"How long had they been there?" Sonder thought.
The question landed in her mind sharp and almost panicked.
She stared at the shards in her palm as if they might answer. She did not recall picking them up. Did not recall reaching for them or even noticing them before now.
"No," she said, more to the shards than anything else.
With a sudden urgency, she set the two shards carefully on the table.
She turned to her pack, fingers fumbling with the straps as she opened it and dug past the food and cloth until she found what she was looking for.
Her own shards.
They were wrapped tight in cloth and accounted for.
Five shards in her possession.
A sort of relief hit her.
All the anger, cruelty, impatience, and even the strange pleasure she felt in threatening the mage weren't hers. At least, it hadn't only been her.
All of them melted away and drained somewhere she didn't need to worry about anymore.
Sonder centered herself, pulling her emotions back under her control.
Her inward reach flew past the fury that still clung tight, but it was no match for her now that she understood its source.
And she reasserted her boundaries.
The glow of her staff vanished to nothing, and she looked back at the shards on the table with new caution.
She looked back at the mage and said, her voice heartfelt, "I'm sorry."
The mage looked at her, and her apology startled him, as if he was more scared of it than her threats.
"I wasn't myself just now," Sonder said. Her voice was steady again, softer without a layer of ice. Hers. "That anger and how quickly it came, that wasn't me."
She gestured to the shards on the table, careful not to touch them unless necessary.
"That's why I'm here. My journey is to find these shards."
The mage's eyes flicked back to the table with a newfound interest despite himself.
"But the problem is they're a corrupting force. Having five of them this close together is dangerous. For anyone."
The mage leaned back in his chair, all four arms folding in on themselves. He studied her now with something different in his expression, not fear, not hostility, but wary consideration.
"Well," he said gruffly, "that explains a few things."
He leaned back.
"I wondered why I felt… sharper, let's say," he admitted, clearly displeased with himself for saying it aloud. "Shorter-tempered than usual. And I'm never exactly charitable. Didn't think it was magic, just me getting older."
His gaze lingered on the shards again, longer this time.
"You want them?" he asked.
Sonder considered the word 'want'. It wasn't exactly like that, but for simplicity's sake, she answered, "yes."
Maybe she said it too quickly and too greedily.
He clicked his tongue and looked away.
"I don't care for them," he said. "Didn't like how they felt. I don't even want to think about them."
He paused, then added, "Still."
His fingers twitched, just slightly.
"But," he continued on, "I'm not an idiot. I know better than to cling to something that makes a sorceress like you lose control. And against you…" He gave a humorless snort. "I wouldn't last long enough to regret it. If you're going to go berserk, let it be somewhere else than my home, or even my village."
He gestured toward the table with a stiff motion.
"If you want them, take them. All of them. I don't want them in my house anymore."
Sonder inclined her head, relief and resolve mingling in her heart.