“It’s water,” Branna reminded her. She stood in the quiet sunlight she’d created, smiling coolly through the curtain of rain that fell outside her boundary.
“I know it’s water,” Iona muttered. “It’s running down the back of my neck, into my eyes.”
“Control it. Do you think you’ll be warm and dry and happy every time you need what you are, what you have? Will Cabhan wait for fine, fair weather to come for you?”
“All right, all right, all right!” Flickers of fire sizzled from Iona’s fingertips, and a stream of rain went to steam.
“Not that way. You’re not after changing it, though well done enough there. Move it.” Smoothly, effortlessly, Branna widened her sunny spot a few inches.
“Show-off,” Iona muttered.
“It’s in you as much as me. Slide the rain away from you.”
She liked the feel of the fire snapping through her, from her, but drew it back. And used the frustration and annoyance that helped her call it to nudge, to slide, to open.
An inch, then two—and she saw it, felt it. Itwasjust water. Like the water in the bowl. Thrilled, she pushed, and pushed hard enough to have that streaming rain leap away, gather. And splat with some force against Branna’s borders.
“I didn’t mean to— I mean I wasn’t trying to splash you. Exactly.”
“It wouldn’t have hurt your feelings if you’d managed to,” Branna said easily. “So well done as well there. You’ll work on subtlety, and finesse—and absolute control—but you managed it, and that’s a start.”
Iona blinked, swiped at her wet face, and saw she’d opened a narrow but effective swath of dry. No pretty pale gold sunlight in her little corner, but no rain either.
“Woo to the hoo!”
“Don’t lose it. Don’t spread it. It’s only for you.”
“The rest of the county would probably appreciate some dry, but I get it. Stop rain here, maybe cause a flood there.”
“We can’t know, so we don’t risk it. Move with it,” Branna demonstrated, walking in a wide circle, always within the dry.
On her attempt, the edges of Iona’s circle turned soggy, but she kept control.
“Well done. As it’s Ireland, you’ll have no lack of rain to practice on as we go, but well done for today. We’ll go inside, have a go at a simple potion.”
As Branna headed back toward the workshop, Iona struggled to keep up—and maintain her dry area. “I could help on the bottling and packaging of your stock, for your shop. I’d like to help somewhere,” she continued. “You do almost all the cooking, and you’re spending a lot of your time—Connor, too—teaching me. I’m pretty good at following directions.”
“You are.”
Branna had always preferred the solitude of her workshop. It was one matter to hire clerks and such for the shop in Cong, to have them deal with customers, shipping, and so on. But her workshop was her quiet place. Usually.
And still, she thought, the lessons, and the need for them, did cut into her time.
“It would be a help,” she decided. “We’ll see about it.”
Branna stepped into the workshop, and Iona nipped in behind her dripping on the floor.
“I was about to leave you a note,” Meara said from behind the work counter. “The both of you.”
“Now you’ll have some tea, and a visit. I’ve missed seeing you. Iona, don’t track up the floor.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re dry, I’m soaked. I must look like a wet cat.”
“More a drowned one,” Meara commented.
Branna walked straight to the kettle. “Do a glamour.”
Saying nothing, Iona glanced at Meara.
