7th of Darkfall, 412 AH
Rosabel had been telling me about how cute the cats were for most of dinner. The orange one, specifically, with the white foot, and how we'll see was a thing Mother said that meant no, except this time it might mean yes, because she'd said it slower. I made the sounds that kept her going.
Sera's place was empty again.
I'd spent the meal thinking about mana instead. The formless shift in my chest, the difference between my right hand and my left, sitting through a plate of roasted something and vegetables I barely touched while I stared at my own palm under the table like a child hiding a stolen sweet.
The mana had answered more strongly in my right hand every time I tried.
Father let her keep talking. At the part where the cat declined to move out of the doorway to let "Cook" past, he laughed. "He's got the right idea. Hold your ground and make the world go around you." Then he reached over and took a roll off her plate while she was looking for my reaction. She didn't notice the roll for a good few seconds. When she did, her whole face turned surprised.
Rosabel turned the betrayal into a verdict, gave Father her shoulder, and aimed the rest of the cat story at me alone.
Mother set down her cup over the dessert. "There are letters," she said, to the table.
"What letters?" Rosabel asked.
"Grown-up ones." And that was that. She rose and then she was down the corridor toward the study, Rosabel was already talking again and Father was looking at the door.
I went back into my head. My one piece of evidence had a problem. I'd wanted it too badly to trust it: a sample size of one, no control, a subject desperate for the result, which is how you find a difference that was never there. I was still turning it over when Rosabel caught me out.
"You're not listening," Rosabel said.
"The orange one with the white foot," I said. "We'll see."
"That means no," she said, betrayed, and stabbed her dessert with the fork.
I finished my dessert, then excused myself too.
Ren was outside the dining room, posted against the wall where she'd been since we sat down. She fell in behind me when I stepped into the corridor.
Mother's study was on the second floor, east wing. I'd mapped most of the estate in my first two days of walking it. I stopped at the door. Ren took her position against the opposite wall.
I knocked twice.
"Come in."
She was at her desk. Papers, letters, a map of the duchy's borders pinned to the wall behind her. Light-stones bright enough for detail work. Her pen was still moving when I walked in, and she finished whatever she was writing before she looked up.
"Klaus." Her eyes moved over my face. "How's your head?"
"Mostly healed. The wound is barely visible and no headaches anymore."
She studied me a moment longer, then nodded toward the chair opposite her desk. "Sit. What do you need?"
The afternoon was still under my skin. Hours of trying to make my mana do anything useful, and all I had for it was sore legs and a faint difference between my hands that I couldn't explain to anyone without sounding insane. I couldn't get further alone.
"I've been reading the formula theory texts," I said.
She tilted her head. Aldric or Ren would have probably mentioned it to her already.
"The books describe channeling in diagrams and notation. Where the mana goes, what the gestures do, how the manaflow is supposed to organize."
I stopped myself before the next sentence, which would have been about cell density and how the channel model was probably wrong about everything underneath. That wasn't a sentence for Mother... or anyone for that matter.
"I know what's in the books," she said. "That's why they are in the library."
I kept my hands on my lap.
"I can follow the theory, but I tried what they describe, and there's a gap between what's on the page and what actually happens. I can't close it from books alone."
I was being too precise. I could hear it happening and couldn't stop it. A ten-year-old who'd been awake for a few days should say I tried what's in the book and it didn't work, can someone show me? and look frustrated. The frustration was real, but it was specific. I didn't know how to make it sound less specific without losing what I actually needed.
"I need to watch someone cast," I said. "If I can see what the books describe, I think I can understand what I'm missing."
She didn't answer right away, studying me instead.
"Come here," she said.
Not the response I'd expected. I stood up anyway, walked around to her side of the desk.
Her fingers went to my hair. She tilted my head toward the light-stone, angling to see the scar left behind by the fall. She traced it, feeling the tissue underneath. She'd done this when I woke up too. It took longer than it needed to.
She tilted my face up. Eye contact, up close.
This close, I could see the things I hadn't noticed before. Good bone structure. Gray eyes with a lighter ring at the center that I hadn't noticed from across the room. She would have been beautiful at twenty. She was still beautiful at forty.
Her hand shifted from the scar to the side of my face, her thumb resting against my cheekbone. Light enough that I could feel the worn-in calluses banded across her fingers.
She didn't speak. The silence stretched longer than comfortable.
I held the eye contact without blinking. Blinking now felt like admitting something.
She was waiting for an answer to a question only she knew. If I tried to perform composure she'd see the performance; if I tried to perform discomfort she'd see that too. So I did nothing.
"You want a practitioner," she said.
"Yes."
She hummed. It felt like she was stretching this out for some reason, some kind of mind games.
I was already sorting the questions I'd ask the practicioner into safe and unsafe. What did mana feel like when it moved? Safe. Whether a channel had walls, whether anyone had ever cut one open and traced it through tissue? Less so. I'd have to begin with the books' language and work inward.
"You'll need one before the academy regardless," she said. "Your sisters began practical instruction earlier. For boys the timeline is usually later, but if you're ready, there's no reason to wait."
Her fingers tapped once against my cheek, light. "I'll arrange it."
She let go. Settled back in her chair and smiled.
"Thank you," I said.
She dipped her chin. The smile stayed a moment longer than I expected, then she picked up her pen. "Go. Those geography chapters aren't going to read themselves."
I left her study.
Ren pushed off the wall when she heard me coming. She matched my pace without asking where we were going.
A practitioner.
I nearly walked past my own room.
Soon, someone would cast a real spell in front of me.