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“You contributed a location note. That’s practically an emotional investment from you.”

“That’s geography,” Linden clarified, but it was in vain, we all knew what he really meant. Or at least I liked to think we did.

“Same thing.”

I hated that I smiled, and I hid it behind a sip of tea. Kit saw anyway. Of course he did. His whole face warmed, and I regretted everything.

“Fourth bell,” he said again, softer, under the noise of the hall. “No instructors. No files or notes. Just seeing what happens.”

That was the part that got me. No files or notes. He knew it would. It was exactly why he’d said it.

I waited impatiently for fourth bell all day and when it rang I felt relieved. I went because I was an idiot about answers and because Kit had found exactly the bait I could not resist.

The little yard behind the washhouses was not much of a yard. More a stone pocket where three walls met and the fourth opened toward a narrow service path nobody seemed to use. I mean even on my first day Pippa had told me to send my laundry down here as though I could do that myself, so I assumed that no one actually came down to this area.

Steam drifted over the top of the wall in thin white threads bringing with it the scent of the washing being done. For one brief moment I was overwhelmed with homesickness, but I pushed the thoughts away as I rounded the corner. The whole space was private, just as Linden had said. In fact, it was private enough that my nerves didn’t trust it.

Kit was already there with his robe off and sleeves pushed up, the ink looked dark on his forearms as he rolled fire across the back of one hand like a coin.

“That looks safe,” I said as I debated whether to shrug out of my own robe. I decided against it and wrapped it tighter around myself instead.

“It is safe. I’m excellent.”

“The two concepts are unrelated.”

“Painful, but fair.”

He tossed the flame into the air. It hovered there, small and gold, then winked out.

I felt the smallest prickle in my palms and couldn’t stop myself from looking at them. Kit noticed, because he always noticed more than he pretended to.

“There,” he said. “That’s something.”

“It’s a reaction to you showing off. Despair most likely.”

“Most reactions to me showing off involve admiration.”

“You just have a poor data set.”

He laughed and the air in the little yard warmed around it. The laugh should not have done anything to me, because it was just sound, but something in my chest leaned toward Kit and I ignored it so violently I nearly took a physical step back. As it was I almost missed what he said next.

“We start with fire.”

“Do we?”

“Yes. Process of elimination. You don’t have a glass face.”

“I refuse to ask.”

“Wise. You also don’t feel like Ward, and if you were Force, you’d have shoved someone through a wall by now.”

“Tempting. There are definitely some people I’d love to shove through a wall.”

“Right? But no.” He lifted one hand. Fire bloomed in his palm, clean and gold. “You have a fire face.”

“I don’t know what that means, and I am not letting you define my face.”

“Too late. Defined.”