Porsette tilted her head, her gilded pupils shifting in the dim light.
"Can't I have both?"
"...No."
"Why?"
"Because taking someone as your big brother comes at a price." Jin'en pulled his hand out of his pocket, slipped it into the other one, and shifted his stance. "Finding a backer doesn't-if your backer falls, you can find another. You can't do that with a big brother."
Porsette stared at him for several seconds.
Those gilded eyes were unusually quiet.
Jin'en felt she was calculating-how much of what he had said was true, how much was false, and how much was meant to bluff her.
"What about big sister, then?" Porsette said.
"Which big sister?"
"The one with white hair." Porsette switched the slipper to her other hand and held it dangling. "She calls you big brother. What price did she pay?"
Jin'en fell silent for a beat.
"She gave me a slap," he said.
"What?"
"When she'd just joined Red Letter." Jin'en's gaze moved away from her face to the shadows at the end of the corridor. "I walked past while she was practicing with her blade, and a spatial rift jolted. Her blade flew out of her hand, and the back of it smacked my arm. The bruise lasted half a month."
Porsette blinked.
"And then?"
"Then she said three words to me."
"Which three?"
"I am sorry." Jin'en looked back at her.
"She never apologizes to anyone. That was the first time."
Porsette mulled those words over without answering.
Footsteps came from farther down the corridor-Unica approached from the main staircase.
She didn't stop when she saw Jin'en and Porsette, merely glancing at Porsette's bare feet and the slipper in her hand.
"Flora's looking for you," Unica told Porsette.
"I know."
"She said if you don't return her slipper, she'll come get it herself."
"Let her come." Porsette tucked the slipper behind her back.
Unica glanced at Jin'en.
Her gaze was neither warm nor cold, much like looking at merchandise on a shelf.
"Mother wants you at the training ground at ten." She left after saying that.
Jin'en looked down at Porsette.
"Ten," he said. "Twenty minutes left."
"I don't want to go."
"Mother arranged it."
"I know." Porsette tightened her grip on the slipper, her knuckles turning white. "But the floor's so hard. It hurts the soles of my feet."
Jin'en looked at her feet.
They were bare, her toes curled, with corridor dust still clinging to their tops.
The floors in the Scarlet Letter Mansion were hardwood, and they really did hurt after walking on them for a long time.
"Come with me," he said.
Porsette raised her head.
"Where?"
"Return the slipper first, then find some socks."
Flora's room was at the end of the third-floor corridor.
When Porsette set the slipper by the door, Flora was sitting cross-legged on her bed, flipping through a comic. She nearly sprang off the bed at the sight of her.
"You-"
"Here it is." Porsette left the slipper outside the threshold and stepped back.
Flora opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but looked at Porsette's two bare feet, then at Jin'en standing in the corridor with his arms folded. In the end, she merely huffed and scooped up the slipper.
"Tell me next time," she muttered, closing the door.
Jin'en took Porsette to his room.
While rummaging through his wardrobe, he found two unworn pairs of ankle socks, dark gray, with their tags still attached.
Inanna had previously had someone buy them for everyone. He wasn't used to wearing socks this thin, so he had left them untouched.
"Put them on."
Porsette sat on the edge of the bed and pulled the socks onto her feet.
They were a little too big, their cuffs hanging loosely around her ankles.
"They'll do," Jin'en said.
"Mm." Porsette stepped on the floor a few times, wiggling her toes inside the socks. "Better than bare feet."
When the two arrived at the training ground, Broken Rainbow was crouched beside a wooden post in the center, whittling a branch of unknown origin with a dagger.
Her white hair hung loose, and dust clung to the knees of her cargo pants. When she lifted her green eyes and saw Jin'en and Porsette entering together, the corner of her mouth rose.
"Yo." She put away the dagger and stood up, twirling the branch between her fingers. "Little Red Riding Hood's here. Brought a bodyguard, too?"
"Mother asked you to teach her basic footwork," Jin'en said.
"I know." Broken Rainbow tossed the branch onto the ground. "But Mother just sent someone to fetch me. Said there's a mission, and I'm leaving now."
Jin'en frowned slightly.
"What mission?"
"Didn't say." Broken Rainbow brushed the wood shavings off her hands and headed for the stairs. "Unica passed on the message. Mother's waiting in the study."
As she passed Jin'en, she turned her head, her green eyes curving.
"You teach her," she drawled. "You've been taking on big sister's work lately anyway. Teaching a little footwork won't hurt."
"I don't know how to teach."
"You do." Broken Rainbow had already reached the stairs and didn't look back. "You taught me how to walk along the edge of a rift. Forget?"
Jin'en froze for a moment.
That had been a long time ago.
Once, Broken Rainbow had sneaked into the training ground to watch him practice with rifts and nearly stepped onto the edge of a spatial distortion.
Jin'en had grabbed the back of her collar and dragged her back, then spent the entire afternoon teaching her how to sense areas of unstable space.
Broken Rainbow had only been seven then, about Porsette's age now.
"I don't remember," Jin'en said.
"I do." Broken Rainbow's voice drifted down from above the stairs, growing more distant. "You taught pretty well. Just didn't talk enough."
The footsteps faded.
Only Jin'en and Porsette remained in the training ground.
Porsette stood at the edge, her gray-socked feet together, her gilded eyes especially bright beneath the training ground's stark white fluorescent lights.
She looked at the wooden posts, sheet metal, and stone targets scattered across the ground, then glanced at Jin'en.
"So you're teaching me?"
Jin'en looked over the training ground, silent for two beats.
He had never imagined that teaching someone would fall to him.
Porsette took two steps forward, her soles landing on the iron-sand floor. A layer of dust immediately clung to her socks. "Can you fight?"
"What?"
"When you hit people." Porsette looked down at her dusty socks. "Do you use your fists or your rifts?"
Jin'en looked at her.
The question was very direct.
"Which do you want to learn?" he said.
Porsette lifted her head.
Something flickered in those gilded eyes, brief as a gust rippling the surface of water.
"I can't learn either," she said, her voice dropping. "My ability is for running away. It doesn't work for fighting."
"Then why did Mother have you practice basic footwork?"
"To run a little faster."
Jin'en didn't answer.
He undid two buttons on his trench coat, walked to the center of the training ground, and stopped in front of the thickest wooden post.
"I watched someone practice basic footwork for ten years," he said. "You don't need to reach that level."
"What level, then?"
"Until your feet won't slip on the floor."
Porsette glanced down at her socks.
Her gray ankle socks rested on the iron sand, a layer of gray-black grains already clinging to the soles.
"That's all?"
"That's all." Jin'en turned to face her. "You walked down the third-floor corridor twice last night. Every step landed to the left of the seams between the floorboards. Do you know why?"
Porsette tilted her head.
"The left side is half a millimeter lower than the right," Jin'en said. "You walk on the left because those boards bear weight more steadily and don't make a sound when you step on them. That should be a habit you picked up at the orphanage."
Porsette's expression didn't change, but her fingers curled at her sides.
"How do you know I was in an orphanage?"
"The files say where Mother picked up every child." Jin'en leaned against the wooden post, folding his arms across his chest. "You spent three years there and moved between four places. Whenever you arrived somewhere new, the first thing you did was feel the seams in the floor."
The training ground fell quiet for a beat.
Porsette looked at Jin'en's face for a long time.
"You investigated me."
"I've read the files of everyone in Red Letter," Jin'en said. "It doesn't matter who they are. It's a habit of mine."
Porsette was silent for a while, then stepped forward.
"Then tell me how I should practice."
"Start with standing." Jin'en picked up a discarded length of iron chain beside the wooden post and laid it on the ground in a circle roughly half a meter across. "Stand inside the circle. Your feet can't leave it."
"That's it?"
"Your feet can't leave it, and your body can't sway. Three minutes."
Porsette stepped inside the chain circle, put her feet together, and stood straight.
Jin'en watched her from against the wooden post.
Her stance was textbook: back straight, chin tucked slightly, weight centered over the middle of her feet-this was how she had been trained to stand at the orphanage. Proper, but too proper.
"Loosen your knees a little," Jin'en said.
Porsette glanced down at her knees.
"I won't be steady if I do."
"You're too steady," Jin'en said. "So steady that one push will knock you over."
Porsette looked up at him.
"Try pushing me."
Jin'en left the wooden post, circled to her side, and made a light pressing motion above her shoulder-his palm was still two inches away, but Porsette tilted half an inch sideways, her foot nearly stepping outside the chain circle.
"See?" Jin'en withdrew his hand. "You're forcing yourself to stay steady. It's all on the surface. One touch and it shatters."
Porsette pressed her lips together and drew her foot back.
"Then how do I practice?"
"Loosen your knees and lower your center of gravity. Grip the ground with your toes, not the soles of your feet."
Porsette did as he said.
Her knees bent slightly, her center of gravity sank, and her toes curled inside her socks, gripping the iron-sand floor.
"Stand again."
This time, Jin'en didn't touch her.
He walked halfway around her, observing her stance-it was looser now, but her center of gravity was still too high, her shoulders tense.
"When you were at the orphanage, did anyone ever push you from behind?"
Porsette's shoulders stiffened for an instant.
"Yes."
"What did you do?"
"I ran forward."
"Try it now." Jin'en circled behind her and stood two paces away. "I'll push your shoulders forward."
He reached out, placing his palm between her shoulder blades with very little force.
Porsette tilted forward, her right foot stepping out, her left following-
Her heel struck the chain.
She stumbled a step, then steadied herself.
"You stepped with your right foot just now." Jin'en withdrew his hand. "But you naturally lead with your left."
Porsette turned to look at him.
"How do you know?"
"When you run down the stairs, your first step is always with your left foot." Jin'en returned to the wooden post and rearranged the chain on the ground. "You stepped with your right because your shoulders were pushed, and your body automatically changed direction. But your instincts didn't keep up."
Porsette stared at him for two seconds, then lowered her head to look at her feet.
"So what I need to practice is..."
"How to make your instincts keep up with your body." Jin'en crouched down and nudged the loop of iron chain closer to her feet. "Again. This time I'll push from the left."
The training ground stayed quiet for a long time.
Jin'en pushed six times. Porsette fell four times and stumbled twice.
The falls didn't hurt-the iron-sand ground was soft-but each time she got back up, her expression darkened a little more, and the tentative look in her gilded eyes turned into a very quiet stubbornness.
On the seventh attempt, Jin'en changed direction.
He pushed from behind and to her right, with the same force as before.
Porsette's left foot moved first.
Her body turned forty-five degrees with the push, and her right foot followed, landing on the edge of the iron chain loop-but not outside it.
She steadied herself.
"That was right." Jin'en withdrew his hand.