The squirt had made Sanie late to meeting Solynn in the library. Tin and Solynn, newlyweds and scholars extraordinaire, were the only human beings for whom she had ever felt happy.

When Sanie grew tired of Sorsei, Solynn reminded her that children were a fresh attempt at the future, a redemption. When Sanie set her sight on Kaleb, Solynn listened to her form a plan of attack.

If Sanie had a brother, one good enough, she would want him to marry someone like Solynn. She could never remain upset at her best friend for long, even when Solynn faulted her for splitting people into completely good or bad. Yonasta, Sorsei’s father, and their roommate who was always brewing smelly herbals were completely bad. The Headmaster, Kaleb, and Solynn were completely good.

Solynn had earned the top honor in the History Department of the Imperial Academy. She had also caused scandal.

“Exploitation of Tyists in the Tyistry Wars: A Call for the Reduction of the Centralian Military.” The title of Solynn’s dissertation was straightforward like the woman herself.

The three Tyistry Wars were named so due to the involvement of Tyists like Sanie—super-humans, or perhaps more accurately they were demi-humans, who used their source energy to create Ties with design-specific powers.

The wars were a sensitive subject. The Third Tyistry War had barely concluded. The ink was still wet on the peace pact among the Five Mortal Nations. The Imperial Academy and Sanie’s friends belonged to the Centralian Empire, the largest of these nations. Sanie had escaped from the Sunland, a conglomerate of islands to the east. The other three nations were the Snowland to the north, the Rockland to the west, and the Treeland to the south.

Solynn wasn’t allowed to discuss the then-ongoing Third War. Rather, she documented the tales of the Tyists who had grown up in the aftermath of the Second War, all the while evaluating the ethics of using these demi-humans as a means rather than an end for Centralia to achieve her imperialistic goals.

Solynn’s argument that Tyists were the victims rather than the propagators of the past two centuries’ devastating series of international wars had irritated those more nationalistic in her audience.

“But they used Tyistry on us,” one cried out. “In fact, the militias of the Rockland and Sunland consisted mainly of Tyists. Were we to lie prostrate while they muddied our rivers and trampled our mountains?”

Sanie would have thought him a buffoon, had his voice not wavered with the passion of one who thinly veiled sufferings endured.

“I want to know,” said another, “whether you have a husband, or brother, or father who fought in the service.”

Solynn stammered no.

“Then you don’t understand what the wars were like!”

Tin, her husband, began to stand up. Sanie yanked him back down.

“On the contrary, having distance from a situation permits an unbiased perspective, which one needs in order to conduct this type of historical research,” said Solynn. “Anyhow, challenging accepted thought—isn’t that the point of the Academy?”

Sanie clapped. A few in the audience turned around and frowned at her. Most of them began yelling at Solynn again.

“I am merely approaching this from an academic perspective,” said Solynn. “I am not prescribing what anyone, much less the Empire, should or shouldn’t do!”

Her words, meant to placate, stunned the audience. As if the Academy could tell the Empire what it should or shouldn’t do!

Before further escalation, the proctor tactfully stepped to the center of the stage and announced that Solynn was out of time, and would the next presenter please step up.

---

The oak wood doors to the library opened with a groan. Shelves lined the eight walls, rising five stories to form an octagonal dome at the top. Most of the shelves were still empty. After much debate, the Academy had decided to build a new library and convert the old one to a cultural center, to reflect the goals of international exchange after the Third War.

Solynn’s eyes were still red-rimmed.

“Sanie dear, how do I look?” she said. “I don’t want to worry Tin.”

The late afternoon sun streamed through the windows and dust to caress her hair, her cheeks, her chrysanthemum dress. Sanie thought she looked like something that the library spirit would want to keep here, forever.

She told her so, to make her laugh.

“Don’t worry about those people—idiots will be idiots,” said Sanie. “I always like to imagine them stewing in a vat of hot grease.”

Solynn laughed again. “Sanie, never change. Oh, what shall I do without you?”

Sanie found security in the impermanence of experiences, positions, acquaintances. Their evenings of studying under midnight oil, exchanging wisdoms on the not-so-secrets of womanhood, and braving seedy taverns while their fiancés kept each other occupied would become fond memories once they came to an end. For a moment—a brief one—Sanie thought about following Solynn instead of traveling across the five lands and seven seas.

Ai. Attachment. Do you ever want it back? Asked the mongrel boy.

“We better get a move on to meet the gang,” said Sanie.