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“Good,” Fabian said. “What else?”

“Um.” I shifted my focus to the right. “Coins. The standard Esholian ones with the Good Council crest.” So many coins, in fact, that I’d probably be able to buy the entire Cardina market with them. Not that I ever would. As far as I was concerned, any money that Dyonisia had planted here was dirty, tainted by all her threats and traps.

“What else?” Fabian asked.

I cleared my throat. “Instruments. Maybe a fiddle? Or it could be a lyre. It has strings.”

As soon as I said it, a discordant twang came from behind us as I accidentally plucked at the instrument, and I jolted. Fabian laid a comforting hand on my elbow. “It’s okay. There’s no need to rush. What else do you feel?”

I sank further into my power, using my new magic to touch and observe and sense everything in the room. “A brooch engraved with little flowers. A pocket watch with a chain. A bag of marbles. Buttons. Rings.”

“Good. And what do all of these things have in common?”

I opened my mouth and closed it again. They were all objects, of course, but that sounded too obvious. I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

“They all have weight,” Fabian said. “You see, there are things in this world you cannot hold in your hand. Wind and words. Minds and mist. Songs and souls. But the things you can hold are just as important. They are the tools we can use to build or destroy the world around us. And as Object Summoners, we have a duty to use them for good. To create and fix and set free and inspire.”

Fabian’s chains rattled as he shifted slightly. His eyes shined in the lantern-light, reflecting me before him. As much as his words sounded rehearsed from his own days here at the Institute, I could tell they meant something to him. Something I didn’t quite understand yet.

“And so,” he continued, “let me help you lift these tools for a better world. Together, okay?” I wasn’t sure what he meant until I felt his own Object Summoning magic brush up against mine, like an invisible hand closing around mine, guiding me. “First, the key with the heart-shaped bow.”

From behind us, the key floated upward and began to circle us where we sat. It wasn’t chaotic or out-of-control—just a steady rotation.

“Good. Now the coins.”

Again, the standard Esholian coins rose to join the key, going round and round. Next, we lifted the lyre together, and the instrument began to play a pleasant tune as it spun in circles around the two of us. Then the brooch, the pocket watch, the marbles, the buttons, and the ring joined until all the objects I had named vortexed around us, faster and faster.

With Fabian’s hand guiding me, though, I didn’t feel like I was on the verge of destroying or dropping anything. In fact, it felt much the same as the time he had put a hand on my wrist as I brought the hammer down in their blacksmith shop.

“Better?” Fabian asked with a sad, small smile.

I gave one back, wishing we could share this moment under different circumstances, in a different place where blood didn’t stain the floor. “Much better.”

“Then let me officially indoctrinate you.” Fabian’s gaze shone with pride as he took my hands and recited the words I’d never heard before but would remember forever, from this moment on:

“We, the summoners of this and that

Welcome all who’ve moved

Any object, big or small,

From somewhere else to you.”

For a moment, the past echoed back at me. I wasn’t in this abandoned classroom, but a lighthouse brimming with flickering firelight while hands just as gentle as Fabian’s took mine. Garvis whispered a set of different words, ones he would never get to say again except for in my memories—memories that overlapped with the now, merging with Fabian’s voice and the spinning of objects around us.

“Everything bears a special weight,

But each weight’s value is the same,

From the lightest graze of string

To the heaviest of chains.

So we open that which sets us free,

We strum that which inspires.

We aid and care, this we swear…”