“It's a rock,” Jin said.
Theo considered the black line smoking faintly across the slate.
“You've made rocks worse.”
Mira appeared in the kitchen doorway, holding her phone.
“I'm rehearsing my presentation. Quietly destroy the floor.”
A boy's voice came from the speaker.
“Is that Jin?”
“Min-jae,” she said, “if you start discussing Hunters, we will be here until morning.”
“I was going to say hello.”
“You were taking a breath to ask a question.”
She retreated down the hall before either man could defend him.
Theo shut the kitchen door with his heel.
From the hall, Min-jae's voice rose again.
“No, that bit was good. You rushed because you thought you sounded nervous.”
A pause.
“I am nervous,” Mira said.
“You don't sound it to me.”
Theo looked at Jin.
Jin looked at the door.
They both decided, without speaking, to remain in the kitchen.
“What happened?”
Jin looked at the slate.
“I tried something clever. Someone else paid for it.”
He explained the creature, the darkness, Garran's arm and the sword being dragged down the road.
Theo's good hand closed around the back of a chair.
“And you came back to try it harder?”
“To try it differently.”
“Good answer. Show me.”
Jin showed him the native stance. Nothing answered, just as before. He showed him the little burst after walking a fresh kitchen route.
Theo watched him arrive on the silent slate.
“You're already stopping,” he said. “Then trying to become something that stopped earlier.”
“That sounds horrible.”
“It's also what you're doing.”
He put a folded towel on the counter.
“When I glide, I don't tell my second foot to catch me before my first foot's finished. I'd split my trousers.”
“A loss to the Academy.”
“A catastrophe. Do it slowly.”
Jin walked the route. Arrived. Settled his weight.
Again.
Theo pushed his shoulder at the end. Jin staggered off the slate.
“After,” Theo said.
Again. This time Jin let the last stride finish before dropping his weight through the heel.
The push moved his shirt. His feet stayed put.
Ordinary legs. Ordinary balance.
Jin looked down.
The failed native trace remained black across the copper, but his class window had recorded the arrival cleanly.
“You look pleased,” Theo said.
“I owe you a pair of trousers.”
“Buy your own shoes first.”
Jin left his pockets empty, gripped the slate and returned to the cedar. Tamsin had kept the pin; she fastened it back onto him when he reached the watch yard.
“Show me,” she said.
He showed her the sequence. Arrival first. Hold after. He read her the class feedback from Earth while she followed the two lines scorched into the stone.
“There,” she said, tapping the break. “Your class carries the moving body across different ground. Give that the foothold pattern. Stop waiting for the other world's field to lend it a hand.”
“Can it?”
“You're the one with the very rude doorway. Ask it.”
She unstitched more copper from her coat and bridged the break. Then she drew the arrival line through the heel print, instead of laying the two across each other.
Jin put his palm against the slate.
SYNTHESIS AVAILABLE
ROUTE REGISTER + MARKED STEP
COST: RECORDING SLATE AND CURRENT ROUTE TRACE CONSUMED.
ROUTE REGISTER ACTIVE WILL BE REPLACED.
“My plain burst goes into this,” he told her.
Tamsin nodded.
“And my slate. You're welcome.”
He accepted.
The copper flashed. The stone cracked under his palm, then broke into pale grit.
His old route vanished from the window.
For a breath he couldn't find the burst at all.
SYNTHESIS COMPLETE
BRACED WAYPOINT — E
RECORD ONE GROUND ROUTE: UP TO FIVE STRIDES.
COMMITTED BURST. STABILIZE THE PRACTICED ARRIVAL FOR ONE HEARTBEAT.
RECOVERY: TWELVE SECONDS. SHARED WITH MARKED STEP.
Jin walked five measured strides through the empty yard. He tested the earth at the endpoint, returned and lifted Kessa's wooden practice staff.
Garran held a stuffed grain sack against the wall with his good hand.
“Here.”
Jin selected the new skill.
The yard rushed beneath him.
He arrived, turned and swung at the sack.
The wood clipped its edge and scraped the wall. His heel had held; his shoulders had kept turning past the target.
Garran nudged his back foot wider with his boot.
“Again.”
After the recovery, Jin reset at the first mark. This time he let his shoulders follow his planted hips instead of racing ahead of them.
The burst took him across the yard.
He drove the staff into the center of the sack.
His heel settled.
The impact went through his hips without throwing his weight past the target. The sack folded around the wood. Dust burst from its seams.
Garran stepped aside as the staff punched through.
Jin stood in the settling cloud, both feet beneath him.
Bram stared at the sack.
“That was our flour.”
Tamsin bent over laughing.
Jin spat grain dust out of his mouth.
“Put it on the bill.”
“Gladly.” She took the two coppers he'd left beside his knife. “Wire. The work costs a silver when you have one.”
Before promising anything else, Jin left the pin with her and went home once more. After the recovery cleared, he recorded a clear kitchen approach and replayed it, setting his palm against the rolled towel Theo held on the counter.
His heel caught. The towel thumped. The counter stayed where it was.
Theo looked at Jin's planted foot.
“There you are.”
Jin laughed, breathless, and let the hold fade.
When he returned to the forest, he was carrying no object.
The others were waiting at the watch gate. Tamsin fastened the pin back onto his collar. Garran handed him Kessa's spare knife.
“This time,” the veteran said, “we finish it.”