“Notice what you feel,” she said. “Your fingers, your limbs, air in and out of your lungs. All happening without you. Sounds and smells and even the taste in your mouth. You’re aware of these things, but you assign them no emotion. No feeling. You watch those thoughts float past like clouds. They simply are—as you are.”

Anji frowned. Okay. Focus. Or don’t focus? Which was it? Anji inched forward, the sharp edges of the weathered rock digging into her thighs.

How long would she have to do this?

Berip and Jared died because of me.

She had to stop thinking.

I’m not ready to die!

Images flew past like birds on the wing. A broken door. Her parents’ lifeless eyes. Linura’s Order cathedral, stained glass twinkling in the sun. Warm blood pumping over her hand. A Dredger in a cage. Sheertop. The Bear’s mask.

Blade clicking through bone.

What had Kit said earlier?

Pages stuffed into their mouths.

“You’re still thinking too much.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t just—”

“I told you to clear your mind.”

“A little difficult with you barking orders, don’t you think?”

Anji waited for a reply but none came. She tried to identify the sounds around her. Wind buffeting against the lighthouse. Brush cracking on the breeze. The horse’s hoofs knocking against the mossy rocks outside. She tasted the brackish water and dry meat still resonant in her mouth. Her fingertips grew heavy, then her arms. The tension in her neck eased, and the pain in her ankle became distant, though still present.

“You are not your body,” said Kit. “Not the wind outside or my voice or your thoughts.”

Anji kept her eyes closed, and as though she were watching a school of fish gather and flow, a murmuration of birds flapping between chaos and order, the myriad thoughts bustling for purchase in her mind began to drift from a center where she was and was not. She wasn’t sure if she was actually doing it—but she had the stray thought that doing it didn’t matter. None of this did. Nothing.

She opened her eyes.

Kit sat across from her, knees folded in, her eyes bright.

“I couldn’t hold on to—whatever I was—” Anji broke eye contact. She didn’t want to see her failure in Kit’s eyes.

“You wouldn’t have even if we’d sat here a week,” Kit said, waving a hand, though the look of annoyance Anji had anticipated was absent. “That practice is not meant to be done right the first time, or the fiftieth. It takes years of patience, of dedication, and you have quite a bit on your mind.” She tucked a lock of hair behind one ear and cleared her throat. “You did well though. I could tell you were trying, at least. A mistake most make, but difficult to avoid.”