[ Sobon, ] Ki''el''s mes-sage be-gan, [ all of us have ad-vanced to Ti-ta-ni-um Qi and fi-nal-ly en-tered the Sect. A friend I made here, Da Chi-an, were giv-en the dis-tinc-tion of join-ing the In-ner Sect im-me-di-ate-ly, while Mian and Xam re-main in the Out-er Sect for now. There was an in-ci-dent, which I will speak of lat-er, but all is well for now. We have be-gun speak-ing of what must hap-pen for us to come to-geth-er as a House--my-self, Mian and Xam, and also my friend Chi-an. Our plan, or our un-der-stand-ing of your plan, is for Xam to be the leader of the house, with you above her as the fam-i-ly Ma-tri-arch, or Pa-tri-arch, in what-ev-er form you are cur-rent-ly. I, when I am speak-ing as your voice, will be above her, but oth-er-wise, Xam is the leader of us. Do you have any ob-jec-tions to this? ]


    Ki''el bare-ly had time to breathe be-fore she re-ceived a re-turn, [ No. ] thought from Sobon, the in-tent read-ing as ''no ob-jec-tion'' rather than ''that is in-cor-rect.'' A hand-ful of heart-beats lat-er, it was joined by oth-er mes-sages, strung out over mo-ments. [ I am sor-ry for be-ing short, I am busy. I have put you in some dan-ger, be-cause of the sword I left you. Be care-ful who knows you have it, or who knows what it is. Some pow-er-ful peo-ple in this world will know me as [An-gel], and know that my ap-pren-tice holds an [Aether Sword]. Oth-ers will ap-pear in oth-er places, lat-er. News of this and more is spread-ing soon, but there are larg-er is-sues. You prob-a-bly feel it. Civ-il war is hap-pen-ing soon-er than I pre-dict-ed, soon-er than we hoped. Your Sect should know more. I must fo-cus for now. ]


    Ki''el blinked, tak-ing far more time to sort through the mes-sages than it had tak-en Sobon to write them. She turned to the oth-ers, hes-i-tat-ing, be-fore speak-ing. "I have sent ...the Ma-tri-arch a mes-sage. She has no ob-jec-tions. She says... that civ-il war is com-ing to the Em-pire."


    Some-how, Ki''el felt that speak-ing those words seemed al-most to re-lease an aether all its own, for all that she put none be-hind it, aether that seemed to echo in the ward-ed area around her house. The echo, though it died down quick-ly, left a lin-ger-ing feel-ing of its own, as Mian and Xam looked at each oth-er, and Chi-an looked at Ki''el. All of them were as ner-vous as Ki''el felt, and Ki''el had not told them every-thing.


    Not that she was sure she should.


    "The sect will be fine un-less it is targeted by an en-e-my," Xam said af-ter a mo-ment, her voice clear-ly dis-tressed. "As one of the Ten Great Sects... there must be some no-ble scions here. At min-i-mum, they will re-call their own be-fore any-thing hap-pens."


    "If we need to flee, we''re go-ing to need to learn how to fly," point-ed out Mian. "Most of the Dis-ci-ples learn some kind of tech-nique or oth-er, but..." He looked to Ki''el.


    "I... used Thrust Qi to re-cov-er from be-ing thrown off the is-land," Ki''el said, her voice un-cer-tain. "But it would not al-low flight. I will re-quest in-struc-tion on the flight stones--"


    "You can''t even use your qi yet," snapped Chi-an, and Ki''el looked to her, sur-prised. "My Rag-ing Storm qi could hold all of us in the air, but I can''t con-trol it well enough yet to be use-ful, or not..." she hes-i-tat-ed. "The spir-i-tu-al space where the Tribu-la-tion hap-pened am-pli-fies my abil-i-ties. I know I could do it there, but not out here."


    Ki''el con-sid-ered. "If we could cre-ate a tal-is-man for sum-mon-ing one of your fam-i-ly..."


    Chi-an gave Ki''el a mea-sured look. "I... sup-pose you could just af-ford the right ma-te-ri-als now, couldn''t you? In the end, mon-ey solves so much." She paused. "You... should also find out what you re-tain from your for-fei-ture. There may be many ma-te-ri-als there, de-pend-ing on what ...Sis-ter Ai, re-claimed. And the rest, of course."


    Ki''el looked at her, but looked away. It was... dif-fi-cult, for her thoughts not to drift back in time. "I hate to think of stolen things as mine," she said, think-ing of shat-tered homes, of graves. "But if some-one comes late to re-claim ma-te-ri-als, or any-thing that we must use now... we can find some way to com-pen-sate them."


    "Don''t be too trust-ing, Ki''el," warned Xam. "Even the El-ders of the sect are wor-ried about peo-ple claim-ing to be owed things from the for-fei-ture that were nev-er theirs. Those who have a le-git-i-mate claim have been giv-en time, and you may give them more. But af-ter a cer-tain time, that must be all." The woman--re-al-ly, she was not that much old-er, Ki''el re-al-ized--tried to be force-ful, and Ki''el was will-ing to al-low that she was right.


    But she also knew it would not come eas-i-ly.


    "For now, if we need ma-te-ri-als or points, I do not ob-ject," Ki''el said af-ter a mo-ment. "If the for-fei-ture con-tains ar-ti-facts, weapons, tools..." she shrugged. "We can al-low them to re-main with the Sect for a while longer."


    "And re-served time with an In-scrip-tion-ist," in-ter-rupt-ed Chi-an. "You re-ceived some from... from the last time," she said, giv-ing Ki''el a look that she felt was judg-men-tal, though she wasn''t sure why. "...but that was a Less-er In-scrip-tion-ist. I asked around about the grades af-ter that. I think the great-est of the tal-is-mans I''d ex-pect you could use right now... would be akin to what the Sect calls Com-mon grade. Time with an in-scrip-tion-ist of that lev-el... it might take more than an hour or two, de-pend-ing on what kind of work the ma-te-ri-als need. I don''t know."


    Ki''el imag-ined she knew some-one, or one of her In-ner Sect ac-quain-tances knew some-one, who could do the work, but she also had no rea-son to play fa-vorites. She shook her head and stood. "We should talk to El-der Gol."


    "Do you still use the Earth-en Recita-tion Hall?" Mian''s voice sound-ed a bit amused. "It''s only the less-er craft hall, af-ter all."


    Ki''el paused, and looked at Chi-an, who shrugged. "We haven''t found out, yet."


    "You should ask the head of the Hall you''re in," Xam said, sound-ing de-fin-i-tive. "She was also dis-pleased that you haven''t asked her about work yet."


    Ki''el frowned at Xam, won-der-ing if the Sect re-al-ly ex-pect-ed her to find some-thing to do be-fore she could even use her qi... but then, Chi-an had most-ly stayed by her side as well. Per-haps it was more about her? She shook her head. "We will go," she said, and start-ed walk-ing, stum-bling only slight-ly and only oc-ca-sion-al-ly.


    It was an im-prove-ment, but she still sensed all the oth-ers watch-ing her ner-vous-ly as she moved.


    Ki''el took in the in-te-ri-or of the Bil-low-ing Woods hall with some won-der. Al-though she couldn''t sense any-thing in-side the many locked rooms, she did note that the meth-ods of ward-ing and seal-ing each was dif-fer-ent, she as-sumed be-cause each was sealed by the per-son work-ing in-side, and not by some-one else on their be-half. Some of the seals, when she looked at them, seemed... strange-ly flim-sy. She was not an in-scrip-tion-ist, cer-tain-ly not yet, but when she stud-ied them, she thought that many of the door seals had im-por-tant pieces, and pow-er-ful pieces... and some-times, the im-por-tant parts were not the pow-er-ful ones, as though care-ful in-tent could shat-ter them with al-most no ef-fort.


    She had nei-ther rea-son to try, nor did she trust her in-stincts. She imag-ined she was mis-read-ing the lay-ered in-tent of the seals, or else there was some-thing she did not sense, but even if she were right, she could only imag-ine she would be caught some-how any-way. But she did won-der if she was cor-rect, did won-der if she were sens-ing things clear-ly. So she con-tin-ued to ex-am-ine the doors, paus-ing when some-thing caught her at-ten-tion, un-til she found the room where Sis-ter Wun was wait-ing.


    "Ki''el. And Chi-an." Sis-ter Wun was short-er than any of them, Ki''el not-ed, and seemed to be in a bad mood, but some-thing about the woman still seemed com-fort-ing to her. "Some-how I don''t think you''re here to find work."


    "We apol-o-gize, Sis-ter," Chi-an said, bow-ing slight-ly. "First... do you--"


    "The El-ders have learned about the sit-u-a-tion be-yond the isles. News will be spread when we are cer-tain that what we have heard is true. It would not be the first time some-one re-port-ing too soon." Sis-ter Wun''s voice was force-ful, but not sharp. "Next?"


    "We need to ask about--"


    "You will also find El-der Gol in the Hall of Heav-en-ly Recita-tion. Nei-ther of those pro-jec-tions is his true body. You will need to fly to reach that Hall, so you should still use the Earth-en Hall." She glanced at Ki''el, and be-fore the girl could speak, an-swered. "I do not read minds. I an-swer the in-tent to speak that you have, be-fore you speak. Or fin-ish speak-ing." She glanced at Xam. "Yes, it is. Yes, it is. No."


    "That sounds ex-haust-ing," Mian said.


    "What''s ex-haust-ing is wait-ing for every-one else to do what they should. Like tak-ing jobs, or get-ting out of my of-fice." Sis-ter Wun turned away, and Ki''el couldn''t help but smile as she turned away.


    "What a con-fus-ing woman," Xam said, when they had stepped away.


    "I like her," Ki''el said, and when the oth-ers gave her looks, just turned away from them, still smil-ing. The woman''s in-tent... she knew how she looked. Un-der-stood it. And if it had mat-tered, she would have done things dif-fer-ent-ly. Per-haps she was not as straight as a blade, like Ki''el like to think of her-self, but there was some-thing to her, a pow-er that she re-spect-ed.


    On their trip down to the Hall of Earth-en Recita-tion, they all saw many oth-ers, in the In-ner and Out-er sects, stand-ing around and sens-ing the still-un-veiled qi in the dis-tance. There were some who were talk-ing pub-licly, oth-ers who were talk-ing pri-vate-ly, but from what Ki''el could hear and sense, they all were con-cerned and con-fused. It struck Ki''el only about halfway there that she was tru-ly one of only a few peo-ple who would have heard any-thing yet. But then... per-haps oth-ers also had ways of re-ceiv-ing mes-sages from their fam-i-lies?


    At the Hall it-self, of course, every-thing was at it had been. The crafters who were at work couldn''t spare the time to wor-ry about any-thing else, and the peo-ple await-ing work watched over what they had re-quest-ed or paced ner-vous-ly. Those peo-ple await-ing time with the El-der did so qui-et-ly, some med-i-tat-ing, oth-ers look-ing around or star-ing out the door, but for now, they were all silent.


    For his part, El-der Gol went about his busi-ness as he al-ways had, and Ki''el re-ceived her place in line silent-ly and wait-ed pa-tient-ly with the oth-ers.


    "Do you know whether the flight stones the Sect mem-bers use are bought from the Hall?" Xam asked the ques-tion qui-et-ly to Chi-an, as they wait-ed, and Chi-an frowned.


    "I re-call ...Sis-ter Be-nai telling me that I would ''re-ceive'' one," she said.


    "In-struc-tion into the use of Flight Stones is a manda-to-ry class, and you will re-ceive a Stone when the Sect deems you ready to be-gin tak-ing it," one of the near-by dis-ci-ples an-swered, in a sim-i-lar-ly low voice. "Ex-cep-tions are made for those whose Path al-lows for flight with-out an ar-ti-fact, but oth-er-wise, you will def-i-nite-ly be ex-pect-ed to use one at some time."


    An-oth-er near-by dis-ci-ple, lean-ing against the wall, turned to-wards them as well. "I don''t blame you for be-ing ner-vous," she said. "When-ev-er there''s any dis-tur-bance in the out-side world, I can''t help think-ing of an Is-land falling, or even be-ing shak-en, and need-ing to catch my-self be-fore I fall. If you have such thoughts, there are ar-ti-facts cheap-ly bought, though in truth, the Sect is quite safe."


    Ki''el nod-ded. Of course, many peo-ple would be ner-vous. "Thank you."


    But the woman pulled out a stone from her pock-et with-out seem-ing to re-al-ly rec-og-nize the thanks, and sim-ply stared at it. Ki''el won-dered if she would speak again... but nei-ther she, nor the Sect Broth-er who had an-swered first, seemed to find a way to stretch the con-ver-sa-tion, or per-haps, not the will.


    In time, Ki''el got her turn be-fore the El-der, and al-lowed Chi-an to pre-sent him with the re-quired items for the tal-is-man. El-der Gol need-ed lit-tle con-sid-er-a-tion over it. [ The only ma-te-r-i-al not al-ready avail-able to you would be the Gold-en Crux Wisp Ore. The Sect pos-sesses enough, but it is cur-rent-ly re-served by oth-ers. Gen-er-al-ly, it is a ma-te-r-i-al that must be pur-chased in a near-by city, and it may not be im-me-di-ate-ly avail-able. ]


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    "Rats," Chi-an said, qui-et-ly.


    But Ki''el frowned. "Can you tell us who has the reser-va-tions?"


    "I will not," El-der Gol said, stern-ly, though his ex-pres-sion was only dark for a mo-ment. "The reser-va-tions are with-in the In-ner Sect. With your re-sources, you should be able to find some-one will-ing to trade the nec-es-sary amount."


    Ki''el frowned. [ Ig-nor-ing ar-ti-facts and per-son-al items... what re-sources and reser-va-tions re-main from my for-fei-ture? And my points? ]


    El-der Gol sent her the list with in-tent, and Ki''el frowned, lean-ing en-tire-ly on Kuli to catch and fil-ter the in-for-ma-tion. It was... a sig-nif-i-cant list, and she had well over 100,000 Points. She bowed, and un-der-stand-ing the El-der''s time was pre-cious, left it at that.


    But as she walked away, she was men-tal-ly go-ing through it. As be-fore, the El-der gave her no in-di-ca-tion of what was ac-tu-al-ly pre-cious, and what was sim-ply giv-en an ex-trav-a-gant name. But she was sure that she could find some-thing worth trad-ing to some-one... per-haps.


    "Who do we ask?" Mian''s words brought her out of her thoughts. "Aside from Broth-er Du, there are the Se-nior Broth-ers and Sis-ter who caught us be-fore..."


    "I know a few oth-ers," Ki''el said, but turned to Xam. "Do you two need to do work for the Sect? I would not wish to get you in trou-ble."


    Xam huffed. "Sure-ly if we were help-ing an In-ner Sect dis-ci-ple to re-solve an is-sue, we would be com-pen-sat-ed? Or does it not count as a job sim-ply be-cause we know each oth-er?"


    Ki''el paused, only re-al-iz-ing what her sis-ter meant af-ter think-ing about it for a mo-ment. "Ah," she said. "I sup-pose I un-der-stand. And... I do ap-pre-ci-ate your pres-ence, but..." she left the word hang-ing for a mo-ment.


    "...but we''re not re-al-ly help-ing," Mian fin-ished for her, and looked to Xam. "We should look into in-struc-tion. Maybe find out more about the Fly-ing Stones?"


    Xam made a face, but nod-ded. "You''re right. Though..." she glanced at Ki''el. "Now, or in the fu-ture, if you could trans-fer some of your points..."


    "Oh." Ki''el hadn''t con-sid-ered it, and looked back at the Hall be-hind them. An-oth-er line had formed for the El-der, and she didn''t wish to wait.


    "You might not have been told yet," Xam said, drag-ging Ki''el''s at-ten-tion back. "Once we en-ter the Sect, we can pay peo-ple us-ing their Sect To-kens. Usu-al-ly, for fair-ness, the Sect is-sues spe-cif-ic pay-only to-kens for jobs, but..." she with-drew a to-ken, one that was dif-fer-ent from the ones they had been giv-en for the Less-er House. "It is not dif-fi-cult to trans-fer points to an-oth-er."


    Ki''el glanced at Chi-an, who shrugged. "I have my own To-ken, but they didn''t give me a new one for you. I sup-pose Sis-ter Wun will have it, or one of the El-ders."


    Af-ter a few mo-ments'' hes-i-ta-tion, Ki''el reached out to Xam''s to-ken, and pushed in-tent at it. [ I will trans-fer 5000 Points. ] She felt a re-turn pulse con-firm-ing the trans-ac-tion af-ter a mo-ment. "I do not know what the ap-pro-pri-ate amount is, or what we may need the points for in the fu-ture, but..."


    "We''ll come to you if we need to use more than a few," Xam said, putting her to-ken away and mak-ing a con-cil-ia-to-ry ges-ture. "Even with me lead-ing the House... they are points that you had to fight to win. I know that you will use what you have to help us all, when and how you can."


    Ki''el nod-ded, feel-ing re-lieved with-out know-ing why. Or... no, it wasn''t even that long ago that she was ir-ri-tat-ed by every-one else spend-ing ''her'' Points with-out ask-ing, and it calmed her to know that Xam did not take such a high-hand-ed view. Every-thing that had been cho-sen had been cor-rect, but... Ki''el did not feel like she need-ed to be cut out of these mat-ters, es-pe-cial-ly when the points had been giv-en to her in the first place.


    They split af-ter that, but find-ing some-one in the In-ner Sect that she knew took longer than she ex-pect-ed. In the end, she found Broth-er Yang prac-tic-ing with a gold-en, drag-on-etched spear against a Sect Sis-ter that Ki''el thought had been with him be-fore, a red-head who fought with her bare hands. Ki''el shiv-ered, though, at the heav-i-ness of the woman''s move-ments, both in her mus-cu-lar body and her qi.


    "Ah!" Broth-er Yang smiled and waved when he no-ticed her. "Sis-ter Ki''el!" When his spar-ring com-pan-ion turned to look, he play-ful-ly swat-ted at her with the butt of his spear, but she blocked it. Both pre-tend-ed not to no-tice. "You have a look, Sis-ter. Do you need some-thing?"


    "I am look-ing for a par-tic-u-lar ma-te-r-i-al, Gold-en Crux Wisp Ore. The sect says all its sup-ply is re-served."


    "Ah." Broth-er Yang''s look de-flat-ed. "I... am one of those who has re-served some of the ma-te-r-i-al, but re-gret-tably, I can-not trade for it, Sis-ter." He tapped the spear-head, which was forged into the shape of a drag-on''s head. "The ar-ray with-in my spear needs to be main-tained and im-proved, and that ore is crit-i-cal to my needs." He paused, con-sid-er-ing. "I be-lieve I may know an-oth-er Sis-ter who has re-served it, and may be more eas-i-ly swayed..."


    Ki''el and Chi-an spent the next few hours bounc-ing around the In-ner Sect, try-ing to find first one Sect Sis-ter, then an-oth-er Sect Broth-er, and then a third, all of whom ei-ther did not have a reser-va-tion or were un-will-ing to con-sid-er trad-ing it. When at last they found some-one will-ing to con-sid-er it, Ki''el found her-self quite sur-prised.


    "I would be will-ing," said the girl, and Ki''el was cer-tain that the oth-er Sect Sis-ter was no old-er than she was--no, per-haps younger. It seemed not to be a case where some-one had sim-ply cho-sen to look young, ei-ther; she had a certain at-mos-phere to her, and the ser-vant who fol-lowed her around looked har-ried. "If you can trade me ei-ther Val-hal-lan Mithril, or suf-fi-cient-ly pure choco-late."


    Ki''el was cer-tain, for a mo-ment, that she had mis-heard. "Choco-late?"


    "Please, mis-tress," the ser-vant begged, but the girl didn''t lis-ten.


    "It has to be ex-ceed-ing-ly pure," the girl said, cross-ing her arms over her chest, clos-ing her eyes, and stick-ing her nose in the air, which didn''t help her avoid her ser-vant''s gaze at all. "Most of the choco-late avail-able in the Sect is the in-fe-ri-or hu-man-farmed cacao. There is a species of Ni-hatl Spi-der-folk who pre-pare cacao for ex-port us-ing an-cient meth-ods, and when prop-er-ly shipped, it re-tains an-ces-tral cacao spir-it en-er-gy. There are sev-er-al cooks in this Sect who are ca-pa-ble of cook-ing with the choco-late, but only one who won''t ruin the fla-vor." The girl paused, then gave Ki''el a weird-ly per-verse look and grin, one that Ki''el felt un-com-fort-able see-ing on one younger than her. "He''s also su-per cute."


    "Mis-tress..."


    Ki''el con-sult-ed with her list, and while she didn''t see any-thing like ...cacao, or choco-late, or what-ev-er, she did have a fair amount of the met-al. "I can trade the Mithril."


    "Great!" In-stant-ly, and with flash-es of qi that were al-most blind-ing to Ki''el, the girl lift-ed her-self up on piles of rock that shot up out of the ground, and leaped off of them over Ki''el''s head, the rock scat-ter-ing into cubes the mo-ment her feet left them. Ki''el, sur-prised, turned, but the girl was al-ready run-ning along, look-ing back over her shoul-der. "Come on, come on! Let''s go to the Heav-en-ly Hall and trade al-ready!"


    Ki''el glanced only briefly at Chi-an be-fore the two of them chased af-ter the girl and her at-ten-dant.


    "How pow-er-ful is she?" mused Chi-an to her, qui-et-ly, as they hur-ried along, not quite run-ning to keep up with the girl, who was tak-ing oc-ca-sion-al breaks to look at things or talk to peo-ple.


    "Stronger than us," was all Ki''el could say, though she had to imag-ine that the girl had a form of Stone na-ture to her qi, one which am-pli-fied her abil-i-ties. Even so... the ease with which she used it, and the ef-fort-less con-trol...


    "A real prodi-gy, then," Chi-an said. "It''s just... strange, to see in some-one so young."


    Do the old-er peo-ple with low-er cul-ti-va-tion look at me and see a girl like this? The ques-tion seemed sil-ly to Ki''el, since her per-son-al-i-ty was noth-ing like the girl''s, but much of her re-ac-tion was sim-ply from the girl''s age. If Ki''el had been as pow-er-ful as this girl was, be-fore the vil-lage was de-stroyed...


    For a mo-ment, she felt very strange, al-most to the point where she had to stop, but she con-tin-ued, dogged-ly. For that mo-ment, she could en-vi-sion her vil-lage still whole, the peo-ple in it hap-py and healthy, fish-ing and liv-ing life in-no-cent-ly. She could en-vi-sion some-one--her-self, an-oth-er, it didn''t mat-ter--sim-ply oblit-er-at-ing the damned pi-rate ship that had ru-ined every-thing. Be-cause of a lit-tle strength, a lit-tle knowl-edge... and if she had the abil-i-ty to make use of it...


    Every-thing could have been dif-fer-ent.


    But the im-age didn''t last, and it couldn''t. There was no turn-ing back time, and there were greater dan-gers in the world than a pi-rate with Gold Qi. But more than that... things would have been dif-fer-ent, wouldn''t they? If she could con-trol stone... would the vil-lage still have been what it was, with the of-ten hand-made wood and stone huts? The thatched roof? There had been some-thing vi-tal in that vil-lage, or she re-mem-bered it as such. And when she en-vi-sioned that prodi-gy-her im-prov-ing it af-ter sav-ing every-one...


    It felt less vi-tal. It only felt like her imag-i-na-tion, and noth-ing else. Per-haps that was the lim-it of her try-ing to imag-ine, to spec-u-late. But she won-dered if there was sim-ply some-thing about the sim-ple life that this life, of qi tech-niques and ad-vanced aethers, was some-how dis-tant from. She... didn''t know, and put it out of mind af-ter a few mo-ments, but the feel-ing lin-gered.


    When they got near to the is-land where the Heav-en-ly Hall resided, Ki''el re-called that it would have no bridge, and she looked at Chi-an. "Can you get us up there?"


    Chi-an hes-i-tat-ed, but the girl''s ser-vant turned and glanced at them. "If you need a lift--"


    "No, I can do it," Chi-an said, firm-ing her re-solve. "But... you''ll have to hold on to me, Ki''el."


    Ki''el did, when they got to the edge, and as she gripped her friend tight-ly, she could feel the swirl of aether, qi, and some-thing else--spir-it en-er-gy, she knew--around Chi-an, and es-pe-cial-ly, around her tail. Ki''el al-most want-ed to touch the girl''s tail, to feel the en-er-gy flow-ing through it, but re-sist-ed, know-ing--or, well, not know-ing. But the dogs she had known in the vil-lage, even be-fore they were bro-ken by the death, had not liked hav-ing their tails played with, and she was also loathe to touch any part of a per-son with-out per-mis-sion. The two to-geth-er sug-gest-ed it would be more in-ap-pro-pri-ate than most things.


    When Chi-an at last sum-moned enough Storm Qi to lift them off the ground, un-steadi-ly at first, Ki''el had to re-sist the in-stinct to chan-nel qi with the Thrust in-tent, to sim-ply move them the dis-tance. But she had nev-er ex-per-i-ment-ed with it prop-er-ly, and her chan-nels were still burned out. All she could do, un-less it were ur-gent, was trust Chi-an.


    But Chi-an stead-ied her use of qi, and then with a strong push, the two of them crossed the dis-tance to the oth-er is-land. Her con-trol left some-thing to be de-sired, and Ki''el was close enough to hear the girl''s heart pound-ing, but she held on and closed her eyes, let-ting her anx-i-ety flow away. When she opened her eyes again, it was be-cause they were stand-ing on sol-id ground, and she stepped away from Chi-an, nod-ding at her. "Thank you."


    Chi-an looked em-bar-rassed, but smiled at her. "I still need prac-tice, but that went well."


    "It did." Ki''el re-turned the smile, and then the two turned to-wards the hall, where the girl was al-ready scam-per-ing in-side. "We should go."


    The Heav-en-ly Hall was some-thing more than sim-ply a mir-ror of the Earth-en Hall. Not only was the build-ing built of fin-er ma-te-ri-als, but there were nu-mer-ous and high qual-i-ty ar-rays across and around it, and the many craft rooms all had some-thing that the Earth-en Hall''s craft rooms had not--walls and doors, block-ing out dis-trac-tions and hid-ing the crafts-men''s se-crets. Ki''el looked around at the many closed doors, won-der-ing just what was go-ing on in each, what tools were in them... but no. She looked back to where the girl''s at-ten-dant now stood wait-ing, even as the girl her-self had scam-pered off, putting her ear to closed doors and glanc-ing and sniff-ing around the open ones.


    The line was longer here, but some-how moved more swift-ly, and soon enough, Ki''el made the trade, and the El-der Gol who was here--who in-deed, looked no dif-fer-ent from the El-der Gol that she had seen in the Earth-en Hall, and who she could not find any ev-i-dence was not real--promised that all of the re-quired items would be avail-able.


    [ Can you rec-om-mend an In-scrip-tion-ist for this task? ] Ki''el fo-cused that in-tent on the El-der, whose gaze in re-turn was quite even.


    [ I can per-form that ser-vice, but we ask that you ask the head of your Hall. They have the tools to know who has the time and skills. ]


    Ki''el con-sid-ered that, but nod-ded, and they set off. Sis-ter Wun arranged every-thing for them, and said that she ex-pect-ed the job to com-mence to-mor-row morn-ing.


    As Ki''el hes-i-tat-ed to ask about her own Sect to-ken, the woman frowned, then glanced around the room. "I will put in a re-quest for your up-grad-ed To-ken," she said af-ter a mo-ment. "The is-sue was de-layed while you were in the Heal-ing House, when it was un-clear whether you would be-come an Out-er, In-ner, or Core dis-ci-ple. It was de-cid-ed, but nev-er quite fi-nal-ized. I will have it for you to-mor-row."


    Ki''el frowned. "Am I not con-sid-ered part of the In-ner Sect?"


    "If you were not, you could not have trans-ferred the funds to your sis-ter," Sis-ter Wun said, and Ki''el felt a cer-tain dis-com-fort at the fact that the woman knew that much. Or... per-haps, dis-com-fort at know-ing that there was still so much go-ing wrong in the Sect, if the heads of each House could know so much about what was go-ing on? "There are sim-ply cer-tain mat-ters that take time. Please be-lieve that I, more than most, am ir-ri-tat-ed by this. You only need to come back to-mor-row. I will make the arrange-ments."


    So they did, Ki''el and Chi-an step-ping out-side as late af-ter-noon turned to-wards dusk. "I''m glad it''s worked out," Chi-an said, look-ing at the sun peek-ing through a near-by is-land''s trees. Ki''el fol-lowed her gaze, watch-ing the light flick-er as the small gaps in the branch-es shift-ed. She took a deep breath, think-ing of the many times she had tak-en the morn-ing breath with oth-ers, though... she hadn''t quite done it so con-sis-tent-ly as she did at first. She looked at Chi-an, see-ing the girl stare un-wa-ver-ing-ly at the light, and felt some-thing stir with-in her.


    I just want this peace-ful life to con-tin-ue, a part of her in-sist-ed, and Ki''el dwelled on that feel-ing, but ul-ti-mate-ly, let it go. She would not be stay-ing in this sect for-ev-er, and... she would not wish to. There was more be-yond, and more good days, she hoped, would fol-low. Days with her friends, and... per-haps days with new friends.


    "What are you think-ing?" Chi-an''s voice in-ter-rupt-ed her, and Ki''el re-al-ized that Chi-an was look-ing at her, and she looked away, her thoughts scat-ter-ing in em-bar-rass-ment.


    "I..." it took her a mo-ment to trace her think-ing. "I was think-ing that, af-ter a long time, I can be-lieve that I will have friends in the fu-ture. And it is a good feel-ing." She took a ner-vous breath, and tried to ex-hale the anx-i-ety. It didn''t quite work. "I hope that it is true. That things will work, and that we will be fine. That we will make more friends, and have more suc-cess."


    She left the rest un-said, and was sur-prised when Chi-an did not. "But you''re afraid," the girl said, the words lead-ing some-where, but she didn''t con-tin-ue.


    "I am," Ki''el said, but she also didn''t con-tin-ue, and Chi-an did not press her fur-ther.


    The two watched the set-ting sun a lit-tle while longer, then went to get food.