Gella brought me coffee. Gella brought me chunks of dried fruit, bread slathered with rich butter, and at this point I would like to be a priest if only to declare her holy.

"Didn't want t' move you," she explains when I lever myself to my feet and look down at the blanket remains on the floor. That's one way to avoid waking up tangled in the covers. I wonder how much colder I would have been if she had not snuck in during the night.

Then I find myself bitter when I realize that the chill would have woken me, and then I would have had time to hide the sphere with no one coming in to discover me at all.

Sourness at Gella's interference mixes with the smells of breakfast. I lower the sphere as carefully as I can from my chest, transforming the gesture into a simple grab for the blanket. Two fingers hook the fabric and then a turn of my wrist has the orb concealed. All this while I fumble my other hand through my bangs, brushing them aside with a sleeper's drowsy mumbles as musical counterpoint.

I have no tactful means of replacing the sphere in its hiding place so long as Gella remains in the room. She bests me here, unexpectedly; turning herself away as I assemble myself from the hearth, the Lustrum walks to the meal tray and begins to pour two cups worth. Coffee stains the air. The bread is fresh--no heel-ends stale and crumbling here. Gella must be friends with one of the temple bakers.

If the situation were reversed, I do not think that I would have come to her. That alone should make me grateful.

Still, I do not trust her. There is no ill offense in myself when I admit inwardly that I do not wish to restore the sphere to its stone chamber so long as Gella remains here. I am hungry, and hence can let the matter rest by simply dropping the blanket on the bed and letting the sphere hide underneath.

Gella handles my shirtlessness with far greater ease than Shelinda; she does not even comment once. I pull a loose tunic out from my closet and tug it on to erase the matter.

We perform within the bounds of our own reservations over the altar of thick-handled ceramic mugs and pale plates. Gella is experienced with a particular form of morning. It is observed in silence, with swallows of hot drink to wash down any lumps of bread that might stick within our throats. We sit together and acknowledge one another only in quiet requests for the butter knife.

Eventually, Gella herself is the one to break ritual. "Dopha says he'll be hearing you f'r any duties down at breakfast. Jam," she adds, holding out splayed fingers as she waits for me to give her the shallow pot.

Gella is discontent. I know this because her voice is as thick as porridge, sullen with resentment against the same priests who would order her to enunciate clearly.

"Thank you," I remark. It is only when I have voiced those two words that I realize it is the first sign of gratitude I have given to her all morning for what she has done. That is sloppy behavior on my part. It implies that I am angry with her for walking in on my room unannounced during the night, for covering me while I slept.

Which is, quite possibly, true.

I hunt for the reason inside me. Annoyance? Surprising, but undeniable. I am angry that she has extended grace to me in a way I could not predict beforehand. The machinery of ploys set inside Bevelle is delicate enough that a single accident can tip the balances into disaster.

That accident is the sphere. Gella cannot have missed it. While it is not forbidden for acolytes to own personal records, the truth remains that I held it to me even when I was too weary to return to my bed from the hearthstones.

There is memory that I cling to when I am weak, and she has seen me do so. That memory is engraved inside the sphere. Wherever I took it from had to have been within my own room. We both knew I was too exhausted to journey far for such an object, so the place it was hidden must be within a reasonable radius, one Dopha could calculate in the seconds it took us to pass the cream.

Does curiosity now possess her? Will it encourage her to seek the record out and play it? Perhaps not ordinarily; Gella is stalwart enough in character to find her loyalty with those she perceives as her fellows. For now, her enemy is the priests. We are all in common agreement.

But what if such a tidbit of information was the price of her own freedom from her priest?

Or Somasil's?

Danger hides inside the guise of even honest friendship; this, I learned at high cost from the Squad, and I would be a fool to throw away such a lesson now. Gratitude cannot distract me. I dare not let it.

Unsure of what to do to tame such an emotion, I fill my mouth with bread.

The Lustrum have worked themselves into my life despite my best efforts to maintain a distance born of falsified mystery. Such was inevitable. In doing favors for them, I encouraged them to seek to repay such efforts. Without guiding requests on my part to distinguish my own needs, the Lustrum have turned to a roundabout creativity, fumbling for chinks of my humanity.

I knew it. I knew what they were doing, what they would do, and yet I allowed them close anyway. I excused it to myself as requiring their trust so that I could ensure they would not be threats. Friendship is a trap, one that almost brought my death along with that of Paine and Gippal, and yet I have let myself be surrounded by companions a second time.

It is that or I appear just as cold as any priest. Just as dangerous.

What a bitter circumstance I have come to.

Gella forgives me. Or at least she forgives my renewed silence, grunting back her own assurance of my shortened thanks. Food revives the sluggishness of my blood and the sweetness of the jam mixes with coffee-sugars in my mouth to leave me running my tongue across my teeth. There may be no clean way out of the situation I have trapped myself in a second time, but at least I can face it with a full stomach.

Between her and Shelinda, I have become a master at concluding my meals with complete awkwardness.

When a knock comes at the door, I am startled enough at this destruction of silence that I catch myself exchanging a glance with Gella. At this rate of visitors, it is surprising that I have not either changed the locks on my quarters, or simply left the door open.

Another rap, impatient, hasty knuckles beating a martial tattoo. I set down my chunk of bread and lick off the jam on my fingers. The damp is wiped off on my pants. I grip the handle of the door and yank it open without preamble; any assassins or other troublemakers might as well sit down for a slice of toast themselves before going about the rest of their business.

Upon seeing the pair of guards, I instantly recall that sentiment.

"You are the Lustrum Baralai, correct?" The figure leading is a man gruff with age and snow, whose beard is peppered with pipe ash. Platelets of standard armor are buckled around his chest and shoulders, touched with frost from morning patrol, ice that has formed from stepping between warmer guardhouses and the outer walkways. He must have been sneaking his pipe while still on watch.

This lapse of standards does not extend to me. The guard waits for my hesitant nod before continuing to recite his duty. "I have been ordered to inform you that you have been summoned by lord Trema."

The man is as imperious as humanly possible. He knows he is not the one in trouble. I am. Satisfaction at seeing another being damned turns him smug. I briefly entertain the image of Gella hurling toast at him, and then give my reply as mildly as possible.

"Please tell him that I will be there immediately."

"Tell him yourself, Lustrum." Assuming that there is no risk in inciting my ire, the guard is willfully insolent. "He said he expected you before the tenth hour."

The tenth hour? My gaze jumps to the windows before I remind myself that the curtains are drawn. Gella is my timepiece. I look at her, take in the way her eyes have widened in her intractable face, and I realize that I may not have time for that wash-up after all.

After a nod, I replace the door closed and lean against it. Breathe, look for the nearest clock, and decide that I will do better to hurry now and find my predestined delay once I am already running for the lifts.

Gella is more definitive about reactions. "Get yourself up there." Her order comes punctuated by the dull thud of her mug slamming down on the table, the rest of the coffee thrown down her throat in one gulp. Better hot liquid in a rush than tepid when you have time to savor the tastelessness. "One last thing."

"Yes?"

Long pauses are not characteristic of the Lustrum. She indulges in one anyway, speaks without her usual forthrightness. "I want you to know that you're not alone."

These are not the words I want to hear. They turn the morning meal to stone inside me, make it heavy and thick enough to kill.

"Gella--"

"Baralai," she says again, and her invocation of my name is stronger than mine of hers. It is fierce enough to still my tongue. The air dries my half-parted lips; looking at the Lustrum and the way she narrows her eyes with self-contained frustration, I am reminded that there are more betrayals than simply my own in this temple.

"I don't.. . don' know what t' do about it," she continues, struggling between the formality that has been forced upon her and her own village heritage. It shows in her face. Her cheek contorts hard against the bones; Gella grimaces, fighting to get the words out. "Milk-water and spit, Baralai. You're fancier than I am. So I don't know how I need t' say it for you t' hear right, but y'think y're on your own here, turn around in your damned stall n' see which way the door swings."

At first I do not know if Gella means for me to be incited to fight. If so, the reaction elicited is quite different; I turn my face away, but only to prevent myself from destroying the Lustrum's own crutch of belief. Alone or not, friends or not, it does not matter. It cannot.

"So y've got a priest bullying you. If I knew how to slap-past 'em down, I would." Gella is fully out of her practiced league. This is no sparring field; there is no enemy to crack the skull of with a staff. "But I can't fix it. I don't know how. Not yet, not just me. Not..."

She trails off there, fighting herself through the country-curses.

"Gella."

This time when I say her name, she is the one who falls silent.

"Listen to me." If I can infect my voice with enough muted fervor, perhaps I can convince myself as well. "I don't know how to fix any of this either. There's corruption in the temple that's dated back ever since it was made." Ever since the first of the lies of Sin, the initial act of duplicity that was still hotly debated by Yevon priests. "But stay with me," I add, and my voice is more confident than I have ever felt, "and I'll find a way. We're the acolytes of New Yevon. Eventually, we'll be the priests and maesters. It's up to us to make that name into something different than what has gone before."

I cannot tell by her expression if she believes me or not. Nor can I plead to her to have faith in me. Not when I do not have it in myself; especially not when I do not know if I say these words only to draw Gella into greater confidence, lest she be tempted to sell me out to another who offers her absolution first.

It seems that she is equally wary. "Don't you let us down either, Baralai." Her jawline flexes while she studies me; I can only imagine what she must be thinking. "Words are empty piss-pots. We both know that just by being here."

To hesitate is to imply my lie. I do not pause. "I won't."

Just like that, I am committed.

"Then stay yourself alive first." Hope and Gella are strangers to one another, so the Lustrum resorts to practicality. The jam knife goes on the stacked plates with a clatter. "You've got less than an hour. Wash up. Dopha and I can share out any work'll come your direction.

It is easier to say the words this time. "Thank you." Even then, the phrase feels stilted. I tack on more. "I wish you luck."

Reward for this benediction is a snort. "Give none of your luck to me. If it's Trema's eye you've caught, you'll need all of it you can keep." The shells of breakfast properly collected, Gella lifts the entire tray in both hands. "You come back to us. Don't let the Founder mess you none."

"Yes," I nod, not paying much attention as I check my tunic to see how wrinkled it is or if I will have to change it, "I'll come back fine--"

"Because if you don't, Baralai," the woman continues, as bluntly indifferent as if I had never spoken at all, "and you decide it's better t' give in to him, you really are going to be alone."

A healthy number of seconds march forward. They file in single order to the door and exit, unheeded by us both.

I think I have just been threatened.

This time, if our situations were reversed, I would have done exactly the same thing.