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Everything and nothing.

Nothing...

Loretto and I walk along a deserted street of Cabrakan, illuminated only by the deceptive light of the stars. We're walking toward my house. We shouldn't have probably wasted time and just teleported, but for that, I had to say something--voice the idea--and my mouth was dry.

And we're walking.

Loretto doesn't say anything, either, clutching the cake box to faer chest, not me, and fae doesn't mention my failed attempt to beg for a kiss. Either, like me, fae doesn't know how to discuss it, or doesn't consider it worthy of discussion...But I still don't understand what's hidden behind this silence! Can it be interrupted?

If I talk, will I get my face slapped?

Will I burn with shame?

Get mad?

Or maybe fae didn't react, just because my breath is bad? I think with sudden horror. Although I didn't even have time to open my mouth, just quirked my lips. And then fae should have given the chewing gum to me, not hide it in faer pocket...

If Loretto expects nothing from me but friendship, why not say it directly? And if that's the case, then why this silence tearing my heart to shreds? Tayen isn't afraid of uncomfortable conversations...so is it a dumb request to wait? Give faer time to get used to new feelings?

But I didn't see any feelings in Loretto's eyes.

Nothing.

Then what, Mentor doesn't care about me? Was that night at the hot springs really a joke, and sharks in aquariums grow, unaware of passions, in cold water?..

But if fae doesn't care about me, since I'm unworthy of faer love, why ask to visit my house, with a gift? After all, Cale, my shamanophobic brother, whose very name Loretto cannot stand, will certainly meet us there. Why put up with me for the last two months, day and night? Only to find out the plans of the Montejo family, really? Betray me to the Council? Beat Maricela, take revenge, survive and... that's it?

I do not believe it.

Shivering from the freezing midnight wind, I put my hands in my pockets. I glance at Loretto, but Tayen looks at the road in front of faer as if nothing has happened. No contempt on faer face, no embarrassment from the memories of my lips touching faers without asking. As if remembering all this is simply not interesting.

Well, all right.

So be it.

After all, Gen wasn't wrong either, when she said there was more to it than just being able to touch someone. The body is just a bonus and completely optional if something much more precious is open to you--the soul. I can listen to Loretto's velvety voice. Look into Loretto's all-knowing and bottomless, like the depths of the sea, eyes. We can read books in the library together, walk under the moon, have dinners...

I wish Loretto happiness, right? And if happiness for Loretto is when I don't touch and don't talk, so be it. I can keep touching myself at night. The important thing is, Tayen is here, and it won't get worse if nothing changes. Just friends, so be it.

But for some reason, my chest is still torn with disappointment...

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It takes more than an hour to walk around the broken streets of Cabrakan in mournful silence, and find ourselves in front of an old three-story house, the stone walls of which are painted with peeling yellow.

Almost the entire first floor is occupied by my mothers' shop, which is already closed. The shutters on the windows are folded, the lights off, and the front door with "Clothes and Fabrics" sign waxed to shine is locked.

There is a light on the second, residential floor, but behind the curtains, and it is unclear who is still awake. I hope nobody. I suddenly realize that I'm not ready to see my whole family at once right now. I'm not ready for their attention, questions, reproaches...I have already got used to the fact that I can walk through shamanic temples as an unnoticeable, free mirage, that the Empress's minions, if they look at me, do it secretly, and no one talks to me as a crowd, in chorus. And there's a crowd at home, and they comment on my every move...I don't even feel the joy of the anticipation of the meeting.

The longer I delay, comparing, the more absurd the moment becomes in my head. All those days that I spent among the shamans, my home was an unattainable dream for me. And now I'm looking at the worn steps of our veranda, which I've walked a thousand times, and they don't seem to be mine at all.

Elisey, who lived in this house and slept in it every night, could not imagine any new fate for himself. This was his paradise. That Elisey was afraid of silence and shamanic touches. He loved tiny corridors and small streets, and he felt uncomfortable in wide shaman squares, without shelter, in danger. He carried an aura ring with him everywhere, but he was afraid of magic as though punishment from heaven.

The former Elisey was not friends with sorcerers--he dreamed of destroying them! And he would rather commit suicide by throwing himself into the abyss than believe that the current Elisey would be happy to fall in love with his shaman-mentor named Loretto...

"Hmm, I imagined your house to be blue," my shaman-mentor named Loretto speaks for the first time in the last hour.

"It used to be. When my great-grandfather built it. Grandma then repainted everything except for the doors and the roof."

Gathering my courage, exhaling and mentally pretending to be my old self, I walk past the veranda, into the courtyard. To the back door, which leads past the store and straight into the kitchen.

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I knock on the back door and wait, but no one opens it. Time passes. Somewhere at the back of my mind, I even begin to hope that they won't open. Then I won't have to pretend to be both myself and someone else, get lost and nervous.

Although, of course, I understand that if they don't open, if I don't persuade Cale to postpone the uprising and let the conflict be resolved in a constructive way, Maricela will skin us all alive in a couple of days...Which means I have to knock.

I knock.

I knock and knock, staring at the ridiculous blue door, which does not match the color of the house, thinking how loudly the former Eli would have screamed and grumbled if he had not been immediately let in. But right now I don't want to grumble or scream, because Tayen is standing next to me and patiently waiting. Lately, with Loretto by my side, for some reason, I just want comfort and quiet warmth...

When, ten minutes later, footsteps finally approach the door and the latch grates, I begin to feel like a foreigner for real. Nevertheless, only a second of my stomach-churning uncertainty passes, and the door opens.

A tired, dissatisfied face appears in the doorway, vaguely resembling my reflection in the mirror--only seven years older, with larger forehead, unshaved cheeks, and brown curls cut shorter than mine.

Cale's eyes widen at the sight of me, as if I were a vengeful ghost who had come to devour everyone, but the next moment, his eyes are serious and gloomy again.

In contrast to me, Cale is considered to be a man of common sense and logic. As a child, I could have gone to cry and ask him, my older brother, for help, but he was used to getting what he wanted by himself, ignoring criticism. Like, perhaps, Loretto.

But if Loretto does everything silently and imperceptibly, Cale goes ahead unceremoniously. However, Cale is still able to control his emotional impulses, express only those that are useful. It's not subtle, but...rational. It's either truth or nothing, he always says. Apparently, that's why people like him: he never lies. Or he believes his own lies so much that it becomes an unshakable truth in the eyes of others.

And as I thought, today's truth is that Cale is not happy to see me. And he doesn't even try to take his discontent under control. So he's going to be rude.

"What is it?" he asks through his teeth. "Why did you come, Eli? Are you crazy? Did you decide to set us all up? I told you to stay in Tik'al. What the f--" He abruptly cuts himself off when he opens the door wider and suddenly discovers another person next to me--with a cake.

When Loretto meets Cale's gaze, however, fae doesn't get flustered or gloomy. No genuine feelings. On the contrary, Tayen breaks into a deceptively polite, almost unctuous smile, managing to make it both sly and simple-minded. Whatever you're looking for, there's everything in that smile. It's yours. Subtle.

And yet, it does not seduce Cale. He looks at us with disbelief, although now, suppressing his displeasure, he remains silent.

"We decided to stop by," I say, swallowing another wave of disappointment. No one needs me today. Why do I need everyone? "Before the Trials," I add, meaningfully wagging an eyebrow.

Without reacting, Cale looks at Loretto again. Then back at me. Maybe he's wondering if enemy shamans somehow forced us to come to the house of the leader of the revolution, and he's waiting for soldiers to jump out from behind the bushes.

Or maybe he thinks I'm a little rascal who was supposed to sit in the Great Temple and obediently wait for the rebels to rescue him from the imperial enslavers in front of everyone--and who instead came home himself. How can I be heroically saved now for an audience that is waiting for a spectacle, right?

"And this is my friend," I add, before Cale can ask a question. I look at Loretto out of the corner of my eye, trying to take an extra moment to think through my layered deception. "We met in the...laundry. Were washing pillowcases for shamans."

"You don't like making friends." My brother frowns.

I'm not good at making friends. "It's hard to survive alone when everyone has abandoned you among deadly sorcerers, Cale." I want this to sound like a hint of reproach, a hint about deadly sorcerers soon becoming my new family at this rate, but Cale ignores my allegories.

Cale is thinking about his own problems. He hesitates. I never imagined that one day I would have to explain myself in order to enter my own house. I'm sure, of course, my brother still trusts me, but he doesn't trust my flighty mind, which can plunge me into a pool of troubles. He's looking for a trick.

Fortunately, Loretto's ridiculous outfit contributes, and Cale does not recognize a shaman in front of him. He doesn't recognize my mentor, either, if he's even been informed that I have a mentor.

But I haven't thought of a name...

"I'm Tom," Loretto says, as if sensing that I need help. And, albeit a little feigned, but innocent, like a small child offering to be friends with another, fae hands Cale the cake.

This gesture breaks Cale's logic completely. He trained himself to foresee everything, but he did not foresee me, Tom, or the cake, and now he is staring at us like at a puzzle in which a lot of unnecessary details suddenly appeared.

When minutes pass, but there are no enemy soldiers or tricks in sight, and Mom's voice comes from the kitchen, complaining that dinner will get cold if he doesn't come, Cale gives up. With as much restraint as he can, to hide his confusion, he takes the gift from Loretto's hands and takes a step aside, inviting us into the house.

So, two shamans and their fierce enemy are under one roof. Behind our backs we are family, but in secret--we are foes. It seems that today I not only brought the details of Maricela's intrigues from Tik'al with me, but also the very game that I had hoped to avoid.

A game where they manipulate, kill, and plot. Where everyone has their own truth and their own goal, capable of destroying everyone else.

Just don't splatter the kitchen table with blood, Eli...

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