“As if that’ll happen?” She took my hand much too easily. Shook it with too much vigor. “Deal.”
She had so much to learn.
“I’m not begging you to touch me, Lore,” she crowed. “Get used to that right now.”
“We’ll see.” I stepped back from her. “As you said, you’re doing well with your lightning magic already, though I believe you’ve only begun to learn how to wield that power with much accuracy.”
“Yes, because that is not an L. It’s a squiggle.”
I grinned. “It’s an L. One day, Wildfire, you’ll add that R and a heart.”
She didn’t return my smile or my challenge. “Don’t do this, Lore. We can’t. I won’t.”
Or she would.
“I believe tonight, we should see if you can use your power to pull in even one puny shadow,” I said.
“Pull it in?” A frown bloomed on her face, and she shoved stray hair back over her shoulder. The wind caught it and streamed it out at her side like feathers of sunset. “What does that mean?”
“As long as there’s light, there are shadows around you.” I flicked my finger toward the wall on my left where moonlight filtering in through the window made my shadow rise and lurk against the stone. Even my shadow appeared to be staring at her; it could no more look away than I could. “All you need to do is make the shadows come to your call and do as you command.”
“Shadows.” Her lips thinned, and she crossed her arms on her chest. “What is a shadow going to do at my command?”
“Almost anything with the right incentive.”
“They're like mist, and mist can't do anything.”
“Mist can creep under a door or through a keyhole to spy. Imagine you're fighting in a great battle and suddenly, a thick mist obscures your vision but not that of the wielder.” I fed her my usual smile, slick and full of cunning. “For the right mist wielder, mist can kill.”
“It can’t take on a physical form. I can see the value of obscuring vision. You could eliminate an enemy if you couldsee where you were going, and they couldn't. Slip in, a quick slice with your blade, and it's over. But how can mist kill?”
“Imagine thickening mist and sliding it down your opponent’s throat. Keeping it there and thickening further.”
“They could keep their mouth closed.”
“If you fill their nostrils with more mist, how will they breathe?”
“Good point.” Her face creased. “You're saying that shadows can do these things for me?”
“And so much more.”
“I don't believe I want to choke someone to death with a shadow.”
“Give it time, and you might.”
Her lips curled up on one side, and her face took on a conniving slant. “Perhaps I would.”
The fates help whoever challenged this woman. There was no way she wouldn't walk off every battlefield victorious.
“What else can shadows do?”
I warmed to the subject. “You could command shadows to cloak you, hide you.”
“And sneak around inside the castle? Sounds fun.” The grooves on her forehead suggested she had a destination in mind.
I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms on my chest, lifting one eyebrow. “Where do you hope to sneak into, Wildfire?”
“Nowhere in particular.”
