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“My relief.”

“That appears to be the problem.”

I extend my awareness toward her. Chaos stirs beneath my skin, controlled and watchful. I receive no words. Her memories remain closed. There is no doorway into her mind.

Then green light flashes.

Rows of seedlings rise beneath clean glass. Pride warms the image. It gives way to irritation as frost creeps across an eastern pane.

“The solarium needs another brazier,” I say.

Fiona steps backward. “I did not say that.”

“You pictured frost near the eastern planting beds.”

Her expression hardens. “Stay out of my thoughts.”

“I did not enter them.”

“You saw them.”

“I received an image accompanied by emotion. The distinction matters.”

“It matters more to the person whose mind is being observed.”

“I cannot hear words. I cannot search for information. I cannot choose which image appears.”

“Can you send one?”

I concentrate on the neptherium war table. Its black surface forms clearly in my mind, followed by violet chaos tracing the Causadurn Ridge.

Fiona flinches.

“You saw it.”

“The war table,” she says. “And you were irritated.”

“That emotion was not part of the intended image.”

“It was certainly present.”

The connection carries more than either of us directs, but far less than full thought.

“Try to send something,” I say.

Fiona closes her eyes.

Gray fog fills my awareness.

“You are imagining an empty field.”

She opens one eye. “Damn.”

“A deliberate image can cross.”

“So can one we do not intend to share.”

“Only when emotion strengthens it.”