When at last she drew back I could breathe again, and think. Which was fortunate, since the first thing she said, not without tenderness and a little wonder, was, "You must understand, Calligrapher, this gives you a blind spot in matters of the heart."

"Farren," I said, tired. "Farren Nai'Sheviet-osulkedi."

"Farren Nai'Sheviet-osulkedi," she said. "And this is, without a doubt, a matter of the heart."

"Do you propose, then, that it is because I loved my wife too well that I fail to understand that an Ai-Naidari could love an alien?" I said.

"No," she said, mouth twitching into a wry shape. "No, that remains unthinkable no matter how lucky one has been in love. But I suspect one must understand that one's heart can still be... unfulfilled... in some ways while seeming so filled in others, to even guess that such a thing might be possible. Perverted still, but possible."

I shuddered. "Ancestors preserve us from some as yet-unnamed need that could only be met by the alien."

"I suggest no such thing," she said. "But there is some disease there at work, and I don't know its name. Perhaps you and Shame will have the truth out of him. I surely have not."

I sighed. "I will tell him."

"Good," she said. "May I go, then?"

"Yes," I said. And added, "Do you have a name in the house?"

She smiled. "Not here, no. There is only one fathrikedi here, and so no need. The lord has love-names for me, as you might expect."

"Then what shall I call you?" I wondered.

She grinned then. "You will have to choose. It is the custom." She inclined her head. "Good afternoon, Farren."

I watched her let herself out and sighed again, rubbing my chest. It ached as if something had been ripped from it afresh. I wondered a little at her words. Had I really been so lucky?

I returned to the paper I'd cut from the block in preparation for the afternoon's work, and for the life of me I couldn't remember what I'd been planning to paint. So instead I sat down with all my most precious inks and began on the word that was ringing in my heart in the wake of the conversation with Qenain's sole Decoration: shemailn. Preciousness. Treasure. Rarity.

When Shame returned he found me on the window-seat, wrapped in my robe and my thoughts. He went to the shabati to look at my work; I opened my eyes just long enough to observe him there, the intensity his entire body illustrated with the rigidity of his spine and shoulders, the stillness of his limbs, the unbroken regard of his gaze. Then I closed my eyes again. I heard him moving in the suite not long after. The sound of water warming, the smell of the leaf.

Then he sat on the other side of the window-seat and set the tea tray between us. I roused myself to look at it, and to accept the cup he offered. When I spoke, my voice felt worn to knots and frays. "That's it? Tea?"

"Shall I press you for more?" he asked.

"I expected it," I admitted.

"Then perhaps I should ask what conversation you had today that so strongly reminded you of your grief," he said, holding his own cup in both hands. Some part of me unwound enough from my numbness to be moved at the sight: the delicate rust-brown cup, the grace of his strong hands with their square-tipped fingers and broad wrists.

"You knew," I murmured.

"How not?" he said, honestly surprised. "Did you not see what you painted?"

"I paint a great deal, Kor," I said, more in candor than tact, "that very few truly see. I can put my heart on a canvas and others will see their own there, and the more tears I paint into the lines, the more they mistake them for their own."

"Yes," he said. "That is the way, with art. When it is great."

I glanced up at him, then.

He smiled. "The petty artists paint themselves, and all you see is their wounds and their triumphs, Farren. Their work is about them, and they permit nothing more intimate than an audience. The great artists paint themselves with open hearts and arms, and invite us to a communion. And if we sob in their arms, it is because no one else has seen our trials and secrets so clearly, and sanctified them by making it plain that they are shared by others."

"You make of me more than what I am," I murmured.

"I make of you exactly what you are," he corrected. "You make of yourself less than you should."

I sighed and sipped the tea. "So why then do you see me in my art, if I am such a great artist?"

"I too have a nature," Shame said. "To see beyond the obvious."

"And to never take comfort when it's offered?" I said, lifting a brow.

He laughed. "Yes, you would say that."

"Why?" I said, challenging him... perhaps because I was smarting yet from the Decoration's observations. "Because I'm weaker than you are?"

"No," he said. "Because you're right, and so far you've been unafraid to point my face at it." He smiled at me over the cup. "At some point, Farren, you will have to accept that I respect you."

"With all that implies," I muttered, thinking of his comments about my humility and their bordering on ambition.

"With all that implies," he agreed. "So, then. Shemailn. The lost treasure. Was it the fathrikedi who prompted the memories?"

I looked up at him for a few heartbeats. Then extended one finger from my cup to point at him. "That is unfair and uncanny."

"Not a long leap," he said, lifting the teapot high to refill my cup. "From one woman to another."

Thinking of the lovely observer, I said, "You don't notice everything."

"I hope not," Shame said. "Gods save me from omniscience. I would go mad. So... the Decoration came by."

"How do you know I didn't go to see her?" I asked.

"You wouldn't have," he said. And at my expression, added with an amused smile, "Besides, I smell perfume."

I squinted at him. "You can smell anything in this room past the scent of linseed oil and salt?"

"I haven't had my nose in my paints for the past hour or two," Shame said. "What did she come to tell you?"

"That she believes the lord is... in love... with the aunera," I said at last.

His eyes flicked up to meet mine, pale shards in his stark face.

"I only repeat what she tells me," I said.

"An interesting supposition," Shame said at last. "If true..."

"If true, then you will have work to do," I said.