogged down to the tree in which she had hidden her sword the night before. Finding it safely in the branches, Candor retrieved it and set her course for the beach. Now that she knew the path, she moved quickly, much more quickly than she had with Choah.
She retraced their steps to the rocks and settled herself into the first stance of the Aiadar on their smooth, wide surfaces. She enjoyed the feeling of stone beneath her feet; she had been wearing boots for much too long. She fought better unconstrained.
Easily, she flowed through the stances, the indigo sword an extension of her body. She rediscovered that she did not need to compensate for its weight, as it seemed to weigh nothing when she held it. It sliced through the air quietly, driving her body to pivot and crest as if in battle. A small voice whispered in the back of her mind as Candor remembered the words of the witches. It will fail you in battle. Candor shook off the misty dread, choosing to remain in the moment.
Candor ran through the sequence several more times, before closing her eyes and considering the blank space behind her eyelids. She envisaged an enemy approaching on the rock. It lunged; Candor parried. As the imaginary attacker struck at her again, Candor launched into an invisible fight, making sure not to step off the rock, walking forward by memory.
Laughing as she struck the man through his heart, Candor opened her eyes. She half expected to see Choah; that was how his timing seemed to work, but she was as alone as when she had begun. Her heart sank, and Candor gritted her teeth. She flowed through the Aiadar again and again, but no matter how much she sweat, how much her muscles began to ache, she could not evict the small, irritating desire that curled into her heart. She needed to find Choah.
He was not at dinner. A few other students had disappeared from the table as well; Douine explained there was an illness going around. Merigold was fixing them up. A small rustle flickered around the table. From the whispers, Candor gathered that illness did not really occur at the Citadel, and thus it must have come from outside. Eyes glanced to where Candor sat, and it took much of her willpower not to roll her own eyes. Another thing to blame me for, Candor thought, frustrated.
Candor returned to her room that night, thoughts swirling feverishly. She slept fitfully. The next few days passed much the same way, with Choah’s absence weighing all the more heavily at each passing meal. As her meeting with the instructors approached, Candor began to worry, perhaps irrationally, that she would be expelled from the Citadel without every seeing Choah again. While the thought of exiting the Citadel alive was appealing, Candor was appalled at how deep her desire was to see the man again.
The night before her meeting, Candor tossed and turned. As she lay on her back, staring at the ceiling, Candor thought she heard footsteps in the hall outside her room. She stilled. The steps approached her door. Carefully, Candor secured her dagger under her pillow. She listened to the door open, and her stomach tensed. A shot of adrenaline ripped through her veins, though Candor remained still. She listened to the individual pause, leaving her unable to identify the person by their gate.
Slowly, hesitantly, the person slunk forward, until Candor guessed he was next to her bed. The breathing was choppy, but Candor was fairly certain who the intruder was.
Gently, he sat on her bed. Quick as a flash, Candor sat up, wrapped her legs around his torso, and held the dagger under his chin.
“What,” Candor hissed, “Are you doing here, Choah?”
Choah rasped something, and Candor realized her left hand was on his throat. She loosened her grip.
“I came to see you.”
“This is not a reason.” Candor quipped, “This is a description of the current situation.”
Choah shifted slightly, as if to face her, and Candor realized just how close she was to him. She could feel his abdominal muscles tighten under her thighs as he twisted. She felt warm. His breath blew strands of hair around her face, tickling her skin. It was all Candor could do not to tense; she would not let him know how nervous she felt. Nor would she pull away first; that would be defeat. Candor wished desperately she could see in the dark. The light from the night sky was shut out of her room as she had closed her window. She cursed herself for her paranoia, though noting the irony of its prescience.
“Where in the name of the Twins have you been?” Candor finally asked, voice low.
“I’ve been sick.” Choah answered smoothly. His voice rumbled through Candor’s chest, still pressed against him. She shivered involuntarily. He stilled, breath catching ever so slightly.
“You’re better.” Candor did not phrase this as a question.
“I am.” Choah’s voice was full of mirth. He lifted his hand and gently clasped Candor’s right forearm, pulling the dagger away from his throat. His thumb rubbed her skin for a brief moment, and Candor felt as though she had been burned.
“You didn’t answer my question.” She whispered, hating herself. She knew she was losing the contest of nerves.
“Do you want to go to the beach?” Choah asked.
“I—what?” Candor sputtered.
Choah chuckled, sending tremors through both of their bodies. Carefully, he began to unwind himself, taking care to be gentle as he removed Candor’s various limbs so as not to reject her touch. “I want to go to the beach. And I thought you might have some trouble sleeping tonight.”
“Why?” Candor, at first enjoying the sensation of Choah’s deliberate hands on her body, grew suspicious.
“Everyone knows you have your meeting tomorrow.” Choah answered innocently.
“Are there no secrets in this place?” Candor exploded.
“None.” Choah’s head shake disturbed the air, and Candor could almost hear him smile. “So, what do you say?”
“You are an impossible being.” Candor stood, feeling around for her clothes. She dressed as quickly as possible, intimately aware that Choah was still in the room, and, though the darkness cloaked her, she worried what her body might look like to him.
“You smell good.” Choah remarked curiously, as if the thought had caught him off guard.
“Thanks.” Candor muttered. She was glad the dark masked her blush. “Let’s go.”
Turning towards the door, she grabbed Choah’s wrist, now able to see slightly more as her eyes had adjusted, and dragged him outside.
Quickly, they jogged through the corridors, lighted by reflecting moonlight. Through the trees they flew, the moon providing enough light to see the roots, though both were familiar with the path. As the sounds of the sea crashing against the shore grew in volume, Candor breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever happens tomorrow, she thought, I will return to the sea.
As they broke onto the sand, Candor marveled at the light of the stars. She looked around and frowned.
“Why is there only one moon?” Candor asked.
“There are two stories.” Choah turned to head towards the rocks. “One is that there are two moons, one is simply always full, the other is always new. They never wax and wane because we are in a bubble of time here. The second story,” Choah grinned, his teeth flashing as he turned to face Candor, “is that the other moon is the first of the Fae, dropped down from the sky and that is why they do not age nor grow ill. That is why they hold majik they way they do; they are moondust.”
Candor made a face. “What is the real answer?”
Choah shrugged, stepping over stones back to Candor. “I don’t even know if the witches know that.”
“I’m sure they do.” Candor crossed her arms.
“Think they know everything do you?” Choah said in his mocking way. He stopped a hairsbreadth from her arms, his heat coloring the air between them. “Sometimes we know more.”
“I don’t.” Candor would have shaken her head if Choah had not been so close.
“No?” Choah grinned and stepped back, his eyes hard. “Think you’re made of moondust?”
Candor rolled her eyes but felt winded, as if she had taken a light punch to the gut. Irritated, Candor walked down the rocks, hip checking Choah slightly as she did so. He danced out of her way. Candor paused at the very end of the rocks, staring out into the open ocean. She breathed deeply. The ocean felt free to her, a live current that offered her the will to endure.
Turning slightly at the sound of pattering feet, Candor stepped backwards quickly as Choah launched himself off the end of the jetty, wearing nothing but his breeches. He was quite muscular, Candor noticed, and he, like she, was covered in scars.
He surfaced, shaking his head and sending little ripples of light across the swelling surface.
“Come in.” Choah called. “I want to show you something.”
Candor began to feel as though she were experiencing a practiced tradition; this was too rehearsed, too calculated to be spontaneous. Never one to miss out on the water, however, Candor stripped her tunic off, leaving her chest bind and trousers on before diving into the ocean.
Being underwater renewed Candor like little else. The whole world fell silent, offering Candor the briefest of reprieves from the cacophony above.
As Candor emerged, she looked around to find Choah grinning at her. Her stomach lurched. “Watch this.” He said.
Muttering, Choah closed his eyes for a few moments. The top of the water began to swirl in front of him. Slowly, sensuously, a spout of water grew from the center of the little whirlpool. It grew a few transparent leaves, a little bud, and then it bloomed, petal by salinized petal.
Candor opened her mind, letting herself understand the wordless hymn that was holding the water-flower in place. As gently as she could, she asked the majik to let her pluck the flower from its surface, and when she received permission, she did so, kicking to keep herself afloat.
Softly, Candor learned the majik that Choah was expending, and as kindly as she could, she took it over, pushing his mind from the tune that bound the water in place. With two fingers, she plucked the flower from the top of the sea and lifted it to her nose, winking at Choah who looked absolutely astonished.
“Would you like to smell?” Candor asked.
Choah shook his head, and Candor shrugged as much as the sea would allow. “Pity.” And she returned the water to its greater parent element.
“How did you do that?” Choah asked incredulously.
Candor considered trying to explain her limitless mind but decided not to. “I don’t know.” She said honestly. “It just comes to me.”
“Uh huh.” Candor could see Choah’s expression close, and she wondered if she should have trusted him.
“You are more powerful than all of us here, and we have been here for a long time.” Chaoh said slowly. He leaned back, allowing himself to float. Candor continued to tread.
She did not respond right away. Finally, Choah flipped himself back up to meet her eyes. “Don’t you think?”
Candor shrugged and smiled half-heartedly. “Moondust.” The water rippled as her shoulders resubmerged.
Choah paused before laughing. It was a true laugh, uncalculated and offered out of sheer surprise. It was rare. Candor loved it.
They lapsed into a companionable silence. Candor kicked back to look at the stars, letting herself suspend between two impenetrable darknesses.
When she sat back up to face Choah, she discovered he was watching her. An odd glint sparked in his eyes, but before Candor could process what she had seen, it vanished.
“Shall we return?” He asked, voice slightly hoarse.
Candor nodded. She dove away from him, spinning into the dark water, luxuriating in the feel of it against her skin. The sea made her feel pure, as if it were washing away any and all land memory from her muscles, her mind.
Climbing back onto the rocks, Candor flopped down beside her tunic and tucked her hands behind her head. Coah joined her, not too close, but not far enough for her to forget his presence.
The moon wavered in the sky, and Candor felt at peace. She enjoyed the silence, and for a brief moment, she could forget everything about herself, the man next to her, the companions she had abandoned. All that existed were the stars and the rocks and the sea.
“And by the waves, a siren called, a sad-sweet voice that he did crave, she walked along the surface sea, and gave her hand, she bent her knee, but he could never know her home, nor find her bed between the foam, and so he drowned beneath her feet, her song a last lament, sad-sweet.”
Candor rolled over and looked at Choah, who still faced the stars. “What was that?”
“A Lords’ lament.” Choah answered, smiling. “It’s an old poem that every Durevinian sailor knew. Someone put a tune to it, and now it’s a shanty that is sung on the docks quite often. Or it was, at least.” Choah rolled over to face Candor, propping himself up on his elbow. “I like it without the music. There’s something that heightens its loneliness, its futility, when it’s just words.”
Candor smiled despite herself. “There’s never any happy literature is there?”
“None worth remembering.” Choah chuckled. “Happy isn’t interesting. The contented fall into the tides of history. They are the swells atop which the kings ride, the heroes, the martyrs.”
“Is it better to be happy and forgotten, or remembered for your misery?” Candor half-joked.
Choah took the comment seriously. “You are not remembered for your misery; you are remembered for your legacy. But rarely does one come into a legacy without pain and suffering. Perhaps never has this happened. The great are often misunderstood, but at least they pass into legends.”
“It sounds like a life full of guilt and isolation.”
“Perhaps.” Choah’s eyes bored into Candors as if willing her to understand. “But it is a worthwhile life, and isn’t that what we all crave?”
“I don’t know.” Candor answered honestly. “I have not lived long enough to know what I want.”
“This is true.” Choah’s sincerity melted back into his sardonic tone. “You are a child.”
Candor felt her heart drop, and her throat constrict.
“Hey,” Choah’s volatile nature disquieted Candor. “Did you get the sword?”
Candor made a split-second decision based on instinct alone. “No.” She turned away. “I lost my nerve.”
Choah’s face darkened. “Pity.” His voice was cold.
Candor could sense his disappointment.
“You had the opportunity.”
Candor desperately wanted to ask if he had caused the crash.
“Did I?” She wanted Choah to sit up and look at her.
“Some plates fell.” Choah sounded uninterested.
“You pushed them?” Candor tried to keep her voice light, uncaring.
Choah finally sat up. “Let me ask you something,” he said firmly. “If there is a weakness to be exploited, an opportunity that would avoid your signature, wouldn’t you capitalize on that?”
“And if there is no opening?” Candor asked desperately. She was unsure she was following his logic.
“Then you make one.” Choah stood. “Let’s return.”
Slightly stung at the abrupt end to the evening, Candor followed Choah back through the forest, still unsure what hand, if any, he had in her diversion.
“I’ll see you.” Choah half turned at the entrance of the Citadel. “Good luck tomorrow.”
“Thanks.” Candor scowled. She allowed herself to grow anger in her heart instead of sorrow.
“Hope you find your sword.” Choah called over his shoulder.
Candor gritted her teeth and looked back despite herself. Choah had disappeared.
Candor returned to her room to wait for the two suns to rise. She wondered half-heartedly about the single moon, but that fascination did not long occupy her mind as thoughts of Choah invaded, crashing like the waves they had just departed.
Why, Candor thought miserably, do I care at all what he thinks?
Stuffing a pillow over her head, Candor struggled to maintain herself as the last few hours passed and she rose once more, tired and sad.
She dressed quickly, her clothes smelling of salt and sea, and descended to breakfast. After a few bites of the meal and a quick wash, Candor trouped to Carza’s office in the library.
She knocked and the door flew open. “Where is Douine’s office?”
He bade her to follow. Candor’s pulse raced as the man wound his way through the Citadel. Her heart dropped as they slowed in front of a dark door. It was not Douine’s personal office, but rather the study Candor had broken into to find her sword.
Carza stepped back to allow Candor to open the door; he followed her in. The hinges creaked slightly, and Candor felt as if it had hit her. Her mind flitted between its closed and limitless state, until Candor just gave up and let her mind wander, unbounded. She felt the presences of all the witches in the room. She saw the tune that bound the wardrobe, the invisible song she had parted a few days before to retrieve her sword. She noted the curve of the air, the invisible breath of the witches, the small sun slips on the floor.
Carza settled himself at the end of the long table in front of the wardrobe. A chair sat in front of the table, alone.
Douine gestured for Candor to sit. Candor did so.
No one spoke for a moment. Candor remained still; her mind wandered the room.
“Please withdraw into yourself.” Douine finally said.
“Sorry?” Candor didn’t understand.
“You are at the boundaries of our minds, please retract your own.”
Candor tried but found herself too agitated to bind herself.
“I cannot.”
“Yes,” Farn nodded, voice sharp, “this is what I am talking about. She has no control.”
“Which would imply she has much to learn.” Carza said gently.
“She is a danger and should not be taught any additional skills.” Farn retorted, her voice growing shriller with every rejoinder.
“Enough.” Douine raised a hand and the room fell silent. “Candor, I told you we would try to offer you answers, and you waited for us. I appreciate that. However,” she paused. “We need you to be honest with us as well.”
Candor, feeling trapped, nodded. “I don’t know as much as you think I do.”
Douine nodded. “Tell us how you came to be at the Citadel.”
Candor, uncomfortable at revealing her only leverage, recounted how Lola’s words had echoed through her mind, how they had found Thorn in the Kotemor, how she had discovered her identity. She recounted traveling through the whirlpool, her trials, her decision to throw her sword. She tried to mask that Choah had used majik during their fight, and she omitted her unknown savior in the deep, but she included Thorn’s drinking of her blood, and her oath to Cairlaen.
Finally, Candor fell silent and waited.
The witches stared at her. Candor felt something shift between their presences and observed their minds with her own. Something flitted between them, she could tell, but she couldn’t explain the change.
“I could not tell you how your mothers were found. Nor can I tell you how you came to be in their custody, nor who your birth parents are.” Douine spoke slowly. “I can tell you your mothers were powerful for a long time. They served in Durevin for several generations, party to a lot of political knowledge. We thought,” Douine hesitated, “they had transformed into wraiths. We were unsure of their fates; when the Mad King called the witches to his throne, they were already in attendance. From there, it was too hard to know what had happened to our brethren. They did not do his bidding, as far as I am aware, but again, we knew little at the fall.”
Candor tried to keep her breathing steady. “How old were they?”
Duoine shrugged. “I do not know. They had left the island long before I attended the Citadel.”
Blyth shifted slightly.
“As to why your mother sent you here, I do not know that either, save that she hoped we might teach you some control.”
At this, Farn made to interrupt, but Merigold shushed her. “It is right.”
Candor watched this interaction with a growing dread.
“You were likely not taught majik because your mothers did not wish you to lose what little humanity you were born with. You see—”
“We are going to give her this information freely?” Farn interrupted. “We need to understand her power before we give her anything else.”
“I mean you no harm.” Candor, bewildered at Farn’s continued vitriol, strove to reassure the council.
Douine, irritated at being interrupted sighed. “Candor, will you promise to endure our tests if we reveal all we know?”
Candor considered. “No.” She shook her head.
Farn looked triumphant. “See?”
Douine turned her body to face Farn, “Don’t speak again.”
Farn, eyes glittering, shrunk back but did not open her mouth.
“Then unfortunately Farn has a point. We must test your abilities now.”
“You are not very good at negotiating, are you.” Candor sighed. Despite her distrust for the conversation and ensuing exam, she also recognized that she had no leverage herself.
“Let’s begin.”
Somewhat surprised, Douine nodded. “Open the window.”
Candor frowned, before asking the wind to open the shutters.
“She is beyond this.” Farn hissed.
“Recount what you know of the ancient language.” Carza instructed.
Candor attempted to remember the words and conjugations she had learned since she’d arrived, but Carza interrupted her. “I know what I have taught you. I want to know how you interact with the first language.”
Candor paused, “It would be easier if I could show you.” She said. “You are welcome in my mind.”
“It is a trap.” Farn hissed.
Carza gazed at Candor, his expression inscrutable. “Show me.”
Candor nodded. She felt Carza’s mind reach out to hers, and she opened her own mind. Instead of feeling the presence like a closed rock, as she had Farn’s, Candor could see memories, majik, color that flickered as Carza’s mind entered her own. She welcomed him, absorbing memories on the surface, learning pieces of his personality. Candor smiled. Softly, so as not to frighten him, Candor showed him how she asked the air to move, the wood to listen to her. She showed him how she conversed with the space between things, the stone, and standing majik. Candor noticed how limited Carza’s mind was. Though beautiful and engaging, Carza’s mind did not ring with majik as hers did. It was powerful and deep, but it ended more quickly than Candor expected. Perhaps it was simply the part of himself he had offered her.
As kindly as she could, Candor began to nudge Carza from her mind, and he retreated.
“That,” he said when he returned to himself, “was a privilege.” He smiled warmly at her. “Thank you, Candor.”
Candor smiled shyly. She found her angst somewhat allayed and was able to return to herself, retreating from her limitless state.
“She has immense potential.” Carza said to his brethren. “We could provide her structure, but she will not be able to study majik the way humans do. It will only limit her.”
Farn snorted.
“She is not a threat.” Carza addressed Farn, “She could have accessed all of us, and she did not.”
Farn shrugged. “Try the universe test.”
The witches, shocked, all turned to ogle their colleague. “That will burn her.” Tabor spoke.
“I don’t care.” Farn shook her head. “I will not be dissuaded.”
The rest of the council looked to Douine, who in turn, looked at Candor.
She took a deep breath. “We are going to put you in darkness.” She finally said. “You must find your way back to us.”
Candor’s stomach flipped. “Alright.”
“Do not fight it.” Douine cautioned.
“Don’t help her.” Farn snapped.
Candor nodded, ignoring Farn, and slipped once more into her fluid consciousness. As she did so, she felt a surge of energy from the witches, and then there was nothing.
Candor blinked. She could not feel the chair she had just been sitting on, nor could she sense the witches. She looked down to discover her hands were gone; she was bodiless, hollow, without form in the midst of nothing. Candor tried not to panic. The space felt so empty that a crushing loneliness came over her and she felt pain. Carefully, she turned upside down, reversing her understanding of the space. Nothing felt like up or down, left or right. She felt lost.
Candor took a moment to exist. She tried to understand the space. She let her mind expand but felt nothing with a name she could meet. She returned to herself again, considering. Return, she thought desperately, return to them. She thought of the beginning of all things and Anaia and thought of the stars. She remembered the name of a breeze that had tickled her cheeks in her room. She called to it, inviting it into and out of the space. It came to her, much like the flower shaped from water, and in the presence of the air, Candor was formed. She existed against something now, not simply alone within space. She invited the trees and the water and the stone whose names she had learned. Considering her guests, Candor asked of them to bend. She asked the tree to fall to the earth. She asked the stone to break, and she molded it into a jagged edge. Slowly and carefully, asking only what she knew each thing could give, Candor created a door. As Candor finished the door, she turned to her guests in the darkness, and she released them, thanking them for joining her in the nothingness.
Then, Candor faced the door.
She asked the door to take her back, asked it to open into her mind, for Candor had come to understand she was still in her mind, she simply needed to return to her body.
Once she was satisfied that the door would open, Candor grasped its side and pushed through.
Candor opened her eyes to find six witches staring at her, thunderstruck.
“What…” Merigold breathed, “what are you playing at?”
Even Douine, sanguine through the entire meeting, looked stricken.
Candor felt a curious sensation come over her, then slumped in her chair, exhausted. “Was that from the majik?” She asked, slurring her words. No witch moved to help her.
“She cannot be here.” Farn said quietly, all her ice evaporated from her voice. “She is taught.”
“She is not taught.” Douine finally recovered herself. “She is Fae.”
“Half-Fae.” Candor corrected sloppily. She wondered why she was so tired.
“For now.” Someone muttered, but Candor was not sure she heard right. Her vision had begun to blur; all she wanted to do was sleep. She roused herself.
“You owe me answers.” She felt as though her lips were made of clay. “I did the test.”
“You have not been honest.” Farn’s voice had recovered its cool disdain. “We cannot trust you with information.”
“I have been honest.” Candor tried to defend herself. “I have not studied majik.”
Farn rolled her eyes. “I have one more test.”
“That’s not fair.” Candor struggled to sit up. “You promised me answers—”
“Once the tests were done.” Farn touched her fingertips together and peered over them. “Something was stolen in this Citadel. We do not tolerate thievery.”
Candor looked at Douine, hopelessly searching for some escape from this final torture. “You promised answers.”
“Find the stolen thing, and you will have your answers.” Farn sat back in her chair, looking remarkably satisfied.
“This is how you build trust?” Candor asked stupidly. “You break your promises?”
“You did not listen closely to the agreement,” Farn snapped, “and you have no power to act.”
“What is it that you’ve lost?” Candor asked. All she wished now was for this interaction to be done. She could feel just how close she had been to answers, and she had blown her chance by honoring honestly. I should have lied, she thought sluggishly.
“Bring it, and we’ll know.” Douine sat back too, mirroring Farn.
Losing her greatest ally, Candor stood. She knew the battle was over. “I’ll have something for you tomorrow.”
Candor stood, but before she left, she turned back. “You speak of trust. But your actions invite me to lie, not to be honest. If this is what you teach all your initiates, then you are quite right. I have no wish to take a place here.”
As she left, Candor caught the looks exchanged between the witches on the way out. They were frightened. She was too tired to feel satisfaction at their emotions.
Candor stood a moment in the hallway, hoping she might hear through the door any additional conversation, but found only silence. She stalked off to her room, barely upright. Flopping down on her bed, Candor didn’t bother mentally unpacking the recent events. She fell into a deep, black sleep.
~.~
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