I brought her as a slave to a killing field. I made a mistake that sent her and two children to their deaths, and she only survived... I know not how.

Before I came here she asked to be released to serve the Seventh.

"We shall see," she says quietly.


"I should release you," she says. "We have shattered ourselves against one another enough for one day." She smiles ruefully, a thin, almost invisible curve in the black expanse of her paint. "But may I play you one other song?"