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Love is easy. But you have to trust the person you're in love with--and that's hard.

So far, I only trust the idea that Loretto is hiding something from me.

Following Tayen from as far as I can to avoid getting caught, I soon find myself in one of the market squares.

Lo does not pay the slightest attention to the stench and heat around the market, and goes about faer business purposefully and freely, like the wind. When Loretto stops at a flower tent, fae begins to ask the saleswoman about something and inspect the flowers. Even from the opposite side of the street, I can see Loretto's graceful, attentive fingers examining the tender buds.

What kind of secret acquaintance you go to visit with flowers after a night with me? I can't help but grumble under my breath.

Yes, I'm definitely jealous. And I guess I'm being selfish.

As a child, I always had to share toys with Ariane. I wore Kofi's old shoes, and Cale's shirts that he'd grew out of. I am selfish, because all that did not teach me to be an extrovert, but only forced me to cherish all rare treasures that belong to me. And mentor is my treasure. Only mine.

When Loretto leaves the market square without buying anything, a new thought creeps into my head: maybe Lo knows that I'm watching? Is fae mocking me?

But no.

Once in a narrow alley where not a soul lives and where I have to hide behind garbage buckets to remain unnoticed, I see Lo stop. Fae looks around, waits, and then makes the strangest gesture: fae draws the outlines of a jasmine in the air with fae hand.

I've only seen such sophisticated magic once--when Maricela forced me to teleport the blade that was in my hand into her own.

I don't notice any spark, aura, or mini-portal on Loretto's fingers. No, a modest bouquet of one jasmine inflorescence, resembling a ball of blue five-leaved flowers, appears in Lo's hands literally out of nowhere.

"You don't have any aura gemcoins with you," I remember in a whisper. Mentor left the last one to the baker yesterday for the cake, and Lo does not like to steal. At least, in public.

Satisfied with the result, Loretto walks on, with the flower now.

I'm behind.

We pass several more streets and featureless blocks, but Lo doesn't slow down, not for a moment. Fae knows exactly where fae's going. But where? Lost in my frustration, I don't even notice when Lo leaves the streets behind.

My heart skips a beat when we both find ourselves in the opening at the edge of the city, and I realize that Lo now only needs to turn around to see me. And there's nowhere to hide anymore.

However, Lo doesn't turn around.

Mentor continues to move forward without looking back. Fae goes to the cemetery. An old, forgotten cemetery lost in weeds and overgrown with trees broken in bad weather. Even on such a hot day, there is a cold fog there, as if in some otherworldly dungeon, which inspires only fear. It seems that once you enter there, you will never leave...

This cemetery is called the Forest of White Stones, although all its white stone tombstones have long since turned black. I've only been to this cemetery myself once--in my early childhood, when Ma insisted on showing Cale and me the crypt where our great-grandfather's body lies.

I know that no one has been buried in the Forest of White Stones for probably a hundred years, although for a shaman, such a period is probably like a couple of moments. And Loretto hasn't had any family for over a hundred years, which means...

"Lo? Are you going to your family's grave?" I guess in a whisper, and something clenches in my chest with shame.

But really, how could I so ignorantly believe that a person like Lo would go looking for carnal pleasures on the side? "What an idiot I am."

"I'm sorry." My whisper is carried away by the wind.

Loretto still doesn't notice me, doesn't hear me rustling the grass behind faer back, blaming it all on the wind and birds, and so we walk between the tombstones, path after path, finding ourselves deeper into the cemetery gloom. I feel uneasy from the damp, which abruptly replaced the heat, from the smell of the earth and tombstones eaten by moss and time...

And Lo is still waking.

Only now, in this frightening atmosphere of lifeless peace, the words of the homeless man who caught me and Mentor at the bakery last night pop up in my head. Didn't he say that the First Blood was seen in this very cemetery?

And if Lo goes not to faer parents' grave, but to meet her? A shiver runs down my spine at the thought.

Ian said that my mentor was hiding from the First Blood...but what if Lo decided to return to her to ask for her help in the fight against the Empress Ixchel?

Why did I so willingly swallow Ian's idea that the First Blood was an evil witch who oppressed her apprentice? Even if she's Maricela's ancestor, she's not bound to help her, right? Maybe that's why First Blood has been staying away all these years--because she doesn't share her granddaughter's views. She doesn't want to help her. And maybe Lo, as a child who lost faer family because of Maricela's war, was raised by the First Blood to replace her on the throne.

And my mentor is ready for faer finest hour.

The three-day Trials begin tomorrow, and when it's Lo's turn to perform...the fate is predetermined.

But I shouldn't have come here, then. I can't even imagine what the first witch in history looks like. Like a deceptively charming girl? An old mummy? Maybe she has a secret residence here. Or a portal to St. Daktalion, where, according to all the gossip, she lives.

I don't want to see her.

She'll know for sure that I'm lying to Lo about silver and my jealousy.

I freeze.

My mouth goes dry.

I look around.

I feel a chill, like a touch of an invisible dead hand, creeping up my back.

And when Loretto also suddenly stops in the middle of the thicket, I realize with horror that I cannot face the ancient force that my mentor came here to rendezvous with.

Turning around, I run away.

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After a lonely, quiet walk back to Tik'al, I feel exhausted and dejected, but somewhere behind this dejection, calmness begins to emerge.

In the end, nothing bad still happened; on the contrary, everything is better than I expected, if you think about it. If the First Blood is ready to support Loretto in the Trials, then the throne is almost ours. And after the victory, no one will dare to go against Lo and try, as I was afraid, to challenge faer right to wear the crown at the sight of such a powerful patron.

Even Cale.

Since childhood, I imagined myself as a punisher, if not an executioner of all shamans, a warrior, a rebel, and now...I want to be a peacemaker.

But what does this role imply?

That I shouldn't be angry.

I can't be jealous.

"I will remain in history as the first Montejo to fall in love with a shaman, can you imagine?" I say sourly, noticing a large wild parrot perched on a tree branch when I get out of the ruins of the wall surrounding Tik'al.

The parrot, twirling its red tail, looks at me with a completely unintelligent, glassy stare in response.

After looking around and not finding anyone else, I pull out a bag of silver pearls from my pocket. Thinking a little, I go deeper into the thickets that hide Tik'al's secret passage, walk past the weeds, past the cobblestone where Mentor was waiting for me in the dark last night, and choose a taller tree--a jacaranda.

The truth is, I don't want to keep the silver pearls. I won't be happy, because I no longer like this outcome: neither the one where Cale wins by killing half of the enclave, nor the one where Maricela wins by killing the other half.

No, I want to be a peacemaker. I want to prove to everyone--and first of all, to myself--that I am able to choose my own path, and not repeat the fate of my greedy ancestors.

After a night of rain, the earth is soft. I throw the bag of silver into the pit I dug without the slightest regret, bravely.

And to be honest, Loretto isn't the only one with a plan.

Loretto is not the only one with a secret today.

Quickly burying the silver and stamping the ground with my feet so that my trick would not be discovered, I get back to my feet. I carefully shake the dirt off my hands and jeans and before leaving, squinting in the sun, I finally look at the parrot basking in the branches behind me.

"You tell someone about my hiding place," I tell the bird, "I'll find out and make a barbecue out of you. I'm sure you taste like chicken."

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Having returned to the Great Temple that has become my home in recent months, I enter Loretto's apartment. I put carrot cookies, chicken wings and stewed cabbage that Mom gave us on plates.

And then I eat myself, because I no longer have the strength to walk to the cafeteria.

Sipping cold coffee, I quickly compose a letter to Pablo, the best friend of my malicious brothers. I have to try to write with my right hand, which is unusual, so that my handwriting is not recognized.

"Pablo, then? Don't ask me who I am, but let's get to know each other.

They say you don't mind betraying your friends for the sake of power... Commendable. Dishonest, but effective. I have a suggestion for you. Her Majesty's councilor, with whom you made a deal, is unfortunately dead, but I will kindly take his place.

The conditions are still the same: you do everything to ensure that Cale Tamm's revolutionary plans remain plans and report to me about his every action. In exchange, I will help you undermine his authority, you will quickly rise up the career ladder and take Tamm's place as the unspoken leader of your dreary rebel world. It would be much more pleasant for you to play the king of the opposition than to die in its next attempt at rebellion, wouldn't it?

If now you're thinking about going to complain about this letter to someone...drop these thoughts. Ixchel will soon lose the throne and a new shaman will take her place, a shaman who will not cover for you, and Tamm will break your spine for past betrayals. The choice is no choice. Think about it.

P.S. I will wait for your answer personally. The day after tomorrow at dawn, in Awilix Square. You'll recognize me by a black ribbon on my wrist."

When I'm done, I find one of Lo's black ribbons, tie in around my wrist, and reread my letter three times. It doesn't look bad. If Pablo decided that he could work with shamans behind my brother's back, why can't I use him to my advantage.

I hid the silver, I didn't throw it in the cafeteria pots, which means that tomorrow, when Cale finds out that every single shaman is healthy, at the peak of their magical powers and ready to participate in the Trials, he won't risk storming Tik'al.

Of course, I will have to tell my family sooner or later that I am a shaman. But if I tell the whole truth after the Trials, when Lo has already won, my family will have no choice but to accept the new truths. To listen.

And it turns out that I am still in control of the revolution. I just don't start it--I stop it.

The sun is still high, but my body aches from moving around the city, and after returning to my apartment and a warm shower, which washes away the remnants of the earth from under my nails, my arms and legs ache and ask to go to bed.

Daytime sleep is a cure for uncertainties, and I tiredly allow myself to crawl under the blanket. In the late afternoon, I can get up, meet Lo and spend another night full of affection in the arms of my loved one.

And then all that remains is to survive the Trials.

Easy.

Whatever lies ahead from now on, Lo and I are ready for everything. This time we will succeed.

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