After Jin'en laughed, Broken Rainbow sprang out of her chair as if she had caught him red-handed.
"And you said you weren't laughing! The corners of your mouth went up!" She pointed at him with one hand and braced the other against the table, her crooked little white braids swaying. "I'm telling my sister."
"Telling her what?"
"That you can laugh," Broken Rainbow said with perfect confidence. "She definitely won't believe it."
Jin'en pushed his chair back and stood.
He had spent too long in Broken Rainbow's room. The air was thick with the mingled smells of disinfectant and old wood, stuffy enough to make the back of his head feel heavy.
"I should head back."
"What's the rush?" Broken Rainbow hopped back onto the bed and wrapped herself in the blanket again, leaving only her face exposed. "You won't have anything to do back there anyway. My sister's out on a mission today, and Mother's out too."
"How do you know everything?"
"When I'm confined, Unica tells me things when she brings my meals." Broken Rainbow raised a finger to her lips and lowered her voice. "She's softhearted. She brings an extra piece of chocolate every time."
Jin'en looked at her bandaged right wrist and remembered the piece of chocolate wrapped in waxed paper on Unica's tray.
"...So you actually ate better during your three days of confinement than you normally do?"
"My sister arranged that." Broken Rainbow pursed her lips. "She told Unica to bring it."
Jin'en froze for a moment.
Daffodil had told Unica to bring extra chocolate-she had told no one about it, and might not even have explained why to Unica.
"Daffodil really is..." He trailed off halfway through.
"Hmm?"
"...Never mind." Jin'en headed for the door, pausing beside it to glance back at Broken Rainbow.
"Your illusions. Do you use them on other people much?"
Broken Rainbow's smile faded a little.
She tugged the blanket up to cover half her face.
"Not much."
"Why?"
"Because it's no fun." Broken Rainbow's voice was muffled by the blanket, difficult to make out. "Seeing people scared...it gets annoying after a while."
Jin'en didn't know what to say.
"Go on, then." Broken Rainbow rolled over with her back to the door, her white hair spilling over the edge of the blanket onto the pillow. "Close the door behind you. Don't let the hallway light in. I'm going to sleep."
Jin'en opened the door.
Light flooded through the gap from the hallway, falling right on the white hair beside the edge of the bed.
He glanced at it, then closed the door.
Jin'en walked slowly on the way back to his room.
This time, he didn't get lost-turn out of the side passage onto the main hallway, head east along it, pass the courtyard, then turn left twice. He had remembered the route Flora gave him that day.
But he stopped when he reached the courtyard.
The bare tree still stood behind the iron fence, its naked trunk resembling a broken finger in the dim indoor light.
He moved a little closer, trying to read the sign on the fence.
"Do not touch."
There was another line in smaller letters below it, mostly obscured by rust. Jin'en spent a long time deciphering it before he could make it out-
"It doesn't eat living things."
Jin'en stared at that line for three seconds.
Then he decided not to think about it.
There were too many things in this house he had decided not to think about, so many that he felt another month here would probably leave him numb to anything.
The next day, Jin'en went to the training ground as usual.
Daffodil didn't appear.
That had never happened in the previous six days.
She always arrived before Jin'en, always chopped at the wooden post, and never stopped before he finished practicing.
Jin'en waited at the training ground for twenty minutes. Once he was sure she really hadn't come, he could only practice alone for a while.
His control over the rifts was steadier than yesterday.
He tried to find the "edges" inside an open rift-the sensation Daffodil had described to him, grasping the boundaries of the tear in space by feel rather than sight.
He caught hold of them twice, each time lasting about three seconds before the rift snapped back.
Still, it was better than yesterday.
At lunch, he went to the dining room. Daffodil's seat was empty, and Broken Rainbow hadn't come either.
Unica sat across the table drinking porridge, while Flora ate bread nearby and chatted quietly with another girl.
Jin'en finished his portion, hesitated, then asked anyway, "Where's Daffodil?"
Unica raised her head and glanced at him.
"Out on a mission."
"Today?"
"She went out last night." Unica set down her bowl and wiped the corner of her mouth. "She came back in the early hours. Mother told her to rest today."
"What about Broken Rainbow?"
"She went to see her sister."
Jin'en nodded and asked nothing more.
But that afternoon, on his way back to his room, he heard a very faint sound in the distance as he passed the widest hallway in the second-floor east wing.
He stopped.
Inanna's study was at the end of the hallway.
The door stood ajar, warm yellow light spilling through the gap.
Jin'en hadn't intended to approach, but his feet moved faster than his thoughts.
When he reached the study door, the scene visible through the gap stopped him in place.
Inanna sat in the study's broad armchair.
Her black dress fell to her ankles, her long hair loose behind her shoulders. One hand rested on the armrest, its fingers slightly curled.
She looked different from usual.
Usually, she was always standing or walking, a riding crop in hand, that appraising look always in her red eyes.
But now she was sitting.
Her posture was relaxed, even languid, as if she were the one who belonged in this room, while Jin'en in the hallway was the thing that shouldn't be there.
Daffodil leaned against her on the left.
The girl in black curled sideways on the left side of the armchair, her head resting in Inanna's lap.
Her blue-streaked bangs had fallen loose, covering half her face. Her usually immaculate ponytail had loosened, black hair spilling across the dark skirt.
Daffodil's eyes were closed, her breathing shallow, her chest rising and falling slightly.
The blade that never left her side was planted in the floor beside the chair, its sheath leaning against the armrest.
Broken Rainbow huddled on Inanna's right.
White hair spilled over her shoulder. Her crooked little braids had been undone at some point, leaving all her hair loose.
Broken Rainbow had curled into a small ball, her face buried against Inanna's waist. One hand clutched the fabric of Inanna's skirt so tightly that her knuckles had turned white.
Her right wrist was still bandaged, the white strips stark against the black fabric of the skirt.
Inanna's left hand rested on Daffodil's shoulder, her right on top of Broken Rainbow's head.
Her fingers moved gently.
Her left hand stroked slowly down Daffodil's back, once, then again, in a very slow rhythm.
Her right hand was buried in Broken Rainbow's white hair, slowly combing through it, her fingers separating the tangles and smoothing the strands one by one.
She was smiling.
The corners of her mouth curved slightly upward, her red eyes lowered toward the two girls in her arms. In her gaze...Jin'en didn't know what that was.
He had never seen that expression on Inanna's face.
The first time he met her, she had crouched down, pinched his fingertips, and said, "Shh."
Every time he saw her after that, her gaze had always been appraising, calculating.
But now she simply bowed her head, watching the two girls sleeping in her lap.
Something tightened in Jin'en's chest.
He couldn't say what the feeling was.
That tightening felt strange, like someone had gripped his stomach, but it didn't quite hurt.
He remembered what Inanna had said when she first met him-"To pick up a blade."
He had thought she was very blunt.
So blunt it was almost cruel.
But now, watching her bow her head and stroke the two girls' hair, Jin'en suddenly wasn't sure.
If she saw Daffodil and Broken Rainbow as nothing more than tools, then what did her expression now mean?
The motion of her hand stroking that back was too slow. Too slow to seem like she was doing anything useful.
So slow...it seemed she simply wanted to touch them.
A tiny sound came from inside the study.
Broken Rainbow was talking in her sleep.
"Mommy..."
She said it very softly, her voice as indistinct as if her mouth were full of water.
But her fingers tightened further around Inanna's skirt, and her brows drew together.
Inanna's fingers paused on Broken Rainbow's forehead, gently pressing between her brows.
Broken Rainbow's brow relaxed.
Watching this, Jin'en felt that his mind couldn't quite keep up.
The same woman.
She had watched Daffodil swing her blade on the training ground and said, "The seventy-third strike was four millimeters off."
She had lifted Broken Rainbow's cuff with her riding crop in the hallway and said, "Finish making up two sets, then do four more."
She had whipped three welts into Broken Rainbow, then gathered the injured Broken Rainbow and Daffodil into her lap, combing their hair and rubbing between their brows.
This wasn't right.
Jin'en kept trying to piece those two scenes together in his mind, but no matter how he tried, they wouldn't fit.
Was she raising daughters or weapons?
Or were those two things...the same to her?
His right wrist suddenly burned.
Jin'en looked down. The silver markings beneath his sleeve were glowing.
They didn't spread, and there was no hum. They merely flashed once.
He hurriedly pulled his sleeve tight and stepped back.
Inside the study, Inanna raised her gaze.
She didn't turn her head, merely shifted her eyes toward the gap in the door.
Jin'en didn't know whether she had seen him.
The gap was too narrow, the hallway too dark, and she had only shifted her eyes slightly.
Then she lowered her head and resumed combing Broken Rainbow's hair.
Jin'en turned and left at once.
He walked quickly, so quickly that he didn't realize how heavy his footsteps were until he collided with the hallway wall at a corner.
His shoulder struck a picture frame, knocking it askew.
He reached out to steady it and glanced down at the figure in the painting-a woman in red, holding two children, sitting beneath a tree covered in blossoms.
Jin'en stared at the painting for two seconds.
The woman's face in the painting bore a strong resemblance to Inanna's.
"This house is full of things people don't want you to see." He released the frame and headed toward his room.
Back in his room, he locked the door and sat on the bed.
The silver markings on his right wrist had dimmed, but a trace of warmth remained beneath his skin.
Jin'en tried hard to remember.
Red irises, reflections in the light, his own face.
Were the eyes she looked at him with the same ones she looked at Daffodil with?
He couldn't remember.
Toward evening, a knock came at the door.
The rhythm was quick, the intervals short.
Jin'en opened the door.
It was Daffodil.
Her bangs were a little messy, as if she hadn't fully woken from a nap, but her stance was as steady as ever.
"Time to eat," she said.
Jin'en looked at her for two seconds.
"You-where did you go today?"
"I was resting."
"Where?"
Daffodil tilted her head slightly, her gray eyes resting on his face for a moment.
"You're really nosy."
"You went on a mission yesterday."
"Yeah."
"Did Mother hit you?"
Daffodil fell silent for a second.
"No."
"Then-"
"Mother had me sleep in her study," Daffodil interrupted him.
As she said this, she looked toward the bend in the corridor, not at Jin'en.
Jin'en opened his mouth.
He wanted to ask, "Was Broken Rainbow there too?" But the words reached his throat, and he swallowed them back down.
"Let's go," he said.
The two walked toward the dining hall, one behind the other.
Jin'en walked behind her, his gaze resting on Daffodil's back.
Her black clothes hugged the contours of her back, exactly like what she usually wore.
But Jin'en felt that her steps were a little slower than they had been that morning.
No.
A little slower than usual.
"Did you practice with the rift today?" Daffodil asked.
"I did."
"How far did you get?"
"I can hold the boundary for three seconds."
"Not bad." Daffodil paused at the corner and turned her head. "I'll be there at the usual time tomorrow."
"Are you sure you don't need another day off?"
Daffodil glanced at him.
That look was different from every one before it.
Jin'en couldn't say what was different-her gaze was still gray, still flat, but there was something very faint in it now.
As though the very thought of "you're worried about me" surprised her a little.
"No," she said, then rounded the corner.
There were quite a few people in the dining hall. Broken Rainbow was there too.
She sat in her usual spot, eating porridge with a spoon in her left hand. The bandage on her right wrist had been replaced with a fresh one, wrapped more tightly than before, possibly Daffodil's handiwork.
When she saw Jin'en and Daffodil come in together, her green eyes curved a little.
"You two came together?"