Ruth broke into a guilty smile. “Yes, Mother, it was,” she confessed. She took a moment to gather her thoughts. “What I wanted to ask is … has not the time come to bring our young shepherd into the fold?”

Susana frowned and wiped the excess oil dripping down the side of the lamp. Ruth knew that she was not ignoring her, but considering the question.

The elder woman slowly set down the lamp and placed her hands in her lap. “I, too, have observed our young shepherd from time to time,” she said. “And she certainly does possess the admirable traits of which you speak.” Her forehead wrinkled with thought. “My sense, however, is that she suffers from a lack of confidence in her female identity as well as a tendency to put herself in jeopardy for the sake of protecting others.”

Ruth’s eyes widened. She, too, had noted the second tendency. And had only to recall the great risks Anna had taken in rescuing Tabitha and the sheep. But of the first—a lack of confidence in her identity—she had seen little evidence.

Susana lifted two flints from a table. She held them up to eye their sharp, scalloped edges. “I must confess, though, that I have not engaged our most recent arrival with the fullness of my attention.”

Ruth’s brow furrowed. “Then you have not been able to determine the reason that Zahra sent her?”

Mother Susana closed her eyes. “It still eludes me,” she said. “But I have intuited, as I believe my sister did before me, that Anna possesses a very particular, and perhaps powerful, destiny. One that would appear to converge with that of The Way.”

Ruth’s cheeks dimpled in surprise. She had not imagined Anna serving a greater purpose than her current one. Her curiosity piqued, she waited for Susana to elaborate.

Susana struck the flints near the lamp’s wick.

“Unfortunately, the particulars of the convergence remain unclear to me, and as indecipherable as Anna’s gender sometimes appears.”

A spark shot from the flints. It hit the wick and fizzled out.

“But while the lack of clarity around her future path disturbs me, I think you are right to conclude that it would be better for all if she did not remain an outsider.”

A second spark shot against the wick. It burst into flame.

Susana gazed up at Ruth.

Ruth’s eyes twinkled, having intuited Susana’s answer before she spoke it.

Mother Susana smiled. “Your vision has improved,” she said. A sudden look of regret darkened the old woman’s face. “Perhaps we made a mistake in not choosing you to become an Awakener?”

Ruth shook her head. “Our paths flow from deep wisdom. I trust in what has yet to come.”

Susana stared into the flame. “I assume, then, that you wish to be in charge of preparing our newest apprentice?”

“I would be honored,” Ruth said.