They had a good enough rapport that Alyss finished what she was doing before answering, taking the moment to give herself a break and stretch out her hands and wrists.
“There are a lot of different types of earth,” Alyss said thoughtfully, glancing back and around Olivin. The tunnel was narrow and they had to walk single file. “There’s hard rock, and softer rock. There’s sand and dirt. Some places are all of one and others are a mix.” She grinned slightly. “That all sounds a bit off, doesn’t it? It’s hard to describe because it comes down to feeling—how my magic hits against it and is absorbed by it. How it resists me when I try to exert force on it.”
“I don’t really understand what you’re saying about rocks,” Eira admitted. “But I do understand the idea of magic having a flow to it. There’s a difference between water in all its forms…a difference between salt and fresh water even.”
She hadn’t thought about those differences in a long time. It took Eira back to first learning how to harness her magic with Marcus and Uncle Fritz. She was on her uncle’s lap, the backs of her hands resting in his palms. They moved a chunk of ice from one hand to the next as Marcus crafted small ice sculptures ofdeer to line the front of their house before the winter solstice festivals. The smell of roasting hare filled the home. Father and Grahm were already in their cups, singing and reminiscing…
And, just like that, she longed for those simple times again.
Did her family think fondly of those days? Did nostalgia for that time overwhelm their senses like it did hers? Or had they tried to expunge them from their memories? The answers would hold a clue to whether there would ever be a path forward with her parents.
Perhaps she should start with asking her uncle about what her parents had said and done—if anything—since she left the next time she saw him. There were still hard discussions to have surrounding pains that might never go away. Ultimately, forgiveness would be up to her. But Eira had to figure out if she was strong enough to walk that path.
“What is it?” Alyss must’ve noticed a change in Eira’s expression.
She shook her head. “Nothing, really.” This once, Eira would keep her friend in the dark. It wasn’t a truth she was ready to share yet. “I was thinking about how much harder it was to learn how to manipulate liquid water than solid. And water in the air?” She made anoofnoise similar to being punched in the gut. Then, Eira attempted to move their conversation along. “So how do these different types of rock relate to making this tunnel?”
“Oh, I’m just moving the earth around, basically.” Alyss started forward again. “I’m finding the softer spots and condensing them. Shifting the harder spots to be around us for support.”
After five or ten minutes of Alyss working, Olivin stopped them. “I think we should be well into town now.”
“All right, Alyss, make a small tunnel up—very tiny, the size of a pinhole if you can,” Eira instructed. “I want to get a feeling for where we’re at, and if you can safely make a larger opening.”
Alyss paused and placed her hand on the low ceiling. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I can feel a hard line of stone above—likely man-made. A floor of some kind. I think we’re under a house.”
“Good sensing. Get us out from under andthenmake the small hole.”
Alyss did just what Eira wanted. She moved a bit slower, stopping to feel above them every few steps. After about another ten feet of tunnel, Alyss halted for longer, closing her eyes. Eira could feel every thrum of magic that radiated out from her. She wondered, if she further honed her gift, whether she, too, might be able to tell the different types of rock apart based on how Alyss’s magic moved and reacted.
But she wasn’t going to get ahead of herself. She still needed to figure out if, or how, those senses could be used at all.
“I think we’re between two buildings,” Alyss said finally.
“How close are they?”
“Pretty close.”
“An alleyway or a street?”
“I think the former,” Alyss said with moderate confidence. “If even that.”
“Perfect, make the hole.”
Alyss pressed her finger into the stone as though it were as soft as a pillow. It sank in and was followed by popping all the way up. In the golden glow of Olivin’s Lightspinning Eira could see a trickle of sweat running down her neck. This seemed to require as much exertion as, if not more than, rebuilding their house.
She retracted her hand. “All right, there you go.”
“Let’s take a look and double-check that we’re not anywhere people would be walking.” Eira put her hand over her head, palm flat against the stone at the top of the tunnel, and closed her eyes.
Her magic followed along the ceiling, over Olivin’s and Alyss’s heads, to find the path of least resistance up. Frost raced through the rock and punched through to the alleyway Alyss had described. Eira could visualize the cobblestones as her magic sank into the grooves and flowed like rivers. The walls of the two buildings Alyss had mentioned built themselves in Eira’s mind. They were far enough apart to come up. She didn’t get the sense of any people around. And she didn’t hear anyone commenting on the sudden, unnatural frost. Though, it was hard for her to tell how thick the rock was between where they stood and the surface. Likely thick enough to muffle sounds.
“I think we should try for here.” Eira pulled her hand away.
“What did you do?” Alyss had a shimmer of awe in her eyes.
“Oh, it’s a new application of my frost I learned from Ducot.”
“Excuse me?” Ducot tilted his head. “I don’t remember teaching you anything.”
