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"Eventually." Hummingbird's smile vanished. "They were as patient as I was impatient."

"You?" Gretchen lifted her head in a sly smile. "You were the black sheep? The reckless, irresponsible child? Were you in a band?"

Hummingbird made a snorting sound and looked away.

When he did not turn back, Gretchen pursed her lips in speculation. So sensitive!

"What do I need to learn?" she asked, after some endless time had passed. "How do I learn – if there's no school -"

"There are no books," Hummingbird said in a stiff voice. "No tests. No sims. Only a teacher and a student, as it has been for millennia."

"Are you my teacher, then? Can I even be a student? I mean, you said women aren't accepted into the tlamatinime."

The nauallis sat up, jaw clenched tight. "There are women who learn to see," he said in a rather brusque voice. One hand made a sharp motion in the air. "But there are two…orders, you might say. One – the men – the tlamatinime, the other – the women – named the tetonalti. By tradition – more recently by law – the two are kept separate in all matters."

"So," Gretchen said, watching his face, "there are no female judges serving the Empire. They are…soul-doctors, is that what you said?"

Hummingbird's lips compressed into a tight, stiff line. "The tetonalti are not what they once were, in the time of the old kings. Though they too serve the Mirror, I prefer not to speak of their purpose." He made a pushing-away motion with both hands. "You are burden enough, just by yourself, without bringing them into the situation."

"How much trouble will you be in?" Gretchen tried to be nonchalant about the question, but Hummingbird's eyes narrowed at the light tone in her voice. "I mean, if women aren't supposed to learn these things -"

"Not enough trouble," he said, rather guardedly, "to see a certain cylinder back in your hands."

"So cynical," Gretchen said, hiding momentary disappointment. "I get the idea. I even understand," she made a face, "a little. It will hurt my children, that's all. That said – will I be in trouble if it's known I've started to gain this…sight?"

The nauallis nodded and rolled up to sit opposite her. "You will not be troubled by the Imperial authorities," he said. "I will not tell them what has happened. If you keep this to yourself, no one will trouble you."

"Will you show me more? Can you train me to control this clarity? You say some students have become 'lost-in-sight'. Will I become lost too?"

The old Mйxica hissed in annoyance. His fingers tapped on the crumbling floor for a moment, then fell still. "It might be best for you to forget all this, put these matters from your mind, turn your back on clarity and sight and all the rest."

"And how," Gretchen said, irritated, "do I do that? Right now I see double or triple most of the time – very disorienting. And then the hallucinations – I mean, I can almost perceive things in this room – people and voices – that aren't here!"

The old Mйxica looked around casually, then back at Anderssen. "Men talking? The smell of cooking? The half-heard chatter of music? The buzz of machinery?"

"Yes." Gretchen felt suddenly cold and turned abruptly, looking behind her. "Upstairs is better – it doesn't feel so crowded. But down here…"

"You're seeing," Hummingbird said quietly, "the shadows of man. The impression left on this room, this building, by the scientists who worked and lived here for the past year. We will leave shadows too, if I don't clean them up before we go. Right here." He made a circular motion with his finger. "Two indistinct shapes sitting on the floor, talking."

Gretchen felt a little sick again. "How long do these shadows last?"

"Usually," Hummingbird said, searching through his pockets, "they fade. Someone else comes and sits in the same chair, eats at the same table. The shadows interfere with one another and dissipate. Have you ever entered a dwelling where only one person lived for a long time? Where they died? A house left empty afterwards?"

"No." Slow rolling creeps slithered across Gretchen's arms. She could feel every single hair on her arms and neck stand on end. "I don't like abandoned places."

"It is dangerous," Hummingbird said, finding what he was looking for, "for a person to live alone, in the same house or room, for more than a few months at a time. Shadows accumulate. A living person needs to move, to change, to see new things. Say a man lives in the same room, eats at one table, sleeps in the same bed in the same orientation for years on end. Shadows reinforce. The mind is affected by shadows – you're feeling the effects of this empty room right now – sometimes the shadows become more real than the living man."

"Oh." Gretchen managed to smile. "I'm pretty safe then – the Company moves us every year or so."

Hummingbird nodded, turning a square of folded paper over in his hands. "You don't believe me. But think about your children – how many times have they changed their room around? Put the beds under the window, away from the window, asked for bunk beds, didn't want bunk beds? Decided to sleep in the living room instead? Changed rooms, if they had the option? Didn't you do that when you were younger?"

The world seemed to gel to a sudden, glassy stop. Gretchen licked her lips.

"Now," he continued in the same implacable voice. "Do you have an elderly relative? Stiff, old, strangely frightening. A house filled with things you must not touch? Rooms filled with furniture no one uses and which must never be moved? Strict rituals of the home – dinner at the same time, always the same prayer beforehand, things done in just such a way? Do you remember how you felt, when you were a child in such a place?"

"I was afraid," Gretchen whispered, almost lost in memories of her great-grandfather's tall, dark house. "I couldn't breathe."

"It was dark, even when the shutters or drapes were open. Musty. It smelled of shadow."

Hummingbird's eyes were limpid green, sunlight falling through leaves into still water.

"Memory," he continued, "is a physical change in the human brain. So too are skills laid down by repetition. Perception is governed, interpreted by pathways created by experience. A child's mind is loose, chaotic, filled with a hundred, a thousand paths from source to conclusion. But as a man ages, as he grows old -"

"I know," Gretchen said abruptly. "I took some biochemistry at the university. Neural pathways in the brain become consolidated. Fixed. Memories are lost or discarded, replaced by different sets of connections. There are diseases which attack the pathways, trapping people in repeated time."

Hummingbird placed the packet of paper on the ground between them. "Lost in memory. Or they lose the ability to form new pathways, gain new skills, see the world afresh. Trapped in routine, bound in shadows. The mind becomes rigid. A quiet, unseen death – long before the body runs down to silence."

Gretchen roused herself, lifting her chin. "Don't the tlamatinime have homes? Families?"

"Of course." The corners of Hummingbird's eyes crinkled. "They are very lively and we rarely remain in the same physical building for more than a year or two. And in the course of our business, we are always in motion. We have restless feet."

"And this?" She pointed suspiciously at the paper packet. "This is like what you gave me before?"

"This is different." Hummingbird considered her with a weighing expression. "The first packet was a helper to 'open-the-way'. This…this is 'he-who-reveals'. For most students this substance will let you find a…a guide, would be the best description. A guide who can help you control the sight."