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I can almost feel the time ticking away, clammy and sluggish, as Loretto and I stare at each other, alone and in silence, just as we were in the vestibule the first time we met. And that first meeting didn't end well.

Worry swirls in my chest as I wait for Loretto to start scolding me, but fae only slowly flexes faer ringed fingers, waiting.

"Well, I..." I see no knives in faer hands, sense no crazed wind that can hit my back against the wall again. That must mean my mentor is in quite a good mood, despite the councilor's offensive request to help me. "I'll mop the floor, and you can gather the pots," I suggest cautiously.

Loretto harrumphs. I watch my mentor walk over, push the tools aside, clearing the corner of one of the tables, and then hop to sit on the tabletop, faer legs dangling. "You can mop the floor, and you'll also gather the pots," Loretto says, giving me an insipid smile.

Rationally, I should like to punch that cocky grace of a teacher for this answer too, but it seems I've spent all my today's temper on Valto. Besides, what did I expect from a shaman who threatened me the last time we spoke? Not sympathy, definitely.

I spend a whole hour, if not more, walking in circles and gathering all the jars and pots and bottles from the floor and putting them where they were. Thankfully, nothing is broken, otherwise I'd probably have to puzzle the pieces together. Loretto watches me intently and ceaselessly, but says nothing, nor do I hear any mockery--that's something, right?

"I started that fight partly because of you, you know," I finally say, hating being silently spied on. "Valto said-- He said some nasty things, which included you, too."

Faer legs swinging, Loretto raises a brow at me. "Is it so? And you thought I was a damsel in distress who needed a defender of her honor? Adorable." Fae doesn't look tired today--worse, fae looks cheerful and content, pulling a small paper box out of the pocket hidden in the fold of faer robe as fae speaks. Opening the lid of the box, Loretto takes a cookie out. "Next time, fancy thinking twice?"

Carrying the last jar to the table beside my mentor, I stop in my tracks. The cookies. The ones my family sent me and, as Gen said, Loretto confiscated, I'll recognize Cale's cookies anywhere. Has fae been carrying my cookies with faer the entire week just to chew them in front of me? Bitch. "Those are mine."

"I know." Finishing the first one, Loretto bites another. Still unfazed. "Never thought carrot cookies could be this delicious. Want some?"

"Are you doing this on purpose?"

"Provoking you? Maybe. Gonna punch me as well?"

And get my ass kicked with your invisible power like the last time? What kind of lesson is this? "I'll pass. Have it. I'll get more once I'm back home, and this might your only chance to taste something homemade, not served in the cafeteria."

The cookie stops halfway to Loretto's lips, and fae stares at me for a brief moment, strangely, as if my words actually hit a nerve. I doubt my success, though. "Well, don't say I didn't offer." Loretto shrugs, and then puts the cookie into faer mouth, crumbs powdering faer robe.

It's barely lunchtime, but I feel exhausted of this day already as I drag my feet to fill a bucket with water from the sink. Loretto keeps watching me as I start scrubbing the spilled dyes off the stones, colors streaking my pants as I crouch. Watching, watching...It's frustrating, but now I bite back my tongue.

"So what did Valto say exactly?" Loretto suddenly asks when all the cookies are gone. "To find a nemesis in you?" I look up, but Loretto's expression is unreadable. Is fae really interested in what hurt my feelings? Or is it just a wish to hear something to gossip about?

"He said you and I...You know." As my mentor raises a brow again, I roll my eyes. "Oh, don't make me continue, you got it! He said someone saw as I went to your apartments when you gave me the book I'm supposed to be reading. But apparently whoever saw me at your doorstep hasn't noticed the book." I pause, wringing the dirty cloth. "He also used the word brothel," I add, hoping to make it dramatic.

To my disappointment, Loretto doesn't find it dramatic, nor does fae get angry--to my surprise--as I got before slapping Valto. "Brothel, really?" fae laughs. "And which one of us two is supposed to be a brothel material? According to Valto."

"I am. You're a visiting material."

Loretto laughs harder, faer lips spreading, teeth flashing. It's such a lightheartedly beautiful, unguarded, and sincere sound that I halt for a moment, staring. I've never thought shamans are capable of something that sincere. "You and I, hah? It's neither logical, nor sane, nor...possible, Elisey. You know it, I know it--Valto knows it. So what your passionate reaction was about?"

"He called me a servant and a whore!"

"And you prefer to be called a lord and a virgin?"

"I'm neither. Maybe you can stay away as others say and do wrong things, but I have a strong sense of justice. And truth."

"You already own your truth, what's the point of brawling someone for it?" Faer smile growing serious for a change, Loretto licks faer lips. "You can't fight for justice and peace by starting a war, it's the same as killing someone you love to prove them your feelings."

From the corner of my eye, I notice fae shift into a more comfortable position as fae speaks, drawing one leg up to rest fear boot on the tabletop and place an elbow on the knee, which reveals oddly old-fashioned gray pants under the skirts of faer robe, and look down at me. Apparently, Loretto decides that I don't appear convinced enough, so fae continues.

"In my experience, Elisey, no happy person would try to hurt others. You don't know anything about Valto's life, neither do I, but something tells me that by provoking you, he tried to make himself feel better. Or rather make you feel just as bad as he must be feeling. And look at you now? You gave him the pleasure of victory and the rest of the day off, while you're mopping the floors. If you want my gracious teacher's advice--try playing indifference some time. Refusing to play by someone else's rules works much better than an attempt to put out hostility with more hostility. It makes the bully feel worthless, their efforts in vain."

Easy to be a philosopher when your hands are clean. On my knees, with my arms socked in dirty water to my elbows and with a cloth in my hands, I frown at Loretto seated on the table edge above me. Fae tilts faer head at me as our eyes lock, challenging me to argue. There's no sarcasm, no triumph in Loretto's eyes, though, no pity. And I can't deny that my mentor is right for once: my hostility failed, and I ended up mopping floors just like a servant Valto wanted me to be.

The work should console me, though, as the other option is learning to control aura, which I can't control. And I can't let Loretto know it. Yet somehow, my servant's duty doesn't feel like a blessing. Opposing wicked shamans is a noble cause, and there is nothing noble in pretending to be their cleaner for that. "So you consider yourself a happy person, then?"

In response, Loretto crumbles my empty cookie box in faer hands with one abrupt motion. "Do I look happy to you?"

No. But why not? Doesn't a shaman like Loretto have everything anyone can dream of? A place at court, power, cute rings, freedom to do as they please and to whoever they please...even my cookies? "Fine, whatever. Valto's a liar anyway. He also said shamans were hunted once."

"He didn't lie about that."

"Yes, he did. I'm not stupid, I know history. Everyone studies it at school."

Loretto's expression looks torn, eyes flicking sideways, as if fae is considering whether fae is gracious enough to give me another piece of advice or not. "At school, you study the history of plainbloods, one of which you yourself have been your entire life until now, not shaman history," fae finally says, and faer left leg that is still dangling off the table stops swinging. "I might not have any affection for you, my dear student, but I didn't give you a book to read just because I hoped you'd drop it on your face and choke."

Preposterous, my mind grumbles as I rub a stubborn green smudge off the stone before me. If shamans hadn't been that invincible, it wouldn't have taken my people two centuries to figure a way to stop them, it wouldn't have taken my brothers years to invent a potion to make them magicless. And still, we risk a great deal. After all, the empress has an empire my ancestors practically built for her, with patrollers and shaman warriors and probably spies, while we have a bunch of powerless commoners with a dream of a better future, nothing else. But the way Loretto said it..."Let's pretend I believe you, Mentor, and shamans were slaves once, but...how? You--we--have incredible power."

"Every power has a weakness. And the greater the power, the bigger the weakness. The version of history you're taught at school, the one where shamans are invulnerable, is exactly what it takes to make you believe in our supremacy, to hide the weaknesses. To ensure the peace and the rule of Empress Ixchel." The last phrase sounds flat on Loretto's lips, as if it's a slogan for an election campaign, which has been repeated so many times it has lost its charm. "Or do you expect us to tell you the truth? To give you an instruction of how to enslave every last magician again?"

I've nothing to say, because I've never thought of history that way. Loretto says nothing else, too, patiently waiting for me to finish my cleaning, and once I do, having washed the basket and put it back under the sink, Loretto hops off the table.

"People rarely do something without a reason," Loretto says, turning toward the door. "Magic is no exception, Elisey. You need a reason to learn it. Open that damn book."

Loretto leaves without saying goodbye.

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Once alone and out of the workshop, I hurry back to the Postulant House, to the book Loretto gave me. My mentor just admitted fae wouldn't start teaching me until I read it, and it must be my free ticket, a chance to avoid my lies being discovered, but I need to figure out who owns the truth. Have to.

Flipping through old, yellowish pages, I find the chapter about the official founding of Cabracan Enclave. There aren't many pictures here, so no surprise I skipped it when I was lazily browsing the book before.

The Conquest, the chapter's title says. My heart skips a beat as I realize both Valto and Loretto didn't lie, it's not the history I've been taught at school.

The history I've been taught says that over four hundred years ago, shamans invited people--magicless folks--from across the ocean to live among them in peace and prosperity, to exchange ideas and skills, alchemy and technology, and build a society together. But that's not what this treatise says, and it looks much older than my school textbooks, so there must be at least a little more truth in it, right?

This treatise says it was just the opposite: magicless folks came uninvited, and conquered, and slaughtered every shaman who tried to stop them. It obviously makes aurabloods vulnerable so I get it why they would want to hide this part of their story. And my throat tightens as I read further: shamans were conquered and murdered by an army led by a man named Montejo, whose lineage ruled in Cabracan for generations after that.

My lineage.

I'm the heir of a murderer.

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