Page 33 of The Witch They Fear

His hands pause on a crystal. Just for a beat. Then they resume.

"It's a training space," he says. "Designed for comfort. Stress inhibits magical control. The more at ease you are, the more accurately we can assess your baseline responses."

"So you made it cozy for science?"

"I made it functional." He sets the crystal down. Looks at me. Those hazel eyes, catching the warm sconce-light in a way that turns them almost amber. "Sit down."

I sit on the couch. It's as comfortable as it looks—the leather gives under me, warm and soft, and I sink into it before I can stop myself. My body, which has been running on adrenaline and fury since combat class, relaxes slightly before I smooth the edges of my skirt against my thighs. The wards hum around me.

The scent of cedar and old paper and whatever-he-is settles against my skin.

I hate that it's working. I hate that cozy for science is actually making the knot in my chest loosen by a fraction.

Aamon pulls a chair and sits on the other side of the table across from me. The distance between us is precise—close enough to speak without raising his voice, far enough that I don't feel crowded. Calculated. Everything about this vamp is calculated.

"Today we're going to work on grounding," he says. "Before you can control your magic, you need to learn to anchor it. Right now, your power responds to emotion—any emotion, any intensity—and expands outward without direction. Grounding gives it a focal point. A place to go that isn't everywhere."

"Like the water glass," I say. And then wish I hadn't, because I haven't told him about the glass.

He waits.

"Yesterday morning," I say, because there's no point hiding it now. I swallow around the slight lump in my throat. "I tried to warm a glass of water. Baby magic. The glass exploded."

Something shifts in his expression. Subtle—a softening at the corner of his eye, a fractional easing of the set jaw. He nods.

"Hm. That's exactly the problem grounding addresses," he says. "You reached for your magic and it answered with everything it had, because it doesn't know how to answer with less. The grounding ritual teaches it proportionality. You're not reducing your power—you're giving it a channel. The difference between a river flooding a valley and a river flowing through a riverbed."

I think about the glass. The crack in the counter. The seed that turned to ash.

"And the riverbed is...?"

"An object." He gestures to the table. "Physical, tangible, something your magic can bind to temporarily. The object becomes an anchor—a fixed point your power can orient around instead of radiating outward. Choose something."

I slide off the couch and sink to my knees in front of the coffee table, scanning the spread. Everything is right there—crystals in neat rows, bundles and glass bottles of dried herbs, smooth river-tumbled stones, glass vials of strange liquid of poultice, a brass bowl. No hidden compartments. No trick. Just a table full of options and I have no fucking clue how to choose.

"How do I know which one?"

"You don't." He rises from the chair and moves to the couch behind me, sitting on the edge of it so his voice comes from just over my shoulder. Close. "Your magic does. Close your eyes. Run your hand over the table. Don't think about what looks right or what makes sense. Follow the pull."

I give him a look. "Follow the pull. That's your professional advice."

"Your instinct is more developed than your technique. Use what you have."

I close my eyes and shake out my shoulders as I hold my hand out. I feel stupid about it for approximately two seconds, then let my hand drift side to side over the table. My fingers pass over the crystals—cool, buzzing faintly, polished smooth. The herbs give off warmth but it's diffuse, scattered. The river stones are pleasant but quiet, like background noise.

Then my hand stops.

I don't decide to stop. My magic decides. A low, insistent tug in my chest that routes straight down my arm and into my fingertips, pulling them toward something on the far edge of the table. My eyes pop open.

It's a piece of raw stone. Unpolished. Rough-edged. Dark, almost black, with veins of something that catches the light—copper, maybe, or gold, threaded through the dark like fault lines. It's the only thing on this table that hasn't been refined, shaped, or arranged. It looks like someone pulled it out of the ground and set it down without deciding what to do with it.

It hums.

I swear it fucking hums.

The same ambient frequency as the apothecary garden, the same wild, earthy magic that my power keeps reaching for. This isn't an academy tool. This is something old and unprocessed and still connected to wherever it came from.

I pick it up. It's heavy for its size. Warm.