Downstairs and outside, it became very clear that much of the College was migrating towards the dining hall.

Just inside the hall, Kisea stepped to the side to keep from blocking traffic, and scanned the many tables that were rapidly filling. Red hair was extremely common here and a cluster of redheads wasn’t exactly definitive, but she finally spotted the group she wanted, sitting together in the same general area they usually gravitated towards.

“Over here.” She laid a hand on Rioshai's shoulder and gestured with her free hand. It was hard to talk in the press of bodies; the girl simply followed her.

Near the end of one table was the trio she sought. On one side were two young men, one human, one siren-blood.

The latter had, over the past couple of years, certainly filled out nicely into lean-muscled siren adulthood. While red hair was a given for recent siren heritage, Genaro’s was an uncompromisingly-vivid shade that made Kisea think of sunsets and autumn maples, and it was always just long enough for him to tie it back out of his way. Over the usual unbleached linen shirt, in this case with short sleeves, he always wore a tooled vest of dark leather that contrasted with his hair and made it look even brighter. Having graduated two years ago, though he was staying to specialize in mindhealing, a focus crystal winked at his throat.

The human beside him was dark-haired, deeply tanned, and a head taller than any of the sirens. He was broad-shouldered enough that he needed shirts of a looser cut than average; Kisea had met one of his brothers and a male cousin, detouring to visit while on business, and both were even taller and more solidly-built than Dillon. The rapid metabolism that came with any magic made it harder to gain weight, but daily farm work had done the opposite for them.

Three years ago, they’d been sitting together beside the student spokesperson Nitarai during the final hearing, Genaro holding Dillon’s hand with white-knuckled force in apprehension; they’d celebrated with their classmates when what remained of the Assembly had apologized to all controllers, promised that there would be no more stealthy murders, and pledged to make sure they would be treated like everyone else. Dillon had confessed to Kisea that if the verdict had been different, he would have refused to let Genaro disappear alone, even if it meant losing contact with his sprawling farm family, and had been working on a plan that probably wouldn’t have worked but it was the best he could think of.

And only days later, Genaro had decided what to do with his life.

Genaro hailed Kisea cheerfully. While he was distracted, Dillon dumped a generous scoop of mixed vegetables on Genaro's plate before serving himself. A telepath crystal winked on a chain around Dillon's neck: he was a respectably-strong relay telepath in his own right, though there was nothing unusual about his gift at all.

“Dillon! I don't like those ones!”

“Charo said you're supposed to eat more vegetables,” Dillon said calmly. “You can't live on meat sandwiches.”

The siren-blood girl across the table giggled. Unlike the others, she lacked a crystal at her throat, but that would change as soon as she graduated and took her Oath, legally an adult and allowed to have her own. Kisea had already bought her one. “Better eat your vegetables, Gen,” Elaia said.

Elaia had the curves of a siren-blood woman hovering right on the cusp of maturity, her belly a bit less flat than many due to her bookish interests and more limited physical exercise, her hair the dark rich red-brown of a chestnut and cut just shy of her shoulders. She liked bold warm intense colours, and her family tried to indulge her, so whether in a skirt or trousers, she typically wore reds and pinks, oranges and yellows, even her chemises dyed pale colours, with a tooled leather bodice in mixed-village style but dyed a striking black.

“Ugh. At least pass me the sausages,” Genaro complained.

“Not until the rest of us get some.”

“How do you intend to heal others if you don't keep yourself healthy?” Kisea asked reasonably. “If a lifewitch gives you advice, best to take it.” She glanced behind her to find Rioshai, hovering uneasily in her wake, and laid a hand on her shoulder to draw her forward.

“New friend?” Dillon asked.

“Yes.”

“We met,” Genaro said, brightening now he had a distraction from his vegetables. “I remember thinking that of your whole class, you were the only one I really felt might turn up controller gifts. Rioshai, right?”

“Yes,” Rioshai said, a bit shyly. “And... more teachers are pretty sure I did. Will. Whatever.”

“Congratulations. Come join the party.” He shifted sideways towards Dillon, leaving room on the bench next to him; across the table, Kisea stepped over the bench to sit next to Elaia. Baskets spaced along the tables held the oval wheat rolls that were a staple of the College diet; she took one, nodded a response to Elaia's questioning look about the large serving dish of vegetables the girl now had, and helped herself to a couple of sausages from the platter Dillon held before Genaro could plunder the remainder.

“What party?” Elaia asked.

“We can have a party anywhere and anytime.”

“You certainly can,” Dillon said fondly.

“A party would be a good idea,” Elaia said thoughtfully. “Then we can make sure you get to meet our friends. There are some people around who don't like controllers and who will try to bully us or get us in trouble...”

“Which is really rather stupid,” Genaro interjected, “because if we were what they think, which is their excuse for doing it, it would be suicidal on their part.”

The trestle tables and benches typically held about eight or ten people each, depending on size and friendliness, with barely enough room to squeeze between tables but not enough to sit at the ends; the kitchen had many decades of experience in how much food to put on each table, though alasir carnivory and the occasional vegetarian due to uncommon race or rare religious sect did complicate it. The dishes were emptying rapidly as plates filled.

“But there are people around who understand we're just people and and they're friendly,” Elaia continued without missing a beat, then grinned. “Sometimes really friendly.”

“Not everyone gets upset, finding out their lover or a close friend is a controller,” Dillon said reflectively. “I didn't. Matt didn't. Elaia's primary special friend at the time she found out, well, she did get scared and started avoiding her, but that didn't stop her from finding more open-minded company. So, you never know.”

“And my parents and siblings and all are fine with it,” Elaia said. “I suppose both being half human and half siren and both telepaths—my mom’s one of the relay anchors in Eyrie—and living in the second-largest mixed so-called ‘village’ might help, but they like Gen and Dillon and they think Kisea’s wonderful for everything she did. It’s not always bad.”

“I hope so,” Rioshai said, forehead furrowed. “I really don’t know how to tell my parents. Well, my father and stepmother, really. I don’t think they were completely happy with my being a telepath at all.”

“We’ll do what we can,” Kisea said firmly. “I’ve talked to a lot of lifewitches about this kind of thing, and the general body of experience they have with telling family about being lifewitches, which is about as close as we’re going to get for a while. We’ll do everything possible.”

“Families seem like a lot of trouble sometimes,” Genaro said lightly. “I don't have one, I was dropped at a temple probably less than a day after I was born. I guess someone made a mistake and wanted to forget or hide it.”

“Their loss,” Elaia said, reaching across the table to lay a hand briefly over his.

“My family,” Dillon said, “really have no idea what to make of him, and we haven't even gotten into the whole controller thing. I'm still waiting for them to really grasp the idea that Gen is male and not human and I'm keeping him regardless of who says what. I don't like girls anyway.” Elaia protested, so he amended, “Not in bed. You know very well what I mean. Girls as friends I have no problem at all with. Just not to be friendly with.”

Elaia giggled. “Of course I know. But I couldn't let you get away with that.”

“Eventually I’ll get to the controller part, and we’ll settle down into a lot of patient explanations and corrections and that kind of thing. They can learn to deal with it or I can stop visiting, their choice.”

“Everyone at this table, well, this end of the table, is a controller except you,” Rioshai said to Dillon, rather shyly. “That doesn't bother you or worry you?”

“Why should it? I've known Gen for longer than he's known he's a controller, I watched Kisea risk everything three years ago, I've watched Elaia find out and then learn how to use it. I've been volunteering to help Gen and Elaia learn, actually, and there's no reason I should stop. I trust the controllers I know not to do anything uninvited, I know exactly how far it can actually go, it doesn't do any damage or even feel bad. So what is there to be bothered by or worried about? Elaia's friends mostly don't take being supportive quite as far, but the rest of the Jordans all do, and they actually do volunteer as practice subjects sometimes. So does Olisai.”

“There's a difference,” Elaia explained. “A subtle one, but definitely a difference, between races and gifts.”

“Alina says,” Genaro said in amusement, “that if another genuinely renegade controller turns up, she wants us to know what we're doing so we can go deal with it and she can stay home this time. And her brother Rob is, like, the kindest and most accepting person you could ever meet, even if he is one of the most powerful men in the world. It's not like he doesn't know about us, but he wants Dillon and I to officially move to Jordan when I'm done studying, even if I'm like Kisea and I travel around a lot of the year. He specifically included both of us, not just me, by the way. And Alina passed on his invitation to Elaia to come to Jordan Manor once she graduates next semester so he can discuss the possibility of hiring her, not just as a friendly visit. I'm pretty sure Elaia could read before she could talk, and that's what he wants, not her gift.”

“The Jordan bloodline,” Kisea said, with fond thoughts of her family by marriage, “are remarkably good at seeing and accepting people for who they are, not what they are.”

“Anyway,” Dillon said. “There really are lots of people who are okay with being around controllers, and there are more than you might think who genuinely aren't scared on any level.”

“Trouble does happen, though,” Genaro said, more soberly. “Last semester, someone who got caught being nasty to a siren claimed that it wasn’t his fault, that a controller took him over and made him do it. No idea why we’d attack a fellow siren, it’s not like we can’t all find people to be friendly with when we want to anyway and she’s a nice person.”

“And none of us knew who he was so we didn’t have any reason to want to make trouble for him,” Elaia added. “Why would we anyway? And why would we be stupid enough to do it like that?”

“Exactly. Still, people aren’t always rational over this stuff. Things got a bit tense, but there were witnesses who saw him before and after, and her report during it, and his story fell apart. Everyone recognized his own distinctive body language and speech patterns and all. A couple of telepath mindhealers who have experience working with Kisea and I verified that there was no trace in his head of us leaving intrusive thoughts or the damage that comes from forced contact—we don’t know much about that, which I’m grateful for, but there’ve been a couple of self-defence incidents in three years, and it looks a lot like regular forced-projective damage but not exactly.”

“It did get resolved and he had to be responsible for his own actions,” Elaia finished in satisfaction. “And man, was he ever, especially after adding a lie like that to the original attack.”

“Body language and speech patterns?” Rioshai said in perplexity.

Dillon nodded. “If you watch for it, it's actually pretty easy to tell. One of you demonstrate, maybe? If it's only quick it shouldn't tire you much. I won't look, so I won't know who.” He closed his eyes. Kisea saw no trace of tension or nervousness or discomfort at all.

Genaro and Elaia exchanged quick glances, and Elaia gestured towards herself; Genaro nodded. Elaia closed her own eyes, her forehead furrowed slightly in intense concentration.

Then her expression smoothed out, absolutely neutral, as slack as much of her body—Kisea slid an arm around her to steady her and keep her from falling either backwards off the bench or forward into her food.

Dillon's eyes opened, and he grinned, except that it wasn't only him behind those hazel eyes now. “I'm madly in love with Kisea Jordan, and intend to challenge her husband next time I see him.” Dillon's voice, but that was Elaia's Eyrie accent and dramatic inflections, Elaia's gesture with one hand, Elaia's smile. “But until then I'll settle for my mad mindhealer who's almost as crazy as Kisea's husband.” He slid a hand around the back of Genaro's neck, halfway turning him and steadying him for a rather energetic kiss; Genaro returned it enthusiastically without hesitation.

Halfway through it, Kisea felt the change in Elaia: muscles suddenly tightening and flexing, her head coming up and her eyes opening, that mischievous smile returning to its proper place.

Neither Dillon nor Genaro seemed in much hurry to separate, though Genaro would have known the instant Elaia released Dillon.

“See?” Kisea said to Rioshai. “It would be really hard to take someone over and actually pass as them to anyone who knows them. Everything would be wrong.”

“I’m sorry, I feel like I’m repeating,” Rioshai said to Dillon, once that kiss finally ended. “But... how are you okay with that?”

“Why shouldn’t I be?” Dillon asked calmly, picking up a bread roll. “I invited it and I trust Gen and Elaia. In case you somehow missed it, kissing Gen is something I rather enjoy doing as often as possible. So what is there to be bothered by?”

“Are you afraid of lifewitches?” Genaro asked Rioshai.

Rioshai frowned thoughtfully. “I don't think so. The ones I've met have been... just regular people, mostly.”

“But they can do things that you can't possibly block. A lifewitch could stop your heart, or play absolute havoc with your nervous system, or a lot of other things.”

“That doesn't mean they will.”

“Exactly,” Dillon said, and took a bite of bread dipped in vegetable juices. “I could read what people are thinking, or gossip about messages in the relays. Siren fascination, used right, can make the rest of us extremely easy to manipulate. Kisea's husband Matt can do pretty much anything any sorcerer has ever been able to do, and some things probably no one has ever been able to do. That gorgeous pair of alasir-blood guards that are also Matt's cousins are capable of being seriously dangerous, I'm quite sure. For that matter, if I started telling people that, Idunno, I've been Gen's unwilling slave for the past few years and everything Kisea and Gen have said has been lies and so on and so forth, things are still fragile enough and you're so outnumbered that I could get a scared and angry mob out for controller blood. This list could keep going and get really long. Most people have some way they could hurt other people. Just because someone could do something, that doesn't mean that they will. What matters isn't what someone is or what they could do, it's who they are and what they choose to do. Which is basically the answer you'll get from any of us who spend a lot of time around controllers, and is more or less the philosophy you'll hear from people who have lifewitch friends or family or lovers.”

Kisea could almost see the thoughts starting to click into place in Rioshai's head.

She'd be all right, Kisea decided. The older trio had accepted her without hesitation—which she'd expected, given their extremely limited numbers. Gen was well on the way to becoming a formidable mindhealer. Kisea did what she did on instinct and personal experience and some trial and error, and it was generally successful, but she intervened only when all else had failed and she did so only by using her gift. Genaro was not only picking up her techniques, but he was learning from more traditional mindhealers about using telepathic gifts in much more subtle small ways and even talk therapy using nothing but passive senses. He'd keep an eye on Rioshai, she was sure.

“If controllers could control each other,” Dillon said to Genaro, “I'd ask Kisea to make you eat your vegetables, for your own good.”

Genaro heaved a sigh, but dug into the mixture without enthusiasm. “It's a lot better than I was afraid it would be,” he said to Rioshai seriously, once he'd swallowed that bite. “Dillon and I were here when Kisea challenged the Assembly. By the time she did, I'd already been identified as having controller traits, so it was just a matter of time before one of those 'accidents' happened to me, and we had no idea I was under a death sentence with, at most, a few ninedays to live. The whole revelation outraged our classmates so badly that they basically all rallied to protect me while they were also protesting the situation overall. The next group who came in weren't part of that and the supportiveness dropped off a lot, but it started to build again once Elaia’s gift was identified.”

“I made a lot of friends,” Elaia said. “Most of them still wanted to be friends, although some admitted they had to wrestle with the concept a bit.”

“I think it'll continue to climb and eventually become more like the way people here see lifewitches, aware, maybe not personally familiar with, but not seeing any reason to treat us differently. The best thing to do is just be yourself and get on with whatever you want to do. If someone's curious and receptive, explain things to them. Not everyone pays as much attention to Kisea's orientation classes as they should. If they're friendly, be friendly right back. And otherwise, just ignore them. There are enough friendly people that you don't need the ones who aren't.”

“Very true,” Kisea said. “For the time being, just concentrate on your lessons. There's plenty to learn, not just in class, and being at the College should be a time for making friends and finding out about yourself and the amazing diversity of the world. That hasn't changed. There's plenty of time to think about long-term plans. Or, for that matter, about how controllers are perceived outside the College.”

An alasir-blood youth, raven-haired and with sorcerer-grey eyes, his light skin more sun-touched than a full alasir's normally was, squirmed into the spot at the end of the bench, next to Elaia, and stole a kiss. “Any food left? Hi, Kisea. Pass me that pitcher, would you? Oh, hello. I'm Gil.”

“This is Rioshai,” Elaia said, obligingly taking the green-glazed pitcher of cool mint water from Kisea and passing it on. “She’s new to the most exclusive family at the College.”

“Well, that's going to be a challenge to come to terms with, what with some people getting their kicks from making it as hard as possible. You have my profound sympathy and my sincere support.”

There was something soothing and encouraging about spending time with this group. In one strong sense, they were her own kind. If they didn't share her personal life-shaping experiences that had been a result of the gift they shared, well, that only meant that she'd succeeded—and that was powerful motivation to keep going when it seemed just too big.

They were easy to care about as individuals, too, not just as the very few who shared her gift.

Still, there was always more to do, and not enough time to just sit and enjoy their company.

“Unfortunately,” she said, in a lull in the animated conversation, “I need to get going.” She scooped the last of her mixed vegetables into a roll. “I have a lot more to do before break, including another class of sorcerers who don't want to be there, and a chat tomorrow afternoon with the Telepath Assembly partly about the teachers giving you trouble, which I need to be ready for, and not endless time in which to do it all. Which isn't to say I'm not more than happy to make time for any of you if you need it.”

“We'll look after each other,” Elaia assured her. “You have a lot of responsibilities to a lot of people, and most of what you do is making the world a better place for everyone. Don't worry about us.”

“I know you will.” She gave Elaia a hug, then, once she got up, Gil just so she wasn't ignoring him, and circled around to give Genaro and Dillon each one—and Rioshai, having hesitated long enough to assess whether she’d be receptive to that.

“Hold up,” Genaro said, hastily turning the last of his sausage into a sandwich. “I want to talk to you.” He glanced at the others. “I may not see you 'til next mealtime. Elaia, show Rioshai where our rooms are, would you? So we’re easier to find?”

“Good idea,” Elaia agreed.

Kisea waited for Genaro to give Dillon a quick kiss, while Rioshai shyly thanked her, then they made their way outside.