Saryth went to the bridge every day. There wasn’t anything else to do, and it made him feel a bit closer to Kite. Three days in to his stay in Ansel, the guards had begun to recognise him. One of them, a tall lanky fellow with scruffy hair who persistently slouched against the wall, greeted him familiarly, then started talking to his more upright partner, loud enough for Saryth to overhear.

“That fellow’s here again.”

“What?”

“The one with white hair, by the wall. He’s staying with Rian, in Top House.”

Rian had recognised him despite the hair cut and the eye patch, which he’d been grateful for. He’d never had to negotiate for a room himself, and on the journey he had resorted to sleeping rough, a little way from the road, rather than try and interact with strange people. But when he’d walked up the stairs to Top House she had opened the door and smiled.

“Yes, I remember,” she’d said in response to his tentative greeting. “Welcome - how long will you be staying?”

“Two weeks, please.”

“You can have the same room. Will your friends be here too?”

“I don’t know.” And he’d bitten his lip to keep from saying anything else. She will come. She said she would. It was a worry that had been on his mind for the past four months, although it had taken him a long time to voice it. Other things had been easier to start with during his convalescence, although still hard. Pyetr had been very patient during those conversations, especially early on.

“So you can’t...” He tailed off, unwilling even to speak his hope aloud. Pyetr understood anyway.

“I’m sorry,” he said gently. “I don’t think it’s possible. Not for us, anyway. I don’t know enough about the eye to create one from scratch, even if I had enough power. And it would take a lot of power.”

“It can’t... be healed?”

“Human eyes don’t naturally heal from that level of trauma. You would have to instruct the body to rebuild it accurately, and we just don’t know enough about it and the various systems involved.” Saryth stared at his bandaged hands on the bedsheets, tried to breathe evenly. Pyetr’s voice came from a long way away, the other side of a wall, the other side of the world. “But human magic is a poor shadow of the real thing, borrowed from the world and coerced into doing our will. There are beings to whom magic is as natural as breathing. Who can say what is possible for them?” The words were meaningless, rattling around in his head. He didn’t want to think about them.

“Looks like he’s waiting for someone,” the tall guard mused. “Or something.”

“A girl?”

“Maybe.”

Saryth leaned on the wall and stared at the run shining on the river. The guards’ speculation was as much background noise as the sound of the rushing water and the calls of the boatmen further downstream. Every time someone approached the bridge he looked up, but it was never Kite.

He had missed her every day he’d been at Pyetr’s. She was an active absence, and he found himself poking at where she should be like children feel for gaps in their mouths when their milk teeth fall out.

“Why did she leave?” he asked Pyetr. He couldn’t have asked Jig.

“She’s looking for forgiveness.”

“For what?”

“For what happened to you.” Pyetr’s voice was always calm, uninflected, measured. Saryth fought to keep his own steady.

“But doesn’t that mean she should ask me?”

“She’ll work it out. What will you say?”

“I...” He hadn’t expected that question, was not sure what it even meant. What his reply would mean.

“Have you forgiven her?” Pyetr prompted after a moment.

“Yes!” It was an immediate response because somehow that was an easier question. Surely it was the same question, though? Or was it easier to answer because it came from Pyetr?

“Then she just has to ask. And accept the answer.” Pyetr leaned forwards slightly, his gaze intent. “Don’t say it if you don’t mean it.”

Saryth stared down at his hands, the bedsheets, familiar from so much time avoiding Pyetr’s eyes.

“I do,” he said, but it came out almost as a whisper. “I do,” and he wasn’t sure whether he was stating a fact or trying to convince himself of it.

“That’s some dedication. Every day...”

“Sergeant, please stop slouching. You’ll get us into trouble.”

Caravans came and went, people moved into the city and out again, goods coming to and from the surrounding farmlands and villages. Essential to the city, of no interest to him. The guards checked each one, apparently recognising most of them, hailing them cheerfully and chatting about shared friends. Saryth watched the caravans, the river, the boatmen, even his hands, now healed although his wrists still bore faint indented scars from where the shackles had rubbed. Sunlight sparkled on the river, reminding him of the first magic he had done at Pyetr’s urging, back in the bedroom where he’d been convalescing.

“First, show me what Kite taught you.”

“But... I can’t use magic without my hands.” He’d waved his bandaged hands to emphasise his point. Whatever the magic, he’d always reinforced his intent with his hands. From the earliest age he could remember, before Kite had ever taught him the patterns, his hands had shaped and controlled his magic.

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“The patterns we use to control magic are purely mental,” Pyetr said, which echoed what Kite had said back in Ath Shera. “Gestures simply reinforce them in our minds. Just give it a try - do an illusion, if you want.”

“I wanna watch!” Jig bounced through the door and grinned. Saryth glared at her, but her enthusiasm was weirdly encouraging. He took a deep breath, concentrated, and saw with relief his favourite illusion pop into sight between him and the excited girl. She jumped, then stared in awe at the tiny, brightly coloured dragon.

“Now try it without your hands,” Pyetr said, and Saryth realised he’d cupped his hands under the dragon just as he always had, a simple gesture unhindered by the bandages. He flushed, put them down, and made the dragon do sparkling loop-the-loops while Jig laughed in delight.

Once he was up and about, Pyetr also drilled him in fighting techniques, and set him mock-sparring using Jig as a willing opponent. Even before he had fully healed, Pyetr had them dancing round each other, each trying to snatch the sock tucked in the back of the other’s belt. It was infuriating, because Jig had been a pickpocket and was a past master at sneaking, even in a fight when he was expecting it.

“Saryth! Don’t let her get round you so easily!” Easy for Pyetr to say. Saryth scowled at him.

“That was my blind side!”

“Exactly.” He was unmoved. “That’s the side any opponent will pick. You are at a disadvantage anyway; your field of vision is limited and you have poor depth perception. You have to learn to compensate.”

Later, Pyetr took a turn sparring. He was slower than Jig but there was considerably more force behind his punches, and he didn’t pull them. That was when Saryth knew he had healed as much as he was going to, and so, three and a half months after he and Kite had arrived, it was time for him to leave.

At the end of the day Saryth went back into the city, and the tall guard - still slouching against the wall, much to the disgust of his partner - nodded to him.

“Better luck tomorrow.”

“Thanks,” Saryth said, and started the long climb to Top House and the bread and broth Rian provided for her guests for an extra coin each night. It would be a lonely evening. He missed conversation over a meal, the warmth of companionship, sharing a roof with people he knew. He missed Kite most of all, but he also missed Pyetr and Jig, much more than he had expected to.

“Are you coming back?” Jig had looked so mournful. It was odd to think of Pyetr’s house in Kirmouth as “back”, but it was the first place he’d ever stayed for longer than a few days where he’d actually been welcome, even though he’d had to stay inside to hide his hair.

“Maybe,” he said. “This isn’t the easiest place for me, though.” Jig mock-pouted, but there was real feeling behind it and he sighed. “I’ll try.” Then he turned to Pyetr, waiting patiently in the hall.

“Thank you so much,” he said, and there was no way to say everything he wanted to, no way to put into words the enormous debt he owed which Pyetr had never once given him reason to believe in.

“You’re welcome,” Pyetr said, with the same unflappable calm as always. “We’ll see you back here some time.”

He left them in the pre-dawn light, heading up to the woods to get out of sight so he could start on the long journey through the gateways. Pyetr had helped map out a quicker route to Setharye, but it would still take time and he didn’t want to be late. Didn’t want to risk missing Kite.

His steps quickened, light on the path, hurrying on his way home.

Every step Kite took was one step closer to him. Every step felt both hopeful and hopeless. Every step was a beat in her memory of the past four months, from the time she’d fled Pyetr’s house up until now, step by step on the path towards Ansel.

“Kite? What’s wrong?” Her mother had met her on the doorstep, welcome and worry in her face. Kite couldn’t speak, exhausted from the journey and from the weight of what she’d done. And after everything - after she had slept for fourteen hours straight, after she’d bathed, eaten, when she was clean and washed and with her arm healing properly at last - after all that, the hurt and horror deep within hadn’t gone away at all.

It was her mother who had seen to it that she ate and slept and bathed, and it was her little sister who had plaited her hair for her and tried to cheer her up with jokes and chatter, but it was her father who came to her when she was sitting on the beach staring at the sea. His footsteps crunched over the shingled beach, then he sat down next to her and for some time had shared her silence, the grey sky, the restless sea and the mewing seagulls.

Eventually he spoke.

“What is it?”

Kite’s mother hadn’t asked, and Kite had been so grateful to her at the time. Now she found herself ready, almost eager to explain at last.

“My friend,” she said, and almost had to stop there despite that. “I ran from him when there were soldiers coming.” She gathered the words one by one. “Because of me he was caught and tortured, and they, he, he lost an eye.” She swallowed. “Now... I’m going to meet him soon, and I don’t know what to do. I want to apologise, but I don’t even know where to begin. And...” her voice was almost a whisper for the final words, “I’m afraid of what he’s going to say.”

The waves washed against the pebbles and a little wind ruffled through her hair. Her father was quiet, as he always was when thinking. Kite found herself remembering how Saryth had looked at Pyetr’s, unconscious on the bed, battered and bruised beneath the bandages over his ribs, his hands, his face. How she’d felt when he’d limped down to see her leave. Her grief was thick in her throat.

“Why don’t you prepare a formal apology?” her father suggested at last. “Your friend might not know the custom, but it could help you get it straight when you see him. That way, at least you’ll know you’ve said everything you can.”

“I could,” Kite said, and she had been dubious but it made sense. The wind had picked up, ruffling her long hair, and her father had been quiet again while she thought through it.

At the end of her stay she’d picked up her new staff, strapped on her bags and donned her cloak, and bid her parents and little sister goodbye.

“Take care of yourself,” her mother said, and Kite could feel the tension in her when they hugged. She felt briefly guilty for making her mother worry.

“I will,” she promised. Then she hugged her father. “Thank you,” she mumbled into his shoulder. He just smiled. She’d hugged Chess and waved goodbye and tried to look like she was happy, but she wasn’t, she couldn’t be.

She dreaded meeting Saryth again. Even more, she dreaded arriving to find he wasn’t there. It hung over her every step on the long road back to Setharye.

He was there. His white hair made him easy to spot even at a distance, and the bridge was empty in the midday sun, just him and the guards at the far end. He turned to meet her as she stepped onto the bridge, and smiled, and she stopped in shock.

“Don’t turn away!” He reached out as if to catch her and stop her fleeing. She knelt down and placed the staff in front of her, between them. Her mouth was dry.

“Saryth,” she began her prepared apology, staring at the paving slabs. His shadow, midday short, didn’t move. “I have wronged you. I called you a murderer. I abandoned you to enemies. I am so sorry. Please... accept my apologies. I...” The formal words weren’t coming any more. She whispered, “I have no right to ask for forgiveness.” That wasn’t how she’d planned to finish, but it was what she had to say. She stared at his motionless shadow, feeling entirely empty, as though she’d spent an hour howling her grief and guilt into tears instead of a few short moments of confession.

“There’s nothing to forgive,” he said, and Kite felt a strange anger stir within.

“Don’t make light of it!” she said sharply, looking up for the first time since she’d knelt down. He met her eyes without hesitation, his face serious but with no condemnation in it.

“I’m not,” he said simply. “How can I?” And she struggled to hold onto her composure as he went on. “But you were forgiven when you blocked the sword with your arm. When you bought my freedom and gave it to me. I mean it.”

Kite stood up shakily, and felt the tears coming at last. She’d said her piece, so it didn’t matter any more. Saryth reached out to her and stopped, hand held out, as though he wasn’t sure what to do next. His other hand was clenched tight by his side. Is he afraid too?

She raised her own hand, reached across the space between them, until their fingers touched.