Great—
Anees picked up a jar of water, which Lory hadn’t noticed sitting atop the cupboard, and poured it over the leftovers of the cloth.
“I’m sorry?—”
“You didn’t think this would work at your first attempt, did you?” Anees said with a grin. “You’re already the most powerful student I’ve ever encountered; it would be severely unfair if wielding came to you easily, too.”
“So unfair,” Bleek agreed with a grin, his dark blonde hair bouncing as he walked to the side of the room and picked up a loose piece of wood, which Lory identified as part of the chair she’d taken apart with Aiden while searching for a way out of this chamber when Khayrivven had first used the Almelyte power to lure her magic out. “Why don’t you try this instead. It’s sturdier than the textile, and if you can’t ration your fire when you release it, perhaps you can dial it back when it’s already out.”
“You mean manipulate it while the chair leg is burning?” Lory asked for clarification, and when Bleek nodded, shedug deep into her well of power once more, this time not tugging but gently calling for a tendril of fire.
A whoop of joy nearly escaped her throat as the wood didn’t go up in the same inferno the fabric had. Instead, the heat spread from her palms in small orange tongues, wrapping around the chair leg.
“Please tell me this isn’t just because wood doesn’t burn as fast as cloth,” she said to Bleek over the glow of orange in her hands and found the phantom grinning with the sort of approval she knew none of the Triad would ever give her for a tiny achievement such as this.
“Not bad, Vednis,” the Gilded specialist praised, and Anees bobbed her head, her eyes on the intricate web of flames. “Keep it low like this for a minute, then reel in your power like it’s a rope or a chain, whatever image works best for you. The fire should shrink with every inch you’re withdrawing your magic.”
Lory did her best not to break eye contact with her flames as she willed her magic to pull back. Inch by painful inch, she spooled it inward until the fire feeding on the wood in her hands started dying down and the intense glow dimmed to the orange of embers and eventually winked out. Such relief, not to have the flames break into a wildfire.
A sharp breath lifted Lory’s chest as she took in her handiwork. “I did it.”
“You did it,” Anees agreed with a grin, pride shining in her eyes, while Bleek merely raised a brow.
“Once,” he commented. “You did itonce.”
With a frown, Lory called upon her fire again, watching the flames come to life one by one as they licked up the pieceof wood like honey flowing against gravity to the tip of the stick, then pulled back her power until the fire died on the blackened surface.
The expression on Bleek’s face when Lory eyed him sideways was almost comical.
“All right, you did ittwice.” Bleek pulled the chair leg from her hands and offered her another piece of fabric, this one raw silk in the colors of the sky. Beautiful and too precious to burn.
“You’ll be able to fix soot stains on this with your power if I mess it up, right?” Lory threw at Anees, already calling her magic to her fingertips.
This time, it wasn’t more than a soft summons, her inner voice calm and collected, and her magic uncoiled from her veins and flowed into her palms, where it waited. Waited like a beast ready to pounce if she made one wrong move.
You can do this, Lory. Giving herself a pep talk was something she’d learned in her years alone on the streets, when not even Evven had been there to tell her she was capable. When she’d depended on nothing and no one for fear she’d lose whoever she got close to.
Now, she had friends. People who rooted for her, even in this dark and dire place.
As if that knowledge opened a dam inside her, Lory’s fire soared from her hands, shooting in a circle around the burning fabric in her hands before splintering into a million sparks just below the ceiling.
Lory wasn’t the only one who ducked and sought cover as the sparks rained down on the stone floor. Anees was crouchingbeside the cupboard, her arms raised above her head, and Bleek stood at the side of the room, back pressed against the wall and head turned to the side as he eyed the spectacle. Only when the sparks extinguished on the cool limestone did Bleek push away from the wall and shake his head in wonder.
“Eroth have mercy, Lory. What the fuck was that?”
Anees giggled so hard at Bleek’s cursing that she could barely get to her feet. “I haven’t heard you use that sort of language since I kicked your ass in hand-to-hand when we both were ashlings,” she told him, swatting off flecks of ashes where sparks had hit her.
Lory was still cowering on the ground, mortified. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… Are you all right?” When she finally got to her feet, both Anees and Bleek were staring at her, slightly disheveled, but otherwise impressed.
“How did you do that?” Anees wanted to know, pulling the leftovers of the silk from Lory’s hands and balling them up in her hands.
Lory watched the soot disappear and the holes weave themselves back together until everything looked like new. What useful power Anees had. “No idea,” Lory admitted. “I’m sure you’ve already thought of this, but if you can make fabric fix itself, can you also destroy it with your magic?”
Anees chuckled. “How do you think I usually undress my lovers?”
That earned her a sideways glance and a cough from Bleek, and Lory could have sworn a blush tinged the phantom’s cheeks. “I thought we were talking about Lory’s powers here, not Anees’s.”
Rolling her eyes at him, Anees shoved the fabric into his hands and took Lory’s into hers. “So how did you summonsparks? Have you always been able to do that?”
