Kits ran into an invisible wall.

“Ow!” She took a step back and rubbed her nose, squinting at the space in front of her in irritation. There was nothing there except the rest of the warehouse. No unusual thermal signatures either, only the coolness of the floor and the warmth of sun-soaked cardboard under the fractured light that streamed through the windowed ceiling. But there had to be something there if she ran into it. She reached out her hand until she touched the wall, running her palm along it. Whatever it was, it curved.

“A bendy invisible wall, huh?” Kits kept her hand on the wall and jogged along it until she found herself back where she started. Turned out it was a circle that took up most of the warehouse floor.

“Get off,” said a voice from inside it. Sounded male. “You’ll ruin my spell.”

“My bad.” Kits took her hand off the circle.

“You speak my language? You were spouting gibberish a second ago, and that’s coming from someone who chants for a living.”

“Translation spell.”

“Ah. Whose work?”

“A friend’s.”

“Quite the craftsman.”

“She’s a girl actually.”

“My mistake.”

“Her name’s Crystal.”

“And what’s your name?”

“Kits.” She knocked on the circle. She felt the physical rap of her knuckles against it but not any thermal signature even though she was concentrating. She’d never encountered that before. She got the urge to mess with the circle’s temperature just to see if she could. It was an exhilarating impulse, but with someone inside there who might get burned in the process it’d be wrong. Kits decided not to, but it got her thinking. “Are you actually invisible?”

The pause in conversation seemed to express aggravation.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Now I have to start over.” He sighed. “And no. The circle is blocking your perception of me, that’s all. Being actually invisible would be way more difficult.”

“Oh.” Kits stepped away from the circle so she wouldn’t be tempted to touch it again. “So what’re you doing in there, anyway? What kinda spell?”

“Standard cleansing and protection. You could say I’m sweeping negative energy out of this warehouse.”

Kits stretched out her thermal senses, trying to figure out what he might be getting rid of, but all she could feel was the absence of thermal signature from the circle and the normal readings of everything else. Akki would be better at this. “What happened that you need to get rid of negative energy?”

“A murder.”

Kits’ spine straightened with attention. She’d dealt with murderers before. She’d even had to take lives by her own hand in some circumstances. Fear and guilt pitched her magic into a rapid cycle loop. Hot-cold-hot-cold-hot-cold-hot. Cold. As the condensation crystallized on the concrete floor, frost formed at her feet.

“I didn’t mean to scare you.” His voice seemed closer. “But you did ask. Also, your magic is pushing against my circle. Please remove it. The faster I work, the faster I can get the bad vibes out of here, and I can’t work fast if you don’t rein in your magic. It’s distracting.”

Kits couldn’t help the emotions that welled inside her, but she could choose what direction to push them. That was a lesson Crystal had taught her. Especially if someone was depending on Kits to get ahold of herself, she could do it if she compartmentalized. She focused on the fear first. If something is out there and decides to attack me, whatever it is, I can take it. I survive people trying to kill me all the time. In response to her logic, the hot side of her thermal magic cooled. Next she picked apart the guilt. I’ve never killed without reason. It’s never been an accident and it’s usually been in defense. It’s still wrong, but it’s in the past. This didn’t change the cold side of her magic at all. She had to dig deeper. They pushed me into it. I had to. It was me or them. No change. If anything, trying to rationalize the guilt into submission made it stronger. The ring of frost at her feet widened. How could she be standing here trying to justify murder?

What would Kaia say?

“It wasn’t murder,” Kaia would say. “Murder implies malevolence. What you did was kill, and everything alive is killing something. You aren’t evil, Kits. Neither am I. That was a lie the Handlers told us. It was all about control.”

“Well, I feel evil.”

“But you aren’t.”

That didn’t help much either. What did help was a random thought in Akki’s voice that crossed Kits’ mind unprompted.

“There’s a difference between guilt and regret.”

True. And Kits might feel guilty about those she’d killed, but she didn’t regret her decisions to kill them. When she thought about it, if she had to do it all over again under the same circumstances, she’d kill them just like the first time. Actually, y’know, most of the time it wasn’t just me or them. It was me and my friends or them.

The cold leveled out to a middling temperature. Kits focused on maintaining it.

“Thank you. Now please. Silence.”