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Reminding me of my purpose.”
    Purpose. Once I’d had a purpose. I’d thought that Taurin had chosen me for great deeds, to save my people from the Dark Masters ensconced in Tau Marai, to defeat the golems they sent out to ravage our land. Showed how much I knew. I’d been deluded, as had the hundreds who’d followed me. I’d failed them at the gates, proved to everyone how Taurin, after all, had not been with me.
    He never had.
    The
eilendi
had been right to doubt me. Toro had been wrong to champion me.
    No, that is all behind me, a shattered past whose pieces I’d buried deep. The only thing that matters from that life is Sera.
    “Why did you come for me? What purpose do the
eilendi
have for Kato Hope-Crusher?” That is one of the kinder epithets I am remembered by.
    She tilts her head, studies me. “I don’t know,” she answers. “Just…I had to find you. That you were the only one who could help me.”
    “Help you do what?”
    Her eyes narrow, her features pinch. “Something monstrous comes. Something dark. I try to hold it, but it eludes me.” She shakes her head. “It’s beyond reach.”
    “From the hospital? Is that where this darkness is?” I press.
    She flinches. Her eyes shade from human to cloak and back to human. “Lair of horrors,” she hisses. “Den of darkness.” She hunches tight, almost into a ball, and says no more.
    “Did—” The words are dry crusts in my throat. I swallow, continue. “Did Sera send you?”
    She shudders, a ripple of dissolving and materializing. “Sera… Yes, Sera.”
    “What about her?” I ask, eager. “Is she—did you know her? Was she there with you in the hospital?”
    She shakes her head. “Pain. There’s nothing there but pain.”
    “Is Sera there now? Flutter.” I take her by her thin shoulders, willing her not to mist away again. “Can you take me? Show me?”
    “I-I…
no
. It is not in the Instructions. Not in the threads. Not in the…” Blue sigils pulsate in her wings again, but I focus on her face, on holding her, as if my gaze and my hands can keep her solid.
    “Flutter! Those are not the guiding principles of your life. Remember, you are
eilendi
and Sera of the tribe of judges. She is a sister of the faith, and you are beholden to aid her, save her. She sent me to you. Why else would you come to me? Take me to her, Flutter.”
    She twists free from my grasp and lunges for a corner, all in one impossibly swift, snake-like movement. She doubles over and retches, though I doubt there is anything left for her to throw up. What do cloaks eat and drink? What can I offer her forougffer he sustenance?
    Flutter wipes her mouth. Her lips twist in a grimace, and a sickly-sweet smell emanates from her.
    “If those people in the hospital are targeting
eilendi
and others of Taurin’s priestly family,” I say, “then it is your duty to help, Flutter.”
    Flutter bobs her head, draws her knees up to her chest. “I’m afraid.”
    I hold my breath. Say nothing. Her duty to Taurin is the most persuasive argument I have. I am not too principled to refrain from using it for my own ends.
    Sera. Hold on. I am coming for you.
    “All right,” she whispers. “I’ll help you.”
     
    Against Instructions. Not valid. Not valid. Return to original destination.
    Knife-twist in gut with each step. Atoms spin in frenzy, strain against bonds, on the edge of breaking free. Wish I can fall apart, hide myself in cool undemanding rock, drift in dank underground air. But
he
pulls at me—the man with his eagerness and ardor, hot as the noonday sun—and the Law, dragging me like a chain.
    Lalita vey. Itauri dia itauri. Eilendi dia eilendi.
    Taurin’s child to Taurin’s child. His chosen to his chosen.
    Render aid. Give comfort. My all to you.
    My feet know the way through this underground warren, this tangle of tunnels, where every drip of water and every foot fall is magnified. The walls are of crumbling brick, the ground is covered in rubble, everything