“Try again,” Vi encouraged.
“You should get one of my sisters to do it.” Arwin slouched in her chair.
“I don’t want one of your sisters to do it.”
“Why?”
“Because I know you can.” And because Vi wanted to endear herself to the girl. She wanted Arwin to trust her with her secrets, just as Arwin once had long ago. She wanted to be there the moment Arwin was ready to open up about any budding romance with Fallor, however long it took. “You will be stronger for it, and you want to be strong, don’t you?”
“I do.” Arwin ran her finger over the steel points of the crown. “But I don’t even know how to use the royal shift yet.”
“You will learn soon, I’m certain.”
“Ruie says she’s going to teach me soon!” Arwin covered her mouth suddenly. “I wasn’t supposed to say that… you’re not supposed to learn until you’re fourteen.”
“How old are you now?”
“Eleven… But I’ve been told I’m advanced in my magic.”
“By who?”
Arwin paused, a blush overcoming her cheeks that instantly made her scowl. “No one.”
“No one?”
“A stupid boy.”
Ah, so Fallor was already present. No wonder Noct was ready to trust Vi.
“Well, he must be smart and not stupid, because I think you’re advanced in your magic, too.”
“You do?” Arwin slowly lifted her gaze to meet Vi’s.
“I do. Which is why I want you to try again.”
Arwin did as Vi bid. Time and again. That day, the next day, and in the coming weeks.
The girl worked tirelessly for three months as Vi watched silently.
She felt every pulse of magic, absorbing it into her as she had the power of the scythe. Cyphers of sorcery had been given to her in a tongue she couldn’t read but somehow understood. Vi saw the glyphs behind her eyelids as she slept. She felt the knowledge they imparted to her in every action.
Day after day, that knowledge assured her of one thing:You can do this.
At first Vi thought the resounding confidence related to Arwin, and being patient enough to see the crown made. But day by day that theory waned. Her fingers began to itch as she watched Arwin work. Her magic reached out between Arwin’s pulses. Vi learned the secrets of the shift not through direct teaching, but by watching one day after the next, until, finally…
“Do it again, but slower.”
“What?” Arwin’s head jerked up from the crown she held. It was the fourth one Deneya had made. The girl had succeeded in changing the crown from steel to a faint blue glass.
“Slower, this time,” Vi said again.
“All right.” Arwin was clearly uncertain, but she wrapped her fingers around the crown anyway. At the first pulse of magic, Vi reached across the table and wrapped her hands around Arwin’s. “Wha—”
“Keep going,” she said without taking her eyes off the crown.
Another pulse of magic.
The first pulse was always connecting with the item. The second was learning it, inside and out. Vi understood what Arwin was doing in the same way she’d come to understand the crystals.
