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“Were you?” Estrid asked, and sat down across from Tessa, mirroring Náli’s cross-legged pose. “Or did you even get to finish at all?”
The color in his cheeks heightened, and a faint wobble of his mug on the next sip betrayed a reaction, but he held himself firmly in check when he leveled a low-lidded look at her and said, “I suppose you would like to know. Vicarious experiences instead of actual ones and all that.”
Estrid’s brows slammed together.
“All right,” Tessa said, quickly, before they could devolve into a full-on argument. They took shots at one another that should have drawn blood, and while some onlookers seemed to enjoy that sort of thing, Tessa didn’t. “If you’re ready, Náli, I am as well. What is tonight’s goal?”
“I thought we’d go and see your sister, and see what her status is.” His gaze flicked to the door. “Oliver isn’t coming?”
“I couldn’t find him. He went to the officer tent before we went down to the stream, and wasn’t back yet.”
“Hm.” Náli took a noisy slurp of tea and looked unconvinced. “How did he seem today? Was he present? Or was he sitting like a wooden tilting dummy on his horse? Off wandering?” He made a gesture over his head, and mimicked the slack-jawed expression Oliver had been wearing of late each time they flew.
Tessa frowned. “I was riding several rows back today. I’m not sure.”
Náli shook his head. “He’s up to something.”
She felt her frown deepen. “What do you mean? You make him sound like…like some sort of villain or something.”
“No, like some sort of idiot, which he is if he’s messing with magic he doesn’t understand off by himself somewhere.” He set his cup aside, and folded his hands together, beneath the diamond hung round his neck. “But we’ll worry about him later. For now, close your eyes, and free your mind of trivialities.”
She still wanted to laugh when he said things like that, but it was getting easier to do: to shut her eyes and shunt her thoughts to the side. She liked to imagine drawing a curtain over everything important and pressing; saying,hold on, I’ll be with you shortly, and then stepping into the wide, black void that, within a few moments, would offer her a light, and in that light, a doorway to another plane. Visualization was key, he’d said, and looked different for everyone. Náli himself talked of falling and then rising, of the sun in the sky. It had never been that way for Tessa; it felt more controlled…but that didn’t mean any less difficult.
Náli was still speaking, but the words no longer mattered. His voice had become a soothing murmur, calm and quiet without his usual show of haughty impatience. It washed over her like a warm balm, and, thus lulled, found the pinprick of light easily in the distance, and walked toward it.
It seemed to take hours, but she knew it didn’t; she walked, and the light swelled, and there was that uncomfortable moment of feeling squeezed until she thought she might be sick, and then she stood in the gray field, tall grass swaying around her waist, Náli standing beside her. Thankfully, he was fully dressed here, in his usual grays and browns, boots tightly laced and cloak tugging in the breeze. They hadn’t brought their drakes.
“I wish I could do that,” Tessa said with a sigh.
“Do what?”
“Come through on my own without Alfie’s help – not that I don’t enjoy bringing her,” she amended, quickly. “But I wish I was strong enough that I was able to do it alone.”
“You did it alone this time, didn’t you?”
“Only because you came as well.”
He shrugged, and his gaze skimmed away over the plain, avoiding hers. “I’ve only been able to do it without the well for a short time. You’ll learn.”
It was the closest he’d ever come to complimenting her.
“Now. Shall we call your sister?”
She nodded, and took a deep breath. This part was difficult as well. She found that she wanted to close her eyes, but didn’t, knowing there was no need.
He chuckled beside her. “You can shut your eyes.”
“I can do it,” she snapped, with more bite than she’d intended, and he breathed another quiet laugh.
“Yes, I suspect you can. The trick is for you to suspect it as well.”
“Náli.”
“Hm.”
“I don’t like it when you try to play older and wiser.”
“But Iamwiser.”
