could almost see him putting the pieces together—click, click, click—in rapid succession, coming to the same conclusions she’d ended on. It made her smile. Ah, if only he weren’t so stubborn. What a pair they would have made.
“If humans have trouble seeing him just as spirits do…” Banage trailed off. “Sara, are you implying that, on some level, we see as spirits see?”
Sara’s smile spread. “That’s exactly what I’m implying. Sparrow is a known blind spot for all of us. If we share this blindness with spirits, then perhaps humans are not completely unseeing as spirits say we are. Maybe we do see, but we don’t know it, or something blocks our sight.”
“It makes sense,” Banage said, scratching his beard. “The spirits call us the Shepherdess’s creations, but I don’t think that’s quite right. Miranda told me that the Shaper Mountain claims the Shepherdess does not truly create. If we can see as spirits see at all, even if it’s only in a shared blindness, then maybe we’re not newly created spirits, but changed ones, modified to fit whatever it was the Shepherdess wanted us to be.”
“Slorn told me much the same thing once,” Sara said. “Though the real question now is, if we could see at the beginning, why would this Shepherdess go through so much effort to take the sight we already had away?”
“Make us blind, you mean?” Banage said. “If you’re right, then all we have are more questions. Why would the Power who was created to watch over the world make a race that can control everything else and then actively take our sight away? That sounds more like destruction than preservation.”
“It’s a heady problem, isn’t it?” Sara was grinning now. Talking like this with Banage, exploring the possibilities of magic freely, without his dogma getting in the way, made her feel like a teenager again. She gripped his hand. “Now do you see why I risked so much to keep Sparrow with me?”
Banage’s face darkened. “I see,” he said. “But I don’t understand. You must have known from the beginning that that man could not be trusted. I can see keeping him for research in a cell, but what possessed you to let him roam free?”
“Because he was useful,” Sara said. “And I was always in control.”
He gave her a suspicious look. “How?”
Sara bit her lip. For a moment, she considered lying. It had been so long since she’d had a civil conversation with her husband, she’d forgotten how pleasant it could be. But Banage was glaring at her now, and she knew the look well enough. He’d never let up until he had an answer he was satisfied with, and she didn’t have a lie ready that was good enough to trick him. The truth, then, she decided with a sigh. Such a pity. Their truce had been nice while it lasted.
She settled back on the ground, bracing for impact. “I could control him because I’d bound him as a servant spirit.”
“What?”
Sara winced at his roar. Banage loomed over her, dark and terrible, his rings glowing like multicolored suns. Then, unexpectedly, he eased back down.
“How?” he said as curiosity finally overcame his inherent rage. “Even if it was as faint as you claim, his soul is still human. How did you bind a human soul into service?”
“I didn’t bind his soul,” Sara said. “Remember what I said earlier about how a human’s soul usually encompasses their entire body? Well, Sparrow’s didn’t. It wasn’t large enough. This meant that the vast majority of his physical body wasn’t actually part of his soul.”
“Impossible,” Banage said. “Everything has a soul.”
“It did,” Sara said. “Just not a human one. As I said, Sparrow was an anomaly. He had a human body, but not enough human soul to fill it. So his body developed a unique coping mechanism to keep itself alive. Each organ developed a tiny soul of its own. That was why spirits never saw Sparrow as human. To their eyes, he’s closer to a pile of pebbles.”
“That still doesn’t explain how you bound him,” Banage said.
“I told you,” Sara huffed. “I didn’t bind him. I bound his lungs.”
Banage blinked. “His lungs?”
Sara nodded emphatically, smiling at the memory of that genius idea. “It was really simple, actually. I called in Whitefall’s surgeon and took a tiny piece of Sparrow’s lung. I kept it with me, feeding power into it just as I would a Spiritualist spirit. I had to fudge things a bit, but in the end I basically made Sparrow’s lungs into a servant spirit who was always out of its ring. That way, if I ever needed to find him or discipline him, I could just tug on the thread connecting us. After all, he can’t go anywhere without his lungs, can he?”
She finished with a grin, but Banage wasn’t smiling. He just stared at her, his face horrified. “You made a Spiritualist pact with a spirit too small for consciousness, with a man’s lungs…” His voice trailed off.
Sara put up her hand. “Before you start to lecture, remember, the lungs were a part of Sparrow, and he gave his consent to be my servant in exchange for salvation from the Whitefalls. I just took him a little more literally than he intended.”
Banage’s face grew even more severe. “Then I suppose the red orb he crushed was the equivalent of his ring?”
“More or less,” Sara said. “But as you saw, I didn’t need it anymore. His lungs still knew who their mistress was.” She set her jaw at Banage’s scornful look. “Powers, Etmon, it wasn’t like I wanted to kill him. After all the work I put into that man? But he tried to kill me, and he would have died anyway when Whitefall—”
“Enough,” Banage said, running his hands over his face with a long sigh. “I don’t want to hear any more about how you’ve twisted the most sacred bond of the Spirit Court. Honestly, Sara, how can you be so clever and yet understand nothing about what’s actually important?” He shook his head. “Truly, Eliton is your son.”
Sara arched an eyebrow. “Really? From his stubbornness, I’d say he’s more yours.”
Banage laughed at that, and the noise made her jump. It was such a nostalgic sound, and such a sad one.
“We’re a miserable excuse for a family,” he said, leaning back on his hands beside her. “A traitor, a thief, and a woman who’d give her right arm for a hint at the secrets of the universe.”
“Left arm,” Sara said, fumbling for her pipe before remembering she’d left it upstairs. “I’m right- handed.”
“Left arm,” Banage repeated. “Or another man’s lungs.”
“It is all a bit monstrous,” Sara admitted. “But it was necessary, Etmon.”
“Was it?” Banage said, his voice soft in the dark. “Did you ever think about maybe not striving so hard?”
Sara’s only answer to that was a scoff, and Banage sighed.
“You know,” he whispered, “I didn’t set out to be Rector. What I really wanted was to live with you and Eliton together. To be a family. A real one.”
“Well,” Sara said, “if that was what you wanted, you could have had it at any time. I was always willing. You were the one who left because you didn’t approve of my work, remember?”
“How could I forget?” Banage said. “You rub my face in it every chance you get.”
“Well, we none of us are quitters,” Sara said. “I don’t think I could have loved you were it otherwise.”
Banage reached out and grabbed her hand, squeezing her fingers so tight against his that his rings cut into her skin. For a moment, Sara could feel his power in the air, warm and heavy and wonderfully familiar. Then it was gone, and a great scraping of metal and stone filled the silent chamber.
“The soldiers will be coming now,” Banage said. “I wanted to make sure the water had a chance to drain away before they arrived.”
“Can’t have it falling back under my evil ways, eh?” Sara said, lying back against the stone.
Banage didn’t answer. But then, without warning, he leaned down and pressed his lips against her cheek. It was a soft, sad touch, filled with regret. It lasted a few heartbeats, and then Banage was standing, his shape vanishing into the dark.
“I’m sorry.”
The words were out before Sara could stop them. She didn’t even know what she was apologizing for. Hurting him, maybe, or putting him in prison, or just not being the person he wanted her to be. Maybe it was everything, but it didn’t matter. His answer came quickly, the words so sad they ached.
“So am I,” he whispered. “Good-bye, Sara.”
She tried to speak, but her voice wouldn’t come. Her throat was stuck, her tongue dry and useless. Powers,
