Damn. “I’m fine, Gav. I only need a couple files.” She grinned winningly as she could manage, and hoped she didn’t look too tired. If Gavin’s misplaced sense of chivalry engaged, she wouldn’t be rid of him for hours. “I can do this myself. Just a little research, is all.” She touched his bag of scrolls. “Go on. You have work.”

“Okay,” he said, still skeptical. “It’s good to see you again, Kai.”

“Good to see you, man. It won’t be so long next time.”

He nodded, once, smiled, and lumbered away down the corridor. She watched him go until he turned left and disappeared. Letting out the long breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, she sagged against the wall and stayed there until her heart calmed again. Fear chilled her brow and neck. She didn’t like being afraid of Gavin.

She tugged her clothes straight and returned to the library. The golem glared at her, and refilled its mug of coffee from a percolator in its chest, but did not stop her or ask her business. This time she ignored the window and the view, stepping softly so as not to attract more attention. None of the library’s denizens looked up from their books as she passed. Pages turned, scrolls rolled. A young woman coughed. A teenage acolyte’s leg twitched up and down like a sewing needle as he read. He, Kai thought, noting the military hair and the loose shirt and the other signs that the acolyte with the restless leg was waiting for initiation, waiting for the pool, waiting to remake himself into himself.

She smiled, and wanted to say something to him, but she’d stood out too much already. Get the data, and get out. That was all she could afford now.

She counted four doors, five, on the outer wall: small, curved, and paneled to match the walls’ wood, marked over the jamb with names on bronze tags. Once, every senior priest had her own niche, but office space had grown too crowded for such luxury. Kai passed her own door without hesitation and continued an eighth-rotation around the caldera until she reached the door bearing Mara’s name.

She stepped through into a tunnel of volcanic stone. Cloying warm air bore a sulfur stench and hints of ozone. Ghostlight tubes painted everything pale purple-green: the worn smooth path down the center of the hall, the petroglyphs, the thick brass pipes gleaming with silver Craftwork. Her footsteps and her cane’s taps joined the pipes’ weird symphony: the clink and groan of heating and cooling metal, the rush of hydraulic surf.