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Isolde rises from the table. “Then train.”

I look at her. “Now?”

“Unless you scheduled emotional avoidance.”

Sable points her knife toward the back door. “Yard. Both of you. I’ll make lists while the demon lord insults your technique.”

Syrenya settles into the chair Bren vacated. “Wonderful. I do adore practical education.”

The safe house yard is enclosed by rough fencing, ward nails, and a row of stubborn thornbushes that look like they would fight back if trimmed. Rain has turned the packed earth soft under my boots. Sable hangs three ward loops from iron hooks along the fence, each one glowing faintly blue around the edges.

“Rules,” she says, standing beside a crate with a clipboard she absolutely stole from somewhere. “You absorb only from the loop I point at. You release into the scorched barrel. You do not set the fence on fire, the house on fire, yourself on fire, or anyone emotionally adjacent to you on fire.”

I stare at her. “Anyone emotionally adjacent?”

She looks pointedly at Isolde.

Isolde, standing near the porch with her arms crossed, says, “I am fire-resistant under specific conditions.”

Sable taps the clipboard. “That is not the same thing as fireproof.”

“Noted.”

Rhazek stands beneath the eaves with the severe patience of a man prepared to criticize weather. “Begin.”

I place my hand against the first ward loop.

I do not let the hunger lunge. I breathe in Isolde’s rhythm before contact, then draw a narrow strand of energy into my palm. The ward loop fights me, crackling blue-white. The magic tastes clean compared to Vaerith’s, practical and bitter with iron. I take only enough to fill the hollow under my ribs, then turn toward the scorched barrel.

“Release,” Rhazek says.

Black-gold flame spills from my fingers.

Too much.

The barrel jumps backward, hits the fence, and rolls smoking across the yard.

Sable looks at the clipboard. “Barrel assaulted. Fence threatened. Emotional adjacency uncertain.”

“Helpful,” I call.

“Do it again.”

I do it again.

And again.

By the tenth repetition, sweat runs down my back despite the cold rain. The hunger learns the pattern slowly, resentfully, the way a proud animal learns a gate exists because it has hit the fence enough times to respect the wood. Absorb. Hold. Narrow. Release. The flame still wants to spread, but I force it into a line, then a thread, then a controlled pulse that hits the barrel and leaves only a blackened mark.

Rhazek’s expression barely changes. “Acceptable.”

I bend with my hands on my knees, breathing hard. “Be still my heart.”

“Your heart is not the problem.”

“Excellent news.”

Isolde approaches with a cloth and a cup of water. She hands both to me without fuss. “Your third release was wider after Sable mentioned the fence.”