He'd asked me to help her when it happened, and so I had learned what steadied her. What gentled the world when it became too loud.
I was no longer sure we had helped at all. What if I had made it worse? Told her there was nothing to worry about when her power was pressing for release?
Reagan had given her a necklace with a gemstone set as its pendant. He’d explained that it could absorb her mana when it surged beyond her control, something he called a flux. She could grip the pendant whenever her mana built up, and the stonewould charge with her power. It would not nullify it as the ring did.
I’d not felt any pulse around her, no quiet hum like the ones I sensed in the others. Nothing like the otherworldly pressure that clung to Reagan, like a magnetic pull. Nothing like Finn’s earthy thrum or Gwinifer’s bergamot air.
When I reached the ballroom on the second floor, my bare feet glided over polished stone. Tall windows stretched from floor to ceiling, and beyond them the city rested quietly under a late spring sky. The Hall had two ballrooms, each large enough to fit a crowd.
As I approached the piano, the instrument stirred. Keys pressed down of their own accord, notes drifting through the air like a delicate summons. My toes brushed the cool floor as my arms lifted, fluid and weightless, the rhythm hesitantly returning to me.
Six months since my last studio class in Ehrfurt, and still my body remembered.
The tension coiled inside me became fuel, feeding the movements as I gathered momentum. The music swelled, and I matched it, spinning faster, tracing old choreography I still didn’t need to think through before executing. The piano rose to meet me, obedient to my every motion.
My muscles strained with the long-forgotten effort, and my pace faltered. I tried again, quicker this time. Heat broke along my spine, sweat slicking my skin as the rhythm thundered through my veins, urging me to keep moving until the room blurred into lights and windows, and—
Someone leaned against the doorframe.
My breath stuttered. For a heartbeat, the blurred form seemed to smile, amused and familiar.
My final turn slowed, but when I faced the entrance, it was empty.
Panting, I stood still, unsure whether I’d imagined a person, but something inside me unclenched, a small release flooding through my chest.
I would have to come back here if sleep evaded me again. I should never have stopped.
Outside, the mountains loomed like silent sentinels.
They knew I was pretending. Pretending to sleep, to understand, to speak as though I didn’t carry a million unanswered questions. But the mountains didn’t care. Not for my doubts, not for the dance. They would keep my secret all the same.
Chapter 8
Reagan
The wind gusted through the outpost, leaves and golden flecks of pollen from the surrounding flowers spinning up against the blackened sky. Laughter and argument carried from the other rooms, loud with card games and half-emptied glasses cluttering the common tables.
Finn lounged against the open corridor railing on the second floor, grinning down at one of the battle mages stationed there. Reagan watched from one of the common rooms, trying to recall whether her name was Ramilda or Rosalie. Tonight, she looked ready to keep Finn occupied until dawn. Reagan wondered if he would be returning to the Hall alone.
Gwinifer tossed her gloves onto the oak table as though discarding a carcass. “Why do people insist on being bloody idiots. We’re not even two weeks in.”
She shoved a report across the wood. Reagan skimmed it, though her opinion mattered more to him than what was written.
“Do you ever get tired of mocking everyone?” he asked flatly.
“No.” She dropped into the chair across from him. “If I can mock it, it’s survivable. You, on the other hand…” Her gaze dragged over him. “How’s the sulking treating you?”
“I don’t sulk.”
“You absolutely sulk. You’re in that mood again. The I-hate-everyone mood.”
He ignored her and read on, searching for the useful line. “Is this the incident you’re complaining about? Soil tempering.”
“A family tried to improve the fertility of three kilometres of wasteland with a homemade draught,” she said. “It left a foul smell on the soil, and now the neighbours are complaining.”
Reagan rubbed a hand over his forehead.
“They’re impatient now that we’re supposed to be recovering,” Gwinifer went on. “They haven’t heard a word of your official plan, so they’re inventing their own.”
