“What if you don’t speak a language they understand?”
“It doesn’t matter—the intent is what carries the compulsion, not the understanding, though the wording does matter,” Raphael patiently explained.
“What if they’re deaf?”
“The thrall will still hold.”
“What if—”
“What if they’re stalling?” Flo grumbled. “Samantha, look, I know something about stage fright. First performance I had, I damn near froze before the curtain rose, missed my mark, stammered my lines. I tried to say I had the pox ten minutes before the curtain parted and nearly vomited over my costume. But the time came and the curtain opened, and there was nothing to do but run off the stage or perform. I performed. You can too.”
Okay, perhaps my questions hadn’t been purely about curiosity. “Raise your hand.”
Flo’s hands stayed crossed at her chest.
I focused on the black pupils at the center of her eyes. “Raise your right hand.” Perhaps I hadn’t been specific enough.
Nothing.
“Raise yourlefthand.”
“You’re not very good at this,” Flo observed. “I can see why you have to pay for it.”
“I haven’t really practiced violating people’s free will,” I groused.
Raphael and Demos had settled on either side of the carriage. “Don’t think of it like that,” Raphael said. “It’s not about taking someone’s free will. It’s about makingyourwilltheirs.”
Semantics,I wanted to say. But that was the same petulant part of me that wanted to throw down the practice sword when I was sloppy at sparring and Raphael had knocked me on my back. I shut my eyes for a second, trying to quickly analyze my past experiences with the vampires. I hadn’t known what Iwas doing, just that I wanted something—the librarian to stop attacking, or Demos to leave me alone. I’d just… wanted.
Right now, I was so focused on the fact that I was making Flo do something she didn’t want. I was making it about her when it should be aboutme.
This was absolutely opposite my mother’s teachings.Telling someone what you want is the quickest way to ensure you never have it.
I tried telling Flo to lift her knee. Nothing happened.
I cast Raphael an exasperated look.
He didn’t move from his spot.
In the arena, he gave me no quarter. This was perhaps the same in a different way. He gave me no out, no excuse to focus on him instead of the woman in front of me. “Your will is more than a simple action. Right now, you don’t care if she lifts a finger or a leg. Focus on the greater goal you have and what it means to you.”
In my mind’s eye, I didn’t see Flo. I saw the vampire that had ripped apart my mother.
I imagined having the power to stop it, ordering him to leave my mother alone, the same words I’d cried out uselessly in the arena. This wasn’t the same, but… the feeling of relief in having my orders executed? At being in control? At having a chance of mastering this power within myself?
Iwantedthat.
“Raise your right hand.”
Slowly, unsteadily, as though she fought it every moment, her right hand rose.
Flo grinned at me. “I was beginning to wonder if you had it in you.”
She seemed more excited than me, but as she’d been standing there the last ten minutes doing nothing, I imagined any excitement would do.
I refocused on Raphael. “Will her hand stay there forever?”
Raphael shook his head. “This is where intent matters. You left the order open-ended, but I imagine you weren’t thinking you wanted Flo’s arm extended for the rest of her life. Without a clear release, the order will weaken until it feels fulfilled.”
