Hermione had sent a message to Riddle telling him where and when to meet her. After a mostly sleepless night, she needed the morning to herself.

Royal Caldera City was set in the crater of a dormant volcano, but it wasn't the only volcano on the island. To the northeast lay a far smaller peak that erupted every several decades. These small eruptions were considered to be good luck.

In-between eruptions, firebenders tended the Little Mountain to keep it safe. Hermione spent the morning hiking up its slopes, mulling Harry's and Ron's plans. Ron was still hunting the source of the printed symbol, interviewing at printing presses to see if anyone might recognize it or connect it to Riddle. Harry was planning a way into General Nott's records, hoping to see how far Riddle's plans had spread.

As Hermione settled at the rim of the Little Mountain, gazing into the volcano's cherry-red center, Riddle crept back into her thoughts, as he had throughout the previous night.

She dropped a stone into the volcano, watched it fall and disappear into red. Only five days remained until the full moon. She must remember what Dumbledore had reiterated again and again … there was no other way. She must always consider the greater good.

Yet for hours she had struggled to reconcile Dumbledore's descriptions of Riddle with what Riddle himself had said. I don't believe you're like them … like anyone, except me. She hadn't needed to ask to know that he had never said anything like it before, had never admitted anyone into the inner sanctum of his self-regard. They were the words of a narcissist, but not those of an automaton.

Still, it was a vanishingly slender crack in the case against him. His regard for her would be enough to disturb her when she struck the blow. But it wouldn't be enough to stay her hand.

When he arrived in early afternoon, he looked neither sleepless nor tired. He was dressed in a loose red robe that moved easily in the breeze.

"Good afternoon," said Hermione.

"Hello."

He joined her in the meager shade beneath a hardy tree, which was growing out from a crag near the volcano's edge. As he sat beside Hermione, looking down into the volcano, she could feel an unspoken truce hovering between them.

"I suppose this is part of the latest lesson," said Riddle, looking down into what was liquid and earth and fire at once.

"Yes."

He made a sound of displeasure. "Then I won't be trying to heal today, either."

"No. You need to spend more time thinking about these questions and concepts before you try again. Otherwise you'll keep trying to refocus on the physical aspect." She pointed into the volcano. "Consider how the elements are intermingled here. Firebenders and earthbenders have both been known to bend lava. And above the surface, the heat and moisture in the air bridge the gap between airbending and waterbending."

"I told you last night; I'm well aware that the elements and disciplines affect each other."

"You're aware of it in a general sense, yes. But you also refuse to admit that it might affect you in any way. If you're ever going to heal, you need to welcome interconnectedness, not shut it out. I'm trying to show you that this interlinkage is natural wherever it occurs."

One hand outstretched, Riddle began to manipulate the steam that rose from the volcano, bending it into flowers, into intricate designs.

"It isn't in my nature," he said eventually, voice very stiff, "to welcome comparison of myself to anyone else."

Hermione couldn't help scoffing.

He stiffened. "You disagree?"

"Of course I do. You were making the same claims last night—about being set apart because of your skill." She leaned back against the tree trunk and surveyed him. "But being set apart doesn't exclude you from comparison. Actually it relies on comparison. If you want to think yourself superior to other people, it makes you entirely dependent on them."

Discomfort flickered over Riddle's face, tugging at the muscles in his cheeks. "You still haven't given me a compelling reason why I should welcome connection." He manipulated the steam more quickly, braiding it. "What is there to gain from it?"

Hermione took her own curl of steam from the air and shaped it into the symbol of the Water Tribe, then morphed it into that of the Fire Nation. "Firstly, you need to appreciate that you already have gained your bending itself from the people who came before us. That was exactly why I showed you those texts yesterday. And secondly, I'm not saying you have to go out and befriend other benders to imitate them. I'm saying you need to accept that you can't totally extract yourself from the world. And that goes double if you want them to love you."

Riddle let out a hard, scathing laugh. "I don't care if people love me."

She sighed. "I thought we'd finished lying to each other."

"It isn't a lie." He let the braided steam dissipate. "I like their adulation; I've admitted that much. I enjoy their respect. That doesn't mean I care about their love."

"You can cleave those things apart so easily?"

Riddle brought his knuckles to his eyes and rubbed. "Have you been told that you are exhausting?"

Hermione half-smiled. "Constantly, by the tiny number of people who actually know me."

Riddle's hand stilled upon his face. His unobstructed eye flicked up to her.

Hermione's smile disappeared. She hadn't meant to imply it. Yet in the instant's silence, she realized with disturbance that it was true. Riddle did know her in a way that only Harry and Ron ever had before.

Even more appalling was the realization that Riddle knew truths that her friends didn't. He had asked questions about the course of her life, knowing how painful it would be to suppress herself forever. He knew her ambitions, the ideas of her own potential that she'd never dared admit to her friends for fear of what they might think.

She must be imagining the feeling. It could not be trust. She could not trust Tom Riddle.

Feeling as though she'd been struck, Hermione forced her eyes away and groped for the thread of what she had been saying. Interconnectedness, she reminded herself. Respect. … All the things that Riddle has no capacity to understand.

"Look," she said too loudly. "Is it so awful to think that the people who lived before us built a framework for our lives and abilities? Can't you see how that's a strength?"

Riddle looked as though he'd tasted something bitter. "You can't possibly believe that's strength. It's a loss of control. I will not live a life someone else has determined for me, or live in a world that someone else has built." His hands tightened in his lap. "I've done that before. I know what it looks like."

Hermione watched the volcano stir and bubble far below.

"It wasn't normal, you know," she said quietly. "The way you grew up, the orphanage—that's not the way most people are."

"Prove it."

"You've been shown kindness after kindness in the last decade and a half. You don't think that's proof?"

"That's because I'm the Avatar. If that's kindness, then kindness is shallow and grasping. I could make those people do anything I wanted."

She let out a disbelieving laugh. "Then people can never win with you! If they treat you kindly, they're thirsty for a bit of your glory and welcoming their own manipulation. But if they treat you poorly, they're just more evidence that people are innately malicious or self-serving."

"Yes. Well done."

"Fifty-five Spirits. And you say I'm exhausting." Hermione reclined against the tree. "Fine. Then I won't let you have the food I made for the both of us, because apparently giving you anything would make me shallow and grasping."

Riddle narrowed his eyes at the basket nearby. "You made food for me? Why?"

"Are you serious?" Hermione stared at him. "You're such a strange person."

"I'm not strange. It's a simple question."

"I made you food because I knew we'd be here at lunchtime, obviously, and I made food for myself, and I thought, well, I don't want him to sit there hungry."

Riddle's suspicion seemed to heighten. When Hermione flipped open the basket and shoved it toward him, he leaned backward as if expecting something venomous to leap out, his eyes fixed on its contents.

Buns. They were perfectly normal steamed buns, filled with curried meat. Hermione couldn't believe the way he was looking at them, as if they contained some dark secret.

She almost laughed. It seemed ridiculous that the Avatar, the Fire Lord's ward, lavished with everything he desired every second of every day, might react this way to one thoughtlessly unmotivated gesture of kindness. "What," she said, "are you waiting for me to demand a price?"

"You say that as if it's ridiculous. Every action has a price," Riddle said stiffly. "A favor. A smile. My good opinion. Everyone desires something in every instant."

Hermione sighed. "They're just buns. I don't want anything from you. Here." She took one from the basket and stuffed it into his hand before starting on her own.

Riddle began slowly to eat, his eyes still flitting from the basket to her face and back as though he were trying to solve an impossible equation.

Hermione's amusement faded. In reality it was a sad way to react to something so basic. Riddle really had convinced himself that everything in his life was a transaction based on power and status: during his childhood, the utter lack of either; and starting in his adolescence, the impossible excess of both.

It was a sad way to live. It would be a sadder way to die.

#

They traveled back into the city together by carriage. The conversation wandered from topic to topic, from the remote pockets of the world that Riddle had visited to the feeling of the three-month night at the North Pole. When Hermione didn't think too hard, it felt bizarrely casual.

But lingering under every discussion of the North Pole was the question of her future, the one that Riddle had asked.

Hermione had wordlessly assumed that after completing her mission, she would return to live as a healer in the Northern Tribe. She'd consoled herself by saying it would be a comfortable life, one of reverence and respect. And the pleasure of secretly learning martial bending behind Umbridge's back had always been something of a bonus.

Now, for the first time in her life, she found herself imagining something else. She imagined demonstrating her abilities to Umbridge, making a declaration to the rest of the Tribe, and leaving forever. It would be a permanent exile … but what if it set the wheels of change to turning? Umbridge was rigid, but some of the other masters might be moved by her exile. She could live at the Southern Tribe, or at the IBA—or maybe she would do something else entirely.

She felt a distinct tug of guilt. It was because of Riddle that she was having these thoughts. She owed these new potential futures to him.

There was now, at all times, an itch of doubt in her mind. She refused to scratch it. She could not waver.

When they returned to Royal Caldera City and stopped outside the gates to the palace complex, Riddle helped her step down from the carriage. She had begun to experience strange, spiraling feelings in these moments when their hands brushed. She pictured his palm upon her shoulder, his fingers seeking the cleanest shape for a form. She imagined standing close to him in the surf, enough so that when they spoke she had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes.

Even at this moment they were standing closer than was really necessary, in Hermione's opinion. The dusk was sweet-smelling and warm, and his red robe looked soft in the low light, as did his dark hair.

"The summer festival is the day after tomorrow," said Riddle. "There will be no time to meet then, and Fire Lord Malfoy will require my assistance tomorrow to prepare, too."

"Of course."

"I'll be performing with the Royal Fire Academy's masters on the festival day. The performance will take place at sunhigh in the Eighth Dragon's Courtyard. It's in the Pine District."

A brief silence as Riddle studied her.

"Was that an invitation?" said Hermione.

"It was information. Do as you'd like."

Hermione couldn't help an exasperated smile. "I'll come with Harry and Ron, then."

"Very well." Riddle's gaze flickered down to her mouth. He did not express pleasure, but she thought she detected satisfaction in the tilt of his head. After a moment he went on, "There will be a feast at the palace that evening, too. As my guest in the city it would be appropriate for you to attend."

"Appropriate. I see."

"That was an invitation."

"I know."

One corner of Riddle's mouth lifted. "I'll meet you here at sundown."

#

The city buzzed with excitement for the summer festival. Hermione had thought that a break from Riddle's company would be welcome, but instead she was met with a feeling of compression in her mind, as though she were spending every hour in the wrong way.

Insist on more collaboration in the final days, said the hard little voice in her mind that sought to wring as much out of him as she could. It's your last chance to benefit.

Harry and Ron seemed relieved that she was spending time away from Riddle. In the mornings they discussed plans for Ron's and Hermione's exit from the Fire Nation following Riddle's death. And on festival day, Harry took them to his favorite places to celebrate. Food stalls in every packed street and firebending-based games set up along the harbor helped to distract Hermione for a few hours.

As for Riddle's demonstration, it took place in a courtyard in the heart of the city. Hermione found herself tugging Harry and Ron to the front rails to watch. Cheering citizens erupted into applause as Riddle and the masters of the Academy presented themselves, bowing in unison, dressed in uniform red and black. Then they began to bend their way through a sung poetic history of the Fire Islands' unification. It was strange to see Riddle like this after the past two weeks, his image unchanged in the eyes of the nation, bending as immaculate as ever.

She thought she saw Riddle surveying the crowd between acts. Even, occasionally, while he was performing.

She told herself it was ridiculous, that he could not be looking for her. But then, as he and Master Parvati created a brilliantly blue dragon of flame, his eyes alit upon Hermione's. His gaze stayed upon her a second too long, brushing over her light summer robe and the braid over her shoulder.

He looked to her three more times before the demonstration had ended. She loathed that she kept count. She loathed that in-between glances she felt anticipation. And when, at the end, he bowed his appreciation to the screaming crowd, she loathed knowing the grief she would soon bring to this city. They didn't deserve sadness.

Of course, she told herself, none of them knew what he was. If they had known, perhaps they would have felt differently.

Soon enough sundown had come, and Hermione met Riddle at the palace gates for the feast. A small crowd of courtiers had assembled there, too, waiting for entry with invitations in hand. They murmured as Riddle offered Hermione his arm.

She overcame momentary surprise and rested her hand in the crook of his elbow. They bypassed the line and entered the palace complex.

The palace's ceremonial hall was filled with paintings and sculptures befitting the summer festival, while a musician played the tsungi horn in a corner. Hermione was too aware of her hand upon Riddle's arm, and of the faces that turned to take note, as they approached the long table at the head of the hall.

Fire Lord Malfoy, Lady Narcissa, and Prince Draco rose to greet Riddle; also seated at the head table were the High Generals. Riddle made polite greetings to the table, which Hermione copied. Finally they settled into their seats at the Fire Lord's right side, and Hermione felt as though she could breathe again.

Still, it wasn't what she'd have called comfortable. She tried to think of something to say to Riddle, but all the polite, appropriate questions felt ridiculous, with the way they now spoke to each other in private.

Riddle spoke first. "How did you find the last two days?"

"Quiet. Uncomplicated."

Amusement sparked in Riddle's eyes. He took a sip of his rice wine. "Yes," he murmured. "I agree. It's been very boring."

"I would have used the word 'relaxing.'"

"Would you?"

Hermione avoided his eyes. He was right: it was a lie. Only now, sitting beside Riddle again, did she realize how restless she had felt the past two days. Now she felt calmness, clarity—a kind of rootedness. She supposed it had to do with her focus on the mission.

She decided a change of subject was in order. "The demonstration earlier was impressive."

"Showy, you mean."

She sipped from her own cup of wine. "Yes, that tends to be the case during a show."

Riddle let out a small, genuine laugh. The sound caught on its way up, as if he weren't used to such a thing.

The other conversations at the table faltered. High General Rosier, who was seated to Hermione's other side, actually glanced over at Riddle, his weathered face failing to conceal surprise.

Riddle didn't seem to notice the lull around them. He was watching her hands, cupped around the wine. "Which part did you find impressive?" he asked.

"The multicolored fire, mostly. I meant to ask about the temperature manipulation you use to change its colors. Does it have to do with airbending at all?"

"Yes, airbending is a central part of it. The more air I feed into the flame, the more easily it will burn blue."

"Have you considered experimenting with earthbending interactions? They've used powdered saltstones to create colorful fires for centuries in the Earth Kingdom. …"

Hermione found herself relaxing as the feast began in earnest. Many steaming dishes on golden platters were spread before them; she ate her fill and drank just enough wine to feel a pleasant tingle in her fingertips. It was only near the end of the meal, when the plates were being cleared and iced drinks delivered as palate cleansers, that she realized that neither she nor Riddle had spoken to another person the entire evening.

She glanced over at High General Rosier and knew at once that the fact had not escaped him. He'd been speaking in low voices with High General Lestrange, but their conversation ended abruptly as his gimlet eyes slid onto Hermione.

He schooled his expression into something close to courtesy. "Master Hermione. It's a pleasure to see you again. My apologies for not welcoming you more personally earlier; I didn't wish to interrupt such an … involved conversation."

"No apology necessary, High General Rosier. The pleasure is mine."

"I hope you enjoyed the summer festival. A much-needed break from all your hard work, I dare say."

Hermione forced a smile. She didn't like the way Rosier was studying her, or the insinuations beneath the surface of his deep, gravelly voice. "Yes, the festival was wonderful. Avatar Riddle has been very obliging with the exercises I've brought him."

She glanced over at Riddle, but he was exchanging pleasantries with an eager servant about the quality of the feast.

"Of course," Hermione continued to Rosier, "it's difficult to gauge our progress with something as elusive as the Avatar State."

"Naturally." Rosier showed his teeth; it could not be called a smile. "You are very fortunate to enjoy so much of Avatar Riddle's time."

Hermione's unease increased as she saw the envy in Rosier's face. He scrutinized her as if he could see some bond in the air between her and Riddle, a bond he wished to sever. She supposed she should have expected this. Dumbledore had told her, Harry, and Ron that Riddle's followers all sought to think themselves the closest in Riddle's trust, when really there was no trust at all.

Hermione suddenly found herself very aware of the calm murmur of Riddle's voice to her left. Her mouth went dry. Had she been taken in the same way? Had she begun to imagine trust between herself and Riddle where there was none, just like Rosier and the rest?

"Yes," she managed to say. "As I said, Avatar Riddle has been very obliging. I've put together a demanding regimen, but he's borne up wonderfully."

"I see." Scathing amusement seeped into Rosier's voice. "I'm sure this demanding regimen has any number of … physical benefits."

Hermione lost her voice. He had said it loudly enough for the other generals, sitting on his other side, to hear. A smirk curled the corner of High General Lestrange's lip.

Her entire body was filling with heat. So. This was what they thought of her. She wanted to retort with something that would wound Rosier. She wanted to slap him, or bend the ice in that glass into his smug face. But she was frozen in humiliation.

Then she realized that at her side, Riddle was no longer speaking to the servant. She looked over to find him regarding Rosier with a face like a mask.

The color drained from Rosier's cheeks. Lestrange's smirk vanished.

When Riddle spoke, his voice was cold venom. "High General Rosier, I must have misheard the way you were speaking to my guest."

"I—that is …" Rosier's face was drawn, but he was looking at Riddle with incomprehension, too. "I only meant that much can be learned from a waterbender such as Master Hermione." The disdain had not completely left his voice.

"Yes." Riddle regarded the older man with dangerous calm. His stillness was eerie. "You could certainly learn much from her."

Rosier stared. Hermione narrowly kept from doing the same.

Riddle rose to his feet. "I think a walk through the gardens would clear my head. Master Hermione?"

"Yes, I agree." She stood quickly. "Good evening, High General."

She left the ceremonial hall into the torch-lit halls of the palace, keeping pace with Riddle. Neither of them spoke. Hermione could hear her heartbeat in her ears.

Soon they were out in the open air again. The breeze cooled her skin. As they walked through the landscaped gardens—still deserted, with the feast only just finished—she could sense Riddle still coiled beside her like a snake about to strike.

She turned pointedly to the left, toward Riddle's villa. There was a hiccup in Riddle's steps, but he continued at her side. When they arrived at his front door, the guards—who knew her well by now—stepped aside to admit them without question.

Once they were in the living room of his villa, where orchids wilted beautifully in tall black vases, Hermione stopped. Riddle sidled around the room, lighting the lanterns that hung on long iron rods. Their red glow cast reflections into the dark floorboards.

At last she broke the silence. "I don't understand."

Riddle's hand lingered on the door of the last lantern. "What don't you understand?"

"You just scorned one of the Army's High Generals by telling him that he could learn from me."

"Yes."

"Did you mean it?"

Riddle turned slowly to face her. His eyes gleamed in the lantern light. "Of course I did."

The frustration of the past days tightened into a knot in her torso. "No," she said, walking slowly toward him, past the seats where they'd examined scrolls, past the table where they'd eaten dinner together. "You can't have meant it."

"Why not?"

"Because that means you esteem me above even the most accomplished citizens of the Fire Nation."

He raised one brow. "Does that please you?"

The soft question was a shiver down her back. She stopped scant feet from him, staring into his face without shame or pretense. "Then it's true. You admit it." She drew water from the pouch at her side and cast it into a bowl upon a nearby table, where it swirled and sloshed. "Then tell me. What do you feel when you consider that I'm a waterbender, that you've subordinated your nation to a waterbender?"

His fingertips were held against the glazing of the lantern. She thought the fire burned higher within. He considered a long while.

"Nothing." His voice was low and sharp. "I feel nothing. Rosier was never—the others …" An impatient shake of his head. "What does it matter."

Disbelief washed through Hermione. Her heart was pounding now. She took one more step. They were so close now that her head was tilted backward. She could see every stitch on his robe, each tendon upon the back of his hand.

She made up her mind. She reached up for the lantern, yanked its door open, and thrust her hand inside.

She had underestimated exactly how painful it would be. The oil core of the lamp seared into her skin, and a strangled cry burst from her throat. Riddle's face contorted. In an instant he was seizing her forearm, dragging her hand out into the light to reveal the shiny red burn across her palm.

A split instant's pause. "Well?" she forced out, teeth gritted in pain.

In one fluid motion, Riddle swept his hand toward the bowl on the table, yanked the water forward, and encased her palm with it.

The room filled with the blue glow of light.

Riddle's eyes flew wide. He gazed into the water, under which the burn was melting away from Hermione's palm. "It's happening," he whispered, something wild in his expression. "It's working."

Hermione couldn't answer. She could only focus on the ebbing pain, the way it turned from stabs to throbs to an itch, then—finally—disappeared. The glow faded from the air.

The water streamed back into its bowl. All was quiet.

Only then did she realize that she had gripped Riddle's shoulder for support, that she was leaning against him. He was touching the unmarred skin of her palm, his thumb brushing over the lines there.

She looked up at him. They were both breathing hard. He looked shaken and disturbed.

He lowered his head and pressed his mouth to hers.

Hermione's thoughts stalled. The mess of sensations—all the frustration, the ghost of the pain, the lightness of relief—it was all wiped away. All she could feel was a sudden slick burn in her stomach like a second oil fire. She pushed up into Riddle, curled her hands into the front of his robe; he slipped his forearm around her back as if binding her into himself. Maybe she imagined the searing heat of his mouth as it pressed hard to hers; maybe they were actually on the edge of conflagration.

She took his lip between her teeth and bit, and Riddle's hand fastened upon the back of her neck, index nail scraping against her scalp. She ran her fingertips over his throat, his collarbones, his shoulders, every dip and divot she'd examined for weeks, and pressed him backward until he was flush against a wooden column.

She didn't realize his hand had delved beneath her robe until his palm brushed the bare skin of her abdomen. At the same time, his tongue brushed slow and deliberate against her lower lip. The shivers that erupted over her skin were so violent that she startled backward, eyes flying wide. She caught a glimpse of his head bowed to hers, dark hair glossed with lantern light.

Then his head lifted. His hands settled upon her hips. He was holding her tightly; there was hunger in his expression.

She wanted to banish thought again, to fall back into him and keep falling. But thought had returned, now, and she knew it would not leave. Real panic was setting in.

"I need to go," she whispered, stepping out of his grip.

The whole way home, she had to resist running. She braided her hair upon the front steps of Number 12, Dragontongue Road, wondering if her hair or her face would betray some hint of what had happened. She waited long minutes in the evening, waiting until her heart rate had slowed to something near normal, wild thoughts chasing themselves in circles.

But when she knocked, Harry and Ron didn't seem to notice anything. "Did it go all right?" Ron asked as they led her back to the kitchen.

"Yes, perfectly well." She hesitated in the threshold, her eyes catching on the table. Of course: she'd told them earlier that day that after the feast, they would review their plans for the full moon night.

Forty-eight hours away. Her mind flooded anew with doubt.

She settled into a seat at the table, her hands clasped painfully tight beneath its surface.

"I've finally found the perfect spot to enter," said Ron, pointing to a map of the palace complex. "I've followed the guards day in and day out, and there are a few minutes when they're walking past these decorative hedges. That gives us enough cover to get to this walkway."

"I see," said Hermione hoarsely. "You're coming inside with me?"

"Only Ron," said Harry. "I'll keep watch."

Ron nodded. "I'll be earthbending you through the wall of his villa right here." He tapped another spot on the map. "That's furthest from where he sleeps, didn't you say?"

"Yes, that's right." As Ron described timing, Hermione traced the ink lines of the map, seeing the interior of the villa. What was Riddle doing at that moment? Extinguishing the lanterns? Bathing the events of the evening off himself?

No—most likely he was trying to heal again. She wondered if he was managing it.

She refocused in time to hear Harry saying, "Good news on the general front, too. I've got an audience with one of Nott's subordinates the day of the full moon. Maybe it'll help with finding the people who've been kidnapped."

Hermione returned to herself a bit. "Good," she said firmly. "Yes. That's very important."

Ron was watching her closely. "It's not the most important thing, though. Are you … you know, ready?"

Hermione's throat tightened. She looked from Ron to Harry. If she told them her suspicions, would they think that she was simply trying to slip out from beneath the mantel of her duty? Would they even believe her?

"I think Dumbledore wasn't entirely right about Riddle," she whispered.

"What do you mean?" said Harry.

"I mean that he seems different. As if he's changed since I arrived." She plucked the White Phoenix pai sho tile from where it lay on the table and turned it over, making the surface glint. "I've been trying to force him to think in a different way, not that I thought it would actually work. But tonight …" Avoiding Harry's and Ron's eyes, she summarized what had happened with High General Rosier. The way that Riddle had said about her being a waterbender, What does it matter. … The way that he had managed to heal her.

She omitted what had happened afterward.

Harry and Ron didn't dismiss her words. Nor did they exchange one of those unsubtle, worried glances that they had taken to sharing lately. "He actually did it?" Ron said, looking thunderstruck. "He actually healed you?"

"Yes. And the healing discipline is connection. Dumbledore said Riddle wasn't capable of it, and over and over again I've told myself that if he seemed to be reaching out to me in certain ways, it was only for the selfish desire to get more power. But a selfish desire could never have gotten him there. This is actual, measurable, physical evidence that there's something else going on."

They all looked down at the White Phoenix tile in Hermione's hand. It was an unspeakable relief to have told her friends; she felt as though, in sharing her doubts, she was sharing a physical burden.

For the first time, she began to wonder about real alternatives to the plan. What if she didn't have to kill him? What if she could keep going this way, stay here for months longer and continue to drag him, kicking and fighting, into being the Avatar the world actually deserved? He'd said she had an indefinite invitation.

And, whispered a selfish voice at the back of her mind—what of the life that she would have in those months? Every day could be like that day at the seaside, an exchange of knowledge that set her abuzz. An embrace of the power she had at her fingertips. Every day like that day, and every evening like this evening. …

"Is it enough evidence, though?" Harry said quietly.

Hermione's throat tightened. It was the same question she'd asked herself as she'd hurried home, the same that had been pounding through her mind on the porch.

"Enough for what?" Ron said.

"Enough not to kill him," Harry said. "Is it enough to change what he's got planned? He's spent years setting this in motion. Maybe he cares enough about you to want to heal you, Hermione, but does that mean we can trust him not to go through with this?" Harry ran his hand over the spread of information they had on the invasion plan, so hard-won through Dumbledore's efforts.

Hermione read the bullet points and felt guilt spread cold through her. So many more lives were on the line than Riddle's. Her conscience, her own desires, her own future—this was nothing to the consequences of a mistake.

"I know one thing," she whispered. "We can't risk being wrong."

#

Tom was walking through a forest.

The treetops were far beyond sight. Each trunk took twenty paces to pass. There were no stars in the sky above, only a dense darkness. Tom looked up and felt the comfort of being beneath a heavy blanket.

He leapt across a large, silent river, stepping stone to stepping stone. He stopped on the final stepping stone and gazed over the opposite bank, deeper into the forest. There were creatures there. He could hear them moving, even hear them speaking. He saw a distant light.

Avatar, said a voice from somewhere in that deep forest.

Tom glanced down into the dark, flat water of the silent river. In his reflection were set two eyes unlike his own. His eyes were glowing as brilliantly as stars.

He leapt from the final stepping stone onto the opposite bank. He continued forward, toward the motions of the invisible creatures, toward the voices of the spirits.

Tom jerked awake.

He stood from his duvet, but did not know where to go. He could only gaze down at the place where he had lain, dreaming—for the first time—of the Spirit World.

His heart was beating very quickly. A Spirit dream. For a decade and a half he had waited for something like this, some sign, any sign … and now …

He strode out of his bedroom and down the shallow steps into his living room. He stopped upon the spot where they had stood earlier, where Hermione had thrust her hand into the lantern and he had healed for the first time. He could still see the agony on her face, the pain and expectation: Well?

He could still taste her. The stubborn warmth of her mouth, the way she pressed and pushed and felt.

Tom settled upon a nearby chair, gazing at the darkened lantern. He could not remember ever having anything less than perfect physical control. Even in childhood, he had always been perfectly in tune with himself, with the way he moved through the world.

But the past twelve hours had upended this omnipresent feeling of self-possession. When he'd healed Hermione's palm, he had felt the cool flow of energy rushing through him and into her body; he had felt her energy in return; the cycle had taken him outside himself and into himself again. And kissing her—heat, agitation, every sense painfully aroused. He felt as though his nerves had been tugged up and delicately rearranged. As though his very muscles had adapted in an instant to the shape of her body.

Now he'd had his first Spirit dream. And, Tom realized, his first real thought had been that he wanted, immediately, to tell her. Even now, he entertained thoughts of walking through the city, knocking at her door in the middle of the night, to wake her.

She would be insufferable about it, he knew, because the truth was obvious. It was all clear to him now.

Everything she'd been telling him in order to try and connect him to his healing … this was the way to the Avatar State.

Tom sat for hours in thought. He thought about all the work he had done so far to deceive the world, every plan meticulously conceived and then concealed. He thought about how carefully he had laid the foundation for his takeover. During those meetings with the generals, and with the Fire Lord, their preening and flattery had satisfied him, the Fire Nation's oldest institutions bowing before him.

He thought about his body, and how he had felt all these years, trained to the point of utmost control. It was the sensation of being wound to the snapping point. He had made his body perfectly honed weaponry.

He had never known a different sensation until tonight. He'd thought he felt something stirring inside himself as he'd healed, and as he'd taken her in his arms, and now it was even more evident. He had stood up from this dream with something in his body, some full thing where before there had been absence. His mind felt brighter and sharper than ever, whole in an ineffable way.

Tom looked around this villa, this place where he had spent the last sixteen years, his mouth very dry. He realized he was afraid. He saw each element before him anew. He ran his shaky fingers up his forearm, feeling each fine hair, the wrinkles upon his elbows, the weight of the bicep and the hardness of the clavicle.

Out of the fear came ambition, excitement. He wanted to go back to the beach that instant. He wanted to go back to the volcano and see what came to him. There was an entire world of power he had never had access to; there were yet higher peaks for him to reach.

And she had given him the key.

Tom knew then that he would remember this strange midnight hour for the rest of his life. He had known at age ten, when he'd been cast out into that winter night, that he would forever remember looking down at his freezing hands and breathing flame into them. Now he thought about Hermione's burned hand thrust into his, the way her eyes blazed in the light, and he realized that she was the answer to everything: to his dreams of power, and to dreams he had not formed until she'd burst into the frame of his life. She was the flicker of fire in the night, the only beautiful thing in the world.