“Dion.” Penthos stood there stiffly in the doorway. His expression was one of arch superiority, but she knew that those were essentially the lines that his face fell back into when he wasn’t bothering with expressions. There was a tightness to his jaw beyond it all, though, a slight tremble about his eyes.

“Penthos,” she said, her voice as light as she could make it. “Was there something you wished to discuss?”

He put a finger up, indicating she should wait, and then he bowed his head, frowning with ferocious concentration. One hand came up, crooked into a claw, and for a long while he just stood there, shaking somewhat, his fierce frown deepening and deepening. His breath hissed from his nose, and his teeth were bared with effort. She could feel power drawing in like sheets of invisible fire from all around them, all spiraling in toward the point where Penthos’s fingers met.

Something appeared there, leaping like a candle flame, and she put a hand up to try and ward off what was surely about to be a colossal explosion.

But then Penthos let his breath out slowly, and there in his hand was a flower. It was no worldly bloom she had ever seen, and it glowed translucently like a precious stone. The magician met her eyes and assayed a strained rictus of a smile, an undertaker’s idea of joviality.

“For you,” he said, thrusting it at her.

“I…” Her heart, which had been low for some time, had a way to sink yet, it seemed. “That’s very kind.”

She could read him far too well. He was sieving her words and stance for signs of hope, trying to work out if she was encouraging him, but of all the lore he was a master of, that language he had never learned.

“Kind, yes,” he agreed at last. “I can be kind. I know I am feared by many—and with good reason!—who think that being a grand master of the Power Elemental divorces me from mundane human concerns. And in many cases they are exactly right, for such as I—such as we—have higher matters in mind than the minutiae of everyday humdrum existence, do we not?”

“…”, she managed, which he took as encouragement.

“Yes, you have your faith, your role as chosen of Armes. I see how it keeps you from the general run of the herd, makes you separate, raises you up. But I understand, Dion. It is lonely, to be so separate. I feel it too.”

“Penthos…” But she could not complete the sentence. She was too horrified by his assessment. Was he right? Was she like him, cut off from humanity by office and the burden of power? When had that happened? How could it be undone?