Kai reached for the water glass. Its edges pressed against her palm, the blade of its lip against hers; she drank the pain, and when she set the glass down only a drop of blood remained at the corner of her mouth. She licked it, and tasted salt and metal.

“There’s no question here,” she said. “Jace and Mara were right. I was wrong. I made a mistake, and put myself in danger.” Strange that she could keep her voice level as she said the words. Humiliation was like ripping off a bandage: easier to endure if you took it all at once.

“And yet you have not suffered a formal reprimand. You still hold your position in Kavekana’s priesthood.”

“That’s not a question.”

“Based on your actions, do you think you deserve disciplinary action?”

“I’m still in the hospital,” she said. “It’s early. Do you have any more questions?”

“There are always more questions, Ms. Pohala.”

“Get on with it, then.”

Ms. Kevarian lowered her pen.

Time broke after that, and she tumbled from moment to moment through the dream. Questions flowed on, in that same round-voweled alto voice. Light pierced her from all sides at once. She drank, and was not sated; turned from Ms. Kevarian but found herself staring into another Ms. Kevarian’s eyes. She sat not in one room reflected to infinity, but in infinite rooms, asked in each a different question, her answers blending to a howl.

She woke in her sickbed in Kavekana’ai, panting, tangled in sheets. Ghostlights glimmered from panels and instruments on the walls. A metronome ticked the beats of her heart. The ticks slowed as she breathed. In the polished ceiling she saw her own reflection, a sepia blur swathed in hospital linen.

Paper rustled. She was not alone.

Jace sat in a chromed chair by the wall. He folded his issue of the Journal so Kai couldn’t see the date. He looked worse than she remembered, thin and sunken, clad all in black. He set the paper down, poured her a glass of water, and lifted it to her lips. She tried to take the cup from him, but bandages wrapped her hands. She drank, though the taste of glass shivered her.

“How’d I do?” she said when he pulled the water away. Her voice sounded flat and dull, an instrument left too-long idle.

“You were great,” he said. “Rest, now. If you can.”

She lay back, and knew no more.

Chapter 4

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