Jin'en had not finished pulling his hand back when footsteps came from the training ground stairs.
Very light, but the rhythm was wrong.
Jin'en's ears twitched-the sound of bare feet on iron sand.
Broken Rainbow's gait, but a little faster than usual.
He did not turn around.
Standing inside the chain circle, Porsette saw the figure at the stairs over Jin'en's shoulder, and her shoulders drew in.
"Broken Rainbow's back," Jin'en said.
"I know." Porsette's voice dropped a notch.
Broken Rainbow stopped at the edge of the training ground, her white hair loose, the legs of her cargo pants uneven-the left rolled up to her knee, the right still hanging down.
Her right hand gripped a thin cord with a small iron ring tied to it, swinging back and forth.
"Yo," she said.
Jin'en turned around.
Broken Rainbow tilted her head at him, her green eyes dazzlingly bright under the training ground's white lights, the corners of her mouth raised, her pointed canines barely showing.
She showed none of the fatigue of returning from a mission, her hair was not mussed, and she wore no shoes-she did not look as though she had just finished a mission.
"What about the mission?" Jin'en asked.
"There wasn't one." Broken Rainbow tossed the little iron ring into the air and caught it. "I knew it was fake when Unica passed the message along. Mother never went out today. The study light was on."
"Then you-"
"I took a walk." Broken Rainbow stepped farther into the training ground, her bare feet touching the iron-sand floor, her toes curling. "Wandered around the back mountain. On my way back, I heard noises in the training ground, so I came to look."
Her gaze left Jin'en's face and settled on Porsette inside the chain circle.
Porsette's right foot was still on the edge of the chain circle, her center of gravity very low, her knees slightly bent-the stance Jin'en had taught her. She had held it without moving for at least five minutes.
Broken Rainbow stared at that stance for two seconds.
"You taught her?" she asked Jin'en.
"Yeah."
"Not a bad stance." Broken Rainbow walked over to the wooden post, removed the little iron ring from its cord, and casually tossed it into the nearby basket of odds and ends.
She leaned against the post, arms folded across her chest, and tilted her head as she watched Porsette, as though looking at something freshly unwrapped.
"How long have you been standing?" Broken Rainbow asked.
Porsette did not answer.
"I'm asking you." Broken Rainbow's tone had not changed. It was still languid.
"Ten minutes," Jin'en answered for her.
Broken Rainbow's gaze returned to Jin'en's face.
"Ten minutes." She repeated it, the curve of her mouth shifting slightly. "Back when I stood in this circle, I got out in under three minutes."
Jin'en said, "You weren't wearing socks back then."
Broken Rainbow glanced down at the gray ankle socks on Porsette's feet.
The cuffs hung loose, and a ring of iron-sand dust clung around the toes.
"Yours?" she asked Jin'en.
"Yeah."
Broken Rainbow narrowed her green eyes slightly.
The change in her expression was subtle. Jin'en caught it, but could not read it.
It was as though something had turned over in her head, then been suppressed.
"Fine." Broken Rainbow straightened away from the post and walked toward the center of the training ground. "Since you're teaching, I'll watch."
"You don't have to-"
"I don't have to what?" Broken Rainbow had already crouched beside the chain circle, her chin cupped in both hands as she looked up at Jin'en, her white hair slipping off her shoulders to hang over her knees. "You teach. I won't talk."
Looking at her crouched there, Jin'en felt something was not quite right.
But Porsette was still standing inside the circle, and her knees had begun to shake.
Jin'en decided to leave Broken Rainbow alone for now and refocused.
"Rest for a minute," he said.
Porsette relaxed her knees in relief, curling her toes hard inside her socks.
"Give me your hand." Jin'en held out his hand.
Porsette glanced at him and offered hers-the fingers in her red fingerless glove rested on Jin'en's palm, cool and small.
Jin'en pulled her out of the chain circle, and her whole body relaxed a little once she stood outside it.
"You're keeping your center of gravity too low." Jin'en released her hand. "Gripping the ground with your toes is right, but you're bending your knees too much. Your thighs can't hold up."
"Then how much should I bend them?"
"The way you stood at attention before, that was too much bend. But completely straight won't work either." Jin'en thought for a moment, then rummaged through the basket and took out two discarded short wooden sticks, about an arm's length, thick at one end and thin at the other. "Take these."
Porsette took them, one in each hand.
"Plant them on the ground and use them as crutches. Support yourself with them while you stand. Once you can stand for three minutes without their support, you'll more or less have it."
Porsette looked down at the sticks in her hands, her gilded eyes blinking.
"Where did you get these sticks?"
"Carved them yesterday."
"You knew yesterday I'd be practicing this?"
Jin'en did not answer.
Porsette watched him for two seconds. The corner of her mouth moved, not quite forming a smile, but she asked no more questions.
She planted the two sticks inside the chain circle and stepped back in, placing both feet between them.
Her knees bent, but less than before.
"Good," Jin'en said. "Three minutes. Start."
He stepped back twice and settled against the wooden post.
Broken Rainbow was still crouched nearby, chin in her hands, watching Porsette stand.
After about half a minute, she suddenly stood, dusted off her knees, and walked over to Jin'en.
"Come here a second," she said.
Her voice was very soft, too soft for Porsette to hear.
Jin'en glanced at her.
Broken Rainbow had already turned toward a corner of the training ground, where several bundles of old bandages and a bucket of iron sand lay, the light dimmer than elsewhere.
Jin'en followed.
They stood in the farthest corner of the training ground, a dozen or so meters from Porsette.
Several wooden posts and two rows of stone targets stood between them. From this angle, Porsette could not see their expressions, only two silhouettes.
"What is it?" Jin'en leaned against the wall.
Broken Rainbow stood in front of him, looking up at him.
This was too close, close enough for Jin'en to see the patterns in her green irises-an uneven green like shards of broken glass, threaded with a few streaks of a deeper color.
"What are you teaching her?" Broken Rainbow asked.
"Basic footwork."
"I'm not talking about footwork." Broken Rainbow took a step forward. Jin'en's back was already against the wall.
She took another step forward.
Jin'en tried to move aside, but Broken Rainbow raised her right hand and pressed it against the wall to his left, her palm flat against it, her knuckles tensing slightly.
A wall pin.
Jin'en looked down at her arm, then at her face.
Broken Rainbow was more than a head shorter than him. She stood before him with her face tilted up, white hair loose over her shoulders, her right hand braced against the wall to his left and her left hand in her cargo-pants pocket, her whole body blocking him against the wall.
"What are you doing?" Jin'en's voice was level.
"Asking you a question." Broken Rainbow tilted her head, the light shifting in her green eyes. "You're teaching her stances, carving sticks, helping her avoid me. Are you protecting her?"
"I'm teaching her the basics."
"Basic footwork doesn't require carving sticks." Broken Rainbow tapped a finger lightly against the wall. "You never put this much care into teaching big sister."
Jin'en fell silent for a beat.
"What are you talking about? Daffodil doesn't need me to teach her at all."
"So you teach her." Broken Rainbow leaned a little closer, the upward angle of her face making her green eyes look bigger and brighter. The curve of her mouth was restrained, her canines hidden. "Do you know what Mother brought her back for?"
"Of course I do."
"Then why?"
Jin'en looked at her.
Broken Rainbow's expression now was unlike any version he had seen before.
Usually, her smile was languid, barbed, watching the show.
But now there was no smile.
Her green eyes stared unblinkingly at his face, something shifting within them, like some emotion suppressed for a long time that she herself was unsure whether to release.
"Broken Rainbow," Jin'en said.
"Mm."
"The night Daffodil left, you sat on the windowsill and talked to me."
Broken Rainbow's fingers paused against the wall.
"You said you'd seen everyone's soul color." Jin'en's voice was level, no different from usual. "You said Daffodil's flame was white and didn't burn."
Broken Rainbow did not respond.
"You never mentioned Porsette's."
Broken Rainbow blinked.
"You want to know?" she said, her voice a notch lower than before.
"Tell me."
Broken Rainbow lowered her head, her bangs falling to cover half an eye.
She looked at her right hand braced against the wall-the bandaged wrist, the knuckles slightly pale from pressing against the rough surface.
"Little Red Riding Hood's soul color..." She began, her voice very soft. "It's transparent."
Jin'en said nothing.
"In all my years watching at Red Letter, I've never seen a transparent flame." Broken Rainbow raised her head to look at him, the thing in her green eyes clearer than before. "Transparent means there's nothing. She has no color, no shape, just a thin layer covering that spot, like frost on glass. You can't see anything inside."
"What does that mean?"
"It means she doesn't even know what color she is." Broken Rainbow pulled her right hand away from the wall, but did not retreat, still standing before Jin'en and looking up at him. "People like that are the hardest to control with illusions, because she's a transparent vessel herself. Whatever color you pour into her, that's the color she becomes."
Jin'en watched her face.
"You're worried about her."
"Why would I worry about her?" Broken Rainbow's tone suddenly returned to its usual drawl, languid, dragging out the last syllables. "She's not big sister."
"Then why are you blocking me?"
Broken Rainbow opened her mouth, as though caught off guard.
She stared at Jin'en for two seconds, then gave a "hmph," pulled her left hand out of her pocket too, and braced both hands against the wall, enclosing Jin'en between them.
This position brought her face even closer to Jin'en's, close enough for him to see a tiny grain of iron sand caught on her eyelashes.
"I'm blocking you because you've been off lately," Broken Rainbow said.