“I suppose the solstice festival feels long ago to you, given your age. You don’t remember, then?”

  Brought back to the present as Gaeleath spoke, Saphienne stepped forward, as though she were carefully examining the trio of unfinished sculptures, reaching out to touch the sandstone with one hand while she wiped her eyes with the other — keeping her back to the sculptor. She tilted her head, pretended she had been brushing a loose strand of hair back behind her ear.

  Saphienne needed a moment to steady her voice. “No, I don’t,” she lied. “I have a vague memory of a puppet show, but nothing significant.”

  Gaeleath hadn’t noticed her lie, and their voice remained light. “That would be right. The festival lasts for three days, and on the day of the solstice there’s always a special event to entertain children under the age of fourteen. You would have slept there, overnight?” They were trying to help her remember, unaware that she wanted to forget. “This year will be quite different for you.”

  “So,” Saphienne moved their conversation on, “you want to exhibit one of these?”

  “That would be my plan.” They came up beside her, half folding their arms and resting their cheek against their palm. “But, well. I find choosing difficult. And I really ought to produce something worth showing, to justify my presence here. All was fair while I was teaching you, but now that you’re learning wizardry…”

  Glad for the change of topic, she kept her expression neutral as she turned to them. “That’s actually what I was coming to see you about. I’m going to be very busy–”

  “For the next while.” Gaeleath hadn’t taken their eyes off the stone. “I remember how it goes. A week or so marvelling at the disciplines, then three weeks where your education begins in earnest. The early curriculum is largely settled. You’ll doubtlessly be busy in the afternoons, after your morning lessons.”

  “We’re going to study together. Me, and the other apprentices.”

  “Lovely.” They nodded, then glanced her way and flashed a smile. “I’m sure you’ll get on better with them than I did with mine. Camaraderie is important, for those who can manage it.”

  Saphienne wasn’t in a state to pry into their history. “After, I was thinking I could come here in the mornings? Two days each week, I’ll be busy, but the rest… I’d still like to learn the art of sculpture.”

  “And I’ll still be happy to teach you.” They indicated Saphienne’s half of the work area, where several engraved slabs were neatly stacked, and the rough head of an elf was slowly emerging from sandstone. “You’ve got a sharp eye and a deft hand for etching, and I expect that, when you make the transition to harder, darker materials, you’ll be surprised by how good you are. If you were more confident with the songs, you’d be further along with your statue work, but oh — these things take time.”

  “I’m grateful.” She bowed. “Will you bring on another student?”

  Gaeleath grimaced. “Not if I can avoid it. I’m quite particular. I don’t want to spend my time teaching a child who won’t do something with the lessons.”

  Despite how she felt, she managed a small smile. “Aren’t the lessons wasted on me? I’ll be a wizard, not a sculptor.”

  “Hardly.” They unfolded their arms, facing her. “It’s the art, Saphienne. The art is what I’m teaching you. The sculptures, the medium — these are expressions of the art, not the art itself. When you’re good, the work of art you make can convey an impression of the art, but they aren’t the same thing.”

  She studied their gaze. “I don’t understand.”

  “Nor will you, not now.” They shrugged. “Don’t think I’m patronising — I don’t mean to condescend. I didn’t understand for a very long time, and I still haven’t quite come into my own. Art is what we do to ourself, within ourself, that we then try to explain to ourself and to others through making artistic works. Magic and sculpture, calligraphy and painting, song — they’re all different mediums for expressing the same thing.”

  Thinking back to their first meeting, she thought about what she had said to Gaeleath, and how they had replied. “When I told you I wanted to understand myself, and you said–”

  “Yes! ‘To understand art is to understand oneself; to understand art is to make art.’ People who aren’t artists, they think that old quote refers to the production of the works of art! But, it doesn’t. Art is entirely within us. And,” they gestured to the half-formed stone, “if we can make something that stirs the same in others, then the art spreads, and can be shared, and the discussion unfolds and adds to the art.”

  For the second time in a few short minutes, Saphienne felt she was standing on a precipice — had always been standing on a precipice, of which she had been blissfully unaware. Now she knew it was there, but couldn’t see the bottom, and feeling it wait for her–

  She retreated. “I’ll think about it.”

  Gaeleath glanced her up and down, and their expression softened. “Don’t rush into it. You’ll make sense of it when it’s time.” Then they turned back to their works in progress. “Unlike me, no one expects you to justify yourself through your art. Which leads me back to my question: which should I finish, Saphienne?”

  Looking back to the three pieces of faintly glittering stone, she tried to think it through. “Do you have a particular audience?”

  “Good thought, but no, it’s for general consumption. I already selected these because they will have broad appeal.” They shifted, and sighed. “Being specific is necessary for great art, but being too specific runs the risk of people just not… well, if they can’t connect, they won’t see the value.”

  “But, if you’ve already thought it through, how am I meant to help?”

  Gaeleath laughed. “I asked you what your heart says about them. Which piece, crude though it may be, most resonates with some sentiment? Which makes a connection? Knowing that will help me choose.”

  Accepting they wouldn’t let her leave without an answer, Saphienne did her best to calm herself, and to let herself feel whatever they provoked. What she thought was a sitting figure stirred nothing in her; what appeared as a half-shaped tree inexplicably angered her. But the last piece, which looked to her like two figures…

  “This one.” She lay her hand against the stone. “The dancers.”

  Gaeleath raised their eyebrows. “…Dancers? Well. I… yes, I suppose.”

  Saphienne backed away, fighting down the memories that lay behind the choice. “People like dancing. It’s a festival. It’ll suit the mood.”

  “You’re right, though perhaps in ways that… yes.” Gaeleath flashed another, slightly forced smile. “I’ll finish it across the next few weeks, while you’re away. Might I ask you not to call unannounced, while I’m working on it?”

  The sculptor had never before asked that of her. “You want it to be a surprise?”

  “…Let’s say yes. I have my reasons. My artistic whim, fickle as I am.”

  She inclined her head. “Of course. Thank you.” She leant toward the door. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to…”

  But Gaeleath had already shifted their attention to the work, and from their sudden focus on the figures, Saphienne knew that their choice was made, and that they were reading lines in the stone – or within themself? – that would soon be visible. They waved to her despite their distraction. “By all means. Enjoy your break… and when you return, we’ll finally see how you fare against wood.”

  Everything in Saphienne wanted to run from the pavilion in relief, but she waved back, and left as though at ease.

  *   *   *

  Part of Saphienne wanted to go straight to the library, but she was too upset, and the thought of having to pretend all was well to Filaurel and Faylar made her feel even more wretched than she already did. Instead, she went for a walk, picking her way through the woodland while staying within the outskirts of the village, her eyes on the ground and her senses turned inward.

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  Why had she remembered the festival? For over three years, she had kept the memory of that day carefully buried. And not just that memory — there were others that she avoided dwelling on, whenever they were prompted.

  Unconsciously, she took out the pouch containing her copper coin, and clutched it against her chest as she went on.

  Perhaps losing her temper in front of Iolas had loosened her control. That memory embarrassed her; even accounting for how easily her mother provoked her, acting so childishly to him on their first meaningful day together felt shameful to Saphienne. She had only herself to blame. Still, being off-balance from humiliation… that went some way toward explaining why Gaeleath’s question had cut right through her defences.

  Or was there more? Was being in the tented pavilion – much like the one raised on that day – partly responsible? She thought not: the village used many such structures for temporary accommodation, and she had been working there, beside Gaeleath, for months. Then again, the unfinished sculpture resembled dancers, and the combination of things together could explain…

  Saphienne sighed, and her eyes fell shut. She knew why.

  She had friends again. Had just made friends, that very day. She felt welcomed, and perhaps even understood. She hadn’t felt that with Faylar, not entirely… or was it that she hadn’t let herself…

  Tears slowly ran down her cheeks as she admitted to herself how deeply, and bitterly, she missed Kylantha.

  She wiped them away; she wiped the thought away. There was too much there. And too much else in the memories, things that she hadn’t understood at the time, things that she now realised she had overlooked — and now saw with new, terrible unease.

  Older now, Saphienne knew the concept of what had so preoccupied her parents, and was aware of what they must have been doing together — were always doing together, when they forgot about her. So too, she could dimly contemplate what might have featured in the evening’s events that wasn’t suitable for children. The books she had read in the library, that Filaurel had carefully directed her toward without suggesting they were yet appropriate… from them, she intellectually grasped how parents made children. But – and this gnawed at her – she didn’t actually understand anything.

  What she had read, she hadn’t been prepared to think about. Yet now she felt like she must think about these things, that she must understand them, for the future was beckoning to her, and she wasn’t prepared. How could she hope to meet the challenges ahead, if she was unprepared?

  And what Gaeleath had said about art made it worse — that making art required she explore within herself, discover things about herself. There was a whole part of adult life she couldn’t comprehend, a whole part of what was presumably herself that she didn’t know… and she was inevitably, terrifyingly growing into an adult.

  Elves said they reached adulthood upon attaining their first century. If this was how she felt at fourteen, how much worse would it be across the decades ahead?

  And everything – all of these thoughts and feelings, whirling within her – were eclipsed by the realisations she reached as she considered the way Kylantha had been treated: by the caretaker, by the woman on the stall, and most of all by Phelorna. How sweetly Kylantha’s mother had treated her! And how cruelly — how viciously, to let her daughter love her so, knowing that she was to be abandoned.

  “How could she?”

  Saphienne hadn’t meant to speak aloud, and she looked around furtively. There was no one nearby, only the trees and wild spring flowers.

  How much better it would have been, if Kylantha had been raised by Saphienne’s mother. To be rejected after being neglected was understandable. And if Saphienne had been raised by Phelorna–

  No. Never.

  If Saphienne had been raised by someone like Phelorna, behaving similarly and yet with the sincerity she clearly didn’t possess, then Saphienne’s entire life would have been different. She would have known how to be with people, how to let herself be close to people. She wouldn’t have needed to rely on the patience of Faylar, or the amusement of Celaena, or the understanding of Iolas. She could have just belonged.

  She wouldn’t have had need of those tolerant smiles, or for her life to be explained away with an introduction — that she was Lynnariel’s child.

  And worst of all was the dawning sense Saphienne had: a sense that something else lay behind those words, something that also lay behind the way Faylar and the others had been told by elders to watch over her, to make allowances for her. That there was something wrong with her, wrong from birth, that meant no one expected she would belong. That she could never belong, and could never understand why. That she was less of an elf, somehow, and had to be handled appropriately.

  She slowed as a thought took shape, and finally stood still.

  …How much worse had it been for Kylanth–

  Saphienne buried her face in her hand, and wept.

  *   *   *

  Much later, she would look back on those tears.

  She would be yet older, and know yet more.

  Saphienne would come to realise that part of her died that day.

  Even so, you must realise: this moment was not one of the five moments that shaped Saphienne into who she became. That she understood herself more clearly, and had begun to see how she related to the elves around her, was only a precondition for the remaining three. Her trajectory was not changed by her weeping.

  The tears Saphienne shed were the consequence of what had already happened.

  So too, her growing rage. Which would unfurl, in time.

  *   *   *

  When Saphienne made it to the library, she found Filaurel at her desk, tightening the stitches of several children’s books. They greeted each other pleasantly, and Saphienne ascended the stairs to where Faylar was studying.

  Although, from the way he was slumped in a chair as he read, his heart wasn’t in his studies. He glanced up as soon as she entered the upper collection, and his smile told of both his happiness to see her and his relief at having a reason to quit the book. “Saphienne! You’re early.”

  She smiled as she came across to where he was sitting. “We finished early. Lessons are in the morning, and today there’s not much more to do.”

  “Filaurel said you were here before,” he said, “and that you were using a spell.”

  “Using, but I hadn’t cast it. I was learning to see the magic behind the world… or something like that.”

  The look of envy on Faylar’s face made her heart ache for him.

  “Faylar,” she told him, “please don’t be sad. I know you’ll be a wizard too.”

  He sat up. “I’m not sad,” he insisted, a little petulantly. “I just wish I was there with the rest of you. Knowing you’re getting to learn magic while I’m stuck here reading: it’s hard to swallow.”

  “Is that why you’ve not been speaking to Celaena?”

  He immediately blushed, and looked away. “Did she mention me?”

  “Yes. Right away. She feels bad for you. I think she doesn’t know what to do.”

  From the way Faylar shifted, it was clear he didn’t either.

  Saphienne sat on the table in front of him, which surprised the boy, who had never seen her be so careless toward the library’s furniture. When he looked up, she folded her arms and stared down the bridge of her nose. “You’re being stupid.”

  He smiled sadly. “I know. I just… don’t know how we’ll be, together. All we used to talk about was becoming wizards.”

  “Well, you’re still going to be a wizard. It’s just going to take you longer.”

  He looked down. “Maybe that wouldn’t matter to you, but–”

  “Faylar!” She kicked his knee, though not hard. “You were there. You saw how I had to fight, not to be turned away. Of course it would matter to me.”

  Rubbing where she’d kicked, he scowled. “I meant the embarrassment. You don’t care how people look at–”

  Reflexively, Saphienne kicked him again, harder.

  “Ow! Stop that!”

  “Swallow your pride, and accept you were humbled.” She glared. “And I do care. I just… don’t always understand, not yet. But I can tell when people judge me. As painful as it feels, you can’t let their judgement get in the way.”

  “Easier said than done.” He pulled his knee back, fearful of another kick. “But fine! I’ll… find the courage.” His gaze softened, became vulnerable. “You think she misses me?”

  “I think she’ll make fun of you.” Saphienne smiled. “She likes to tease. She’s been teasing Iolas, and I think the way she teases is innocent enough. I don’t think she’d admit to missing you, but she talked about you a few times, like she wanted to know how you were. Like she cared?”

  His smile, when he found it, was less fragile. “I do miss her. You’re right, I’m being–”

  “Prickly.”

  Faylar laughed. “Oh, fuck me, you’re right. I am.” He looked her up and down. “You seem different. Does learning magic change you so quickly?”

  Saphienne rolled her eyes as she slipped off the table. “No, I’ve just had a lot to think about. My mas–” She stopped, and surveyed the shelves to make sure they were alone. “Almon might insist that learning wizardry is the most important thing in the world, but I’m starting to think there’s other things that matter. And thank you, for that.”

  Grinning now, Faylar leant back in his chair. “You are different. Good different. You seem more relaxed.”

  “Never.” She flashed him a smile. “But, you have work to do, and I think I’ve earned a break. Enjoy yourself.”

  He groaned as she walked away, settling back into his book.

  As she passed the shelf of adult literature, Saphienne paused, her composure wavering. Then she shook her head: the future could wait. She had more than enough to contend with already.

  Instead, she went downstairs, and sought out a book she hadn’t seen in years, and curled up on a cushioned windowsill to reread it.

  Filaurel later found her there, fast asleep, and approached to wake her… until she saw the peace on her face, and read the title of the book she held. Though Saphienne would not know for a very long time, the sight of that book brought back memories of Filaurel’s own — memories of two little girls in the library, one reading aloud, the other swinging her short legs as she listened and questioned and argued about the difference between frogs and toads.

  And Filaurel, too, wiped away her tears. Yet, she smiled as she left Saphienne to her dreams, if only for a little longer.

  End of Chapter 22

  Chapter 23 on 18th March 2025.

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