Different.
Maybe.
Kimia thought of her Herald interview.
The recorded duchess.
The Diet.
Her own composed voice entering the microphone while an abattoir flickered over the room.
All the versions of herself.
None entirely false.
Vehm had drawn a version of himself too.
Badly, but deliberately.
Kimia asked: “What if you aren't zhat?”
Vehm looked at her.
“Zhat?”
“Friend to everyone. No ill in your heart. Takes everyzhing in stride.”
Vehm considered.
“Zhen I practice.”
Kimia went still.
Vehm shrugged.
“Zhat's what belief is for.”
He returned to the drawing.
“Not proving what you already are.”
The pencil moved.
He attempted to improve one hand.
Failed.
Kimia watched.
The Akalosi philosopher would have had several hundred pages to say the same thing.
Vehm had required half a bottle and a bad drawing.
She found this irritating.
“You know,” Kimia said, “sometimes I hate you.”
Vehm nodded.
“No ill in my heart.”
“Shut up.”
Kimia left the desk.
Water.
Her body wanted it badly enough now that she could feel the dryness beneath her tongue.
The food-service trolley remained where she had left it.
Several sealed bottles of water stood in the lower rack.
Kimia took one, opened it with a provided bottle opener, and drank.
The water entered like reality.
She drank again.
Behind her, pencil scratched against paper.
The televox murmured.
Val Salia existed outside the windows in vast electric darkness.
Tomorrow the Diet would continue.
The rope would still be there.
So would the map. So would Ieronim. So would the strange horned man beside him. So would Kimia.
Mostly fit.
Sometimes not.
She drank more water.
Vehm said from behind her: “I improved zhe hand.”
Kimia turned.
He held up the notebook.
It was worse.
Kimia laughed, feeling better mentally after doing so.
That was the problem.
Feeling better created room.
Room created possibility.
The night remained almost entirely hers.
No Diet until morning. No prepared documents that could not wait. No interviews. No neurologist. No Kalgkur asking careful questions. No Tarkhe close enough to turn a glance into a medical procedure.
A whole stretch of time had opened before her again, and Kimia knew that empty hours were rarely empty for long.
The demons noticed vacancies.
They were excellent motivators.
Whiteblood. Kilcane. Drink. Sleep beside Vehm until neither of them knew whether they had rested.
Find some other method of passing through consciousness without touching it.
Kimia stood by the food trolley with the water bottle in one hand and watched Vehm continue improving the drawing.
The hand had become even worse. He had added what appeared to be a cuff.
This made the malformed anatomy more formal.
Kimia drank more water.
No. Not tonight, or at least not yet.
The thought contained its own cowardice. She corrected it.
Not now.
That was stronger.
Not forever. Not a vow. Not some heroic declaration offered to Alsper beneath a candle.
Just:
Not now.
Kimia looked toward her luggage.
She needed somewhere else to be.
Not Ghi'cha's. Ghi'cha's was thousands of kilometers away.
She did not want another establishment whose principal purpose was allowing people to make bad decisions beneath flattering light.
Outside.
Walk.
The Passage itself.
That thought held.
She picked up one of the smaller luggage cases and carried it toward the bathroom.
Vehm looked up.
“What are you doing?”
“Nozhing.”
“Zhat is luggage.”
“Yes.”
“Suspicious.”
Kimia shut the bathroom door.