"Yes--perhaps I was not experienced enough with the potential of the art they call cultivation," she says.

"They use music to invoke spirits, and I invited the accompaniment without truly considering it as a factor in addition to the more familiar rites." She taps her pen on the paper thoughtfully.

"I am not sure if we truly caught the attention of the spirits who appeared to us, or simply echoes of their impressions on our own souls. But I intended no such effect at all. It was a common rite to acknowledge the spirits of the Nine Houses and establish a sacred geography for the consecration to follow. It should have been purely routine."