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“But not guaranteed.”
“Not guaranteed.”
“Great. Fantastic.” She was already planting her feet. “Let’s go again.”
They ran the third exercise four more times. The external pressure hit twice more: same point in the exercise, same size, same direction. He clocked the gap between them. Fifteen minutes, forty seconds. Both times.
Not random. Someone’s got a timer.
He said nothing to her yet. She was working. She’d gotten the reset-and-retry sequence down without instruction: attempt, spike or not, note it, reset, try again, with no frustration on her face. The frustration was there, in how still her hands went, but she kept it from the magic. That was the control he’d been trying to build from the start, and she’d found it herself by the fourth attempt.
“Ready?”
“Whenever you are.”
Mirelle planted her feet. Hands loose. Took a breath, let it go, and this time — no spike, no external pressure, only her own magic running clean and steady — she released it deliberately. A small creature appeared. Not the golden retriever. The smallest of the Margot cohort materialized beside her left hand, glowing with an amber so soft it was nearly golden.
It stayed.
Still. Not investigating, not relocating, not making any of the sounds it made when things got chaotic. Present. Calm, because she was calm. Mirelle studied it. A quietly startled expression crossed her face, as if she’d found out she could do something and hadn’t expected it. She smoothed it over fast, back to composed, but Tor had already seen it. He was going to think about that later.
“That was deliberate.”
“Yes.”
“I meant for that to happen.”
“You did.”
Her eyes went from the creature to him. “So, I can control it.”
“You did.” He held her gaze. “Whatever is pushing from the outside is a separate problem. Your control is good.”
Her eyebrows went up. “Did you just compliment my technique?”
“I said it was good.”
“Tor. For you, that’s practically a standing ovation.”
Drayce, behind him, coughed. Tor did not turn around. “It’s true.”
“Yes, it is,” she said, eyes on the creature. “I have a notebook. Right now, it’s mostly operational notes and Bexley’s color system. There’s room.”
“For gratitude?”
“For things I didn’t expect.”
His gaze was on her. Her attention stayed on the creature, her face warm, as if she were not performing for anyone, thirty seconds past a milestone, already thinking about the next thing. “Same time Thursday,” he said.
Her eyes came up. “You’re already planning the next session.”
“It’s on a pattern. I want to run it again Thursday with a different approach and see if I can narrow the timing.”
“So, this is less training and more data collection.”
“Both.”
She tilted her head, that measuring gaze. “You’re actually worried about this.”
