Chapter Three: The Arbiter Arrives (2)

Elaine did not climb the tower. She inspected the ground floor, found nothing, and left, but not before turning at the door to deliver her parting blow.

"Commander Voss. Tomorrow at dawn, the Border will conduct a routine cleansing operation." Her voice was soft, almost kind. "Target: the refugee camps. We have intelligence that certain camps are sheltering shadow witches. The Council's position is clear." She paused. "Better to burn a hundred innocents than let one witch slip through."

Kael's pupils contracted.

"Arbiter," he said. "There are over a hundred refugees in those camps. Most of them are human."

"Then they should have chosen better camps." Elaine smiled. "One weakness, a thousand deaths. You taught me that yourself. Don't let your weakness doom the whole Border, Commander."

She left. The hoofbeats faded.

Kael stood in the dark for a long time. Then he climbed the tower.

Lila sat cross-legged on the hay, the fat cat in her lap, watching him come up the stairs. "Handled? That woman's gone?"

"Tomorrow at dawn," Kael said. His voice was rough. "A cleansing operation. They're burning the camps."

The smile fell off her face.

"…What?"

"They don't know you're there," he said flatly, like he was reciting a casualty report. "But they'll burn every camp on the Border to smoke you out. If you go back, you die."

The tower was silent. The fat cat jumped off Lila's lap and retreated to a corner.

Lila looked down at her hands for a long moment. Then she said, very quietly, "My sister died in a cleansing."

Kael didn't move.

"Three years ago. The hunters came to our camp. They said we were hiding a witch." Her voice was perfectly flat, the flat of a woman who had told this story to no one for years. "They burned the whole circle of tents. I had my little sister by the hand. She couldn't run fast enough. I turned back to get her, and I was—" She stopped. "I was one step too late."

The fire snapped.

She looked up at him, and her eyes were dry, and bright, and terrible. "I hate those seven words more than I hate the hunters who killed her. *Better to burn a hundred innocents.*"

Kael stood in front of her, and his chest was full of something he had no name for. He had never learned to comfort anyone. He reached out, and very gently, touched the top of her head.

"…No," he said. His voice was hoarse. "I won't let that happen. Not again."

Lila looked up at him. In the firelight, this cold, frozen man stood over her with her light in his eyes, like a crack in a glacier with something molten underneath.

"Why?" she asked.

He didn't answer. He looked at her, and at the locket at her throat—the locket that had been warm since Elaine Cross set foot on the Border, warm as a small, sleeping sun.

"That thing around your neck," he said. "Where did you get it?"

"My mother." Lila touched it, instinctively. "She said it was a family heirloom. Wear it, don't lose it. Why?"

"…No reason." He drew back. "Get some sleep. I'll handle tomorrow."

He turned and went down the stairs. Her voice followed him:

"Hey. Ice Cube."

"Mm."

"If you're lying to me, I'll go back to the camp myself tomorrow." Her voice was quiet, and certain. "I'm not afraid of dying. I'm afraid of… people dying because of me. Again."

Kael stood on the stairs, in the dark, and was silent for a long time.

"I do not choose love," he said at last, almost to himself. "Love chooses to ruin me."

He went down, his footsteps fading.

At the top of the tower, Lila sat with her knees to her chest, and the locket at her throat pulsed once, faintly, with a heat that had nothing to do with the fire.

She didn't notice.

Neither did he.

But the Border did.