Garran caught the back of Jin's shirt before he hit the ground.
The silver coin fell from Jin's other hand. Both of them watched it bounce.
“Tuition?” Jin asked.
Garran picked it up and put it back in his palm.
Then he pointed at his own heel.
“Veyr.”
He stamped. A pale crescent appeared around the boot.
Bram leaned over the fallen gatepost and pulled Garran's belt with his good hand. Garran hardly shifted.
The crescent faded. Bram pulled again.
This time the veteran stepped forward and smacked him gently on the forehead.
Bram grinned.
Jin pointed at the print.
“Veyr.”
He planted his heel.
Nothing happened.
Garran pressed two fingers against the inside of his knee, moving it outward. He tapped Jin's chest, then slid his palm down toward the planted foot.
Weight. Knee. Ground.
Jin tried again.
Bram pulled him off balance.
Again.
Off balance.
Jin pointed at Bram.
“You're enjoying this.”
Bram nodded without hesitation.
Garran put Bram in the same stance.
The boy's grin vanished.
Jin tucked his money into his shirt, took hold of Bram's belt and gave one very satisfying tug.
Down he went.
“Terrible,” Jin told him. “You'll need professional instruction.”
Bram rubbed his backside and pointed at Jin's bare foot.
Garran stepped between them and moved both their feet back into position.
Kessa watched from the wall, her chin in her good hand. When Garran turned away, she held up three fingers toward Jin, then pointed at Bram and held up five.
Jin had no idea what the tally measured.
He objected anyway.
That evening, Jin photographed the ruined shoe, then left both shoes by the gate and his coins in a cloth pouch with Kessa. He took the phone home. Its gallery contained one violet sky, one filthy self-portrait, the shoe and a remarkably well-focused picture of his own thumb.
Theo studied all four.
“The thumb really puts you there.”
The author posts this chapter on www.NovelPhoenix.com, whereas this copy was reproduced without their permission.
Mira leaned over his shoulder. Her hair was still damp from a shower; a school worksheet dangled from one hand.
“Those aren't clouds,” she said.
Jin enlarged the picture. The violet streaks forked above the black canopy like light caught beneath ice.
“I don't think so.”
Mira sat down beside Theo.
For a little while they just looked.
Then she swiped to the shoe.
“Absolutely not.”
“It has sentimental—”
“Outside.”
“I won a fight in it.”
“You lost a shoe in it.”
Theo bent to inspect the white lump in the photographed toe.
Mira caught his good wrist.
“If you bring that back and it lays eggs, you're both moving out.”
Jin washed, ate and slept. When he returned to the cedar the next morning, he wore the old trainers Theo had lent him. They were ordinary enough for crossing and aggressively yellow.
He took his new knife as his cargo, leaving the phone at home.
At the watch building, workers were clearing the fallen timber. Garran stood in the yard with two cups balanced on the fallen gatepost.
Jin stopped.
“I cannot escape my professional qualifications.”
Garran gave him one cup, set his own heel and beckoned Bram over.
The pull came. The water barely trembled.
Jin took his place.
His water went down his shirt.
By the sixth attempt, Bram had started laughing before pulling.
By the twelfth, Kessa was sitting on the wall to watch.
Jin wanted to throw the cup at somebody. Instead he looked down.
He was pushing against the pull. Bracing for Bram's hand, tightening everything, trying to beat him before he moved.
Garran stepped beside him, poured a little water onto his heel and pressed Jin's shoulders down.
Jin breathed out.
There was the weight. Down through his hip. Through the knee Garran kept correcting. Onto one damp patch of earth.
Bram pulled.
For one heartbeat, Jin's foot held.
The next tug brought him forward and spilled half the cup onto Bram.
Neither of them moved.
Then Jin lifted the cup.
Still half full.
“Ha.” Read this novel at novelping.com for the best experience.
Bram wiped his face.
“Ha!”
Garran caught Jin's wrist before he could celebrate by drinking from the practice cup.
They did it again.
The next hold failed. The one after lasted a heartbeat. After enough repetitions to leave his planted leg trembling, Jin held through two separate tugs.
NATIVE TECHNIQUE ACQUIRED: MARKED STEP — NOVICE
SET ONE PRACTICED FOOTHOLD. MAINTAIN CONTACT.
CURRENT HOLD: TWO HEARTBEATS. RECOVERY: TEN SECONDS.
ACTIVATION REQUIRES FANTASY-SIDE FIELD SUPPORT.
Jin nearly spilled the cup again reading it.
He couldn't yet do what Garran had done beneath the beam. He could, however, stop Bram pulling him over for two whole heartbeats.
At present, that felt like a magnificent use of magic.
He bowed to Garran.
The veteran bowed back, then pointed at the wet patch on Bram's shirt.
Kessa lost the fight with her laughter.
He left his knife with Kessa and returned to Earth without cargo.
On Earth that afternoon, Jin tried the stance on the Academy gym floor.
No pale crescent. The familiar pressure simply wasn't there.
He kept the knee position anyway and shifted his weight, watching his reflection.
A woman stepped into the mirror behind him.
Song Yu-ra. Training clothes, hair tied up, a paper bag tucked beneath one arm.
She'd sent him the gym invitation that morning. He'd read landing practice and arrived twenty minutes early.
“Wrong foot,” she said.
Jin changed feet.
“I meant you're standing on my towel.”
He jumped off it.
She bent to retrieve it. When she straightened, she was smiling at the yellow shoes.
“They match your new teaching career.”
“Premium plumage.”
Yu-ra held out the bag.
“I brought food.”
“Am I training badly enough to need charity?”
Her ears went pink.
“I'm trying to ask you to eat with me.”
Jin opened his mouth.
Behind her, a camera clicked.