forward as if she weren't.

Every poet that bound an andat came face-to-face with their own flaws,

their own failures. Maati's first master, Heshai-kvo, had made Seedless

the embodiment of his own self-hatred, but that was only one extreme

example. Kiai Jut three generations earlier had bound Flatness only to

find the andat bent on destroying the family the poet secretly hated.

Magar Inarit had famously bound Unwoven only to discover his own

shameful desires made manifest in his creation. The work of binding the

andat was of such depth and complexity, the poet's true self was

difficult if not impossible to hide within it. And what, he wondered,

would Vanjit discover about herself if she succeeded? With all the hours

they had spent on the mechanics of the binding, was it not also his

responsibility to prepare the girl to face her imperfections?

His mind worried at the questions like a dog at a bone. As the moon

vanished from his window and left him with only the night candle, Maati

rose. A walk might work the kinks from his muscles.

The school was a different place at night. The ravages of war and time

were less obvious, the shapes of the looming walls and hallways familiar

and prone to stir the ancient memories of the boy Maati had been. Here,

for instance, was the rough stone floor of the main hall. He had cleaned

these very stones when his hands had been smooth and strong and free

from the dark, liver-colored spots. He stood at the place where

Milah-kvo had first offered him the black robes. He remembered both the

pride of the moment and the sense, hardly noticed at the time, that it

was an honor he didn't wholly deserve.

"Would you have done it differently, Milah-kvo?" he asked the dead man

and the empty air. "If you had known what I was going to do, would you

still have made the offer?"

The air said nothing. Maati felt himself smile without knowing precisely

why.

"Maati-kvo?"

He turned. In the dim light of his candle, Eiah seemed like a ghost.

Something conjured from his memory. He took a pose of greeting.

"You're awake," she said, falling into step beside him.

"Sometimes sleep abandons old men," he said with a chuckle. "It's the

way of things. And you? I can't think you make a practice of wandering

the halls in the middle of the night."

"I've just left Vanjit. She sits up after the lecture is done and goes

over everything we said. Everything anyone said. I agreed to sit with

her and compare my memory to hers."

"She's a good girl," Maati said.

"Her dreams are getting worse," Eiah said. "If the situation were

different, I'd be giving her a sleeping powder. I'm afraid it will dull

her, though."

"They're bad then?" Maati said.

Eiah shrugged. In the dim light, her face seemed older.

"They're no worse than anyone who watched her family die before her

eyes. She has told you, hasn't she?"

"She was a child," Maati said. "The only one to live."

"She said no more than that?"

"No," Maati said. They passed through a stone archway and into the

courtyard. Eiah looked up at the stars.

"It's as much as I know too," Eiah said. "I try to coax her. To get her

to speak about it. But she won't."

"Why try?" Maati said. "Talking won't undo it. Let her be who and where

she is now. It's better that way."

Eiah took a pose that accepted his advice, but her face didn't entirely

match it. He put a hand on her shoulder.

"It will be fine," he said.

"Will it?" Eiah said. "I tell myself the same thing, but I don't always

believe it."

Maati stopped at a stone bench, flicked a snail from the seat, and

rested. Eiah sat at his side, hunched over, her elbows on her knees.

"You think we should stop this?" he asked. "Call off the binding?"

"What reason could we give?"

"That Vanjit isn't ready."

"It isn't true, though. Her mind is as good as any of ours will ever be.

If I called this to a halt, I'd be saying I didn't trust her to be a

poet. Because of what she's been through. That the Galts had taken that

from her too. And if I say that of her, who won't it be true of? Ashti

Beg lost her husband. Irit's father burned with his farm. Large Kae only

had her womb turned sick and saw the Khai Utani slaughtered with his

family. If we're looking for a woman who's never known pain, we may as

well pack up our things now, because there isn't one."

Maati let the silence stretch, in part to leave Eiah room to think. In

part because he didn't know what wisdom he could offer.

"No, Uncle Maati, I don't want to stop. I only ... I only hope this

brings her some peace," Eiah said.

"It won't," Maati said, gently. "It may heal some part of her. It may

bring good to the world, but the andat have never brought peace to poets."

"No. I suppose not," Eiah said. Then, a moment later, "I'm going into

Pathai. I'll just need a cart and one of the horses."

"Is there need?"

"We aren't starving, if that's what you mean. But buying at the markets

there attracts less notice than going straight to the low towns. It

would be better if no one knows there are people living out here. And

there might be news."

"And if there's news, there will be some idea of how soon Vanjit-cha

will need to make her attempt."

"I was thinking more of how much time I have," Eiah said. She turned to

look at him. The warm light of the candle and the cool glow of the moon

made her seem like two different women at once. "This doesn't rest on

Vanjit. It doesn't rest on any of them. Binding an andat isn't enough to

... fix things. It has to be the right one."

"And Clarity-of-Sight isn't the right one?" he asked.

"It won't give any of these women babies. It won't put them back in the

arms of the men who used to be their husbands or stop men like my father

from trading in women's flesh like we were sheep. None of it. All the

binding will do is prove that it can be done. That a solution exists. It

doesn't even mean I'll be strong enough when my turn comes."

Maati took her hand. He had known her for so many years. Her hand had

been so small that first time he had seen her. He remembered her deep

brown eyes, and the way she had gurgled and burrowed into her mother's