Janice made no attempt to hide her reaction. One brow shot up immediately. “Exactly what sort of help are you asking me for?”
“It’s nothing like that. I need some peace and quiet to do some experimenting. Blake will make sure we aren’t disturbed, and with your help I think I have a way to release myself—”
“Excuse me?”
“From my physical bounds,” he finished. “Stop thinking about this morning. I plan to try and project my spirit outside of my body.”
Her grin made it clear she had been teasing him. “I wasn’t thinking about this morning. So, you’re planning to lie on the bed when you do this?”
“That would probably be best.”
“As long as you don’t have to pee.”
Will groaned. “I’m never going to live that down, am I?”
“Not for the foreseeable future at least. Explain to me how you plan to do this. Is it some restricted spell you stole? I haven’t heard of it before.”
He shook his head. “I’ll explain later. The main thing I need you to do is help me cheat. I want to recreate the situation that caused me to leave my body last time. Here’s my idea. I’m sure you know the source-link spell—”
“Of course,” she interrupted smugly.
“—and you know how to use it to paralyze someone.”
“No,” she said, changing her tone. “They talked about that, but we never practiced it.”
“No problem,” said Will. “I can talk you through it, but I’ll need you to go a little farther and disconnect me from my source and my physical senses.”
“Whoa,” she said, holding up one hand. “Couldn’t that kill you? Separating you from your source?”
He shook his head. “No, it’s still there, supporting the body. You’ll just be blocking my access to it.”
“But then you won’t be able to use magic. That doesn’t make any sense.”
“This isn’t really magic, per se. Just help me. I’ll explain what I know later.”
“Why are you in such a hurry? It’s almost nightfall. Wouldn’t it be better to do it tomorrow?”
“I’m going to try and find Tailtiu. They wouldn’t let us into the warehouse. They wouldn’t even open the door. If I can see her and get some clue from what’s around her, I’ll have a better idea whether we should try forcing our way in, or whether we should search elsewhere. It’s already been days. Who knows what kind of shape she’s in?”
Ten minutes later and Will was lying on his bed while Janice stared down at him once again. This time, however, he was fully clothed, wide awake, and not in desperate need of a place to relieve his bladder. As expected, Janice was a quick study and had already succeeded in paralyzing him twice. Separating him from his source was a little trickier, though.
“I have no idea what I’m doing,” she complained.
“It isn’t something that’s easy to visualize,” he told her. “It might be easier if you experience it yourself. Lie down on the bed and I’ll show you.”
Her eyes were full of warnings, but she said nothing.
“Blake won’t walk in. Hurry up. The sooner you learn, the sooner I can find Tailtiu.” After a moment she lay down beside him, her eyes on the ceiling. The source-link she had created was still active between them, so Will wrested control from her and reversed the link. Then he paralyzed her and proceeded to sever her link to her source.
She panicked, though the only visible sign was her eyes rolling wildly in her head—they were the only thing she still controlled. He could feel her will bucking wildly within her, desperate to regain contact with her source. He kept his voice calm. “It’s disconcerting, but try to remember the feeling. I want you to do the same thing to me, plus this.” As he finished the sentence, he went further, cutting off her access to her senses.
Her eyes went still, but through the link he could feel her emotional turmoil. Despite knowing what he was doing, knowing that he was a friend, terror had taken hold. Feeling guilty, he released her.
She shot up into a sitting position, gasping loudly as her chest drew in a huge lungful of air. She caught herself and suppressed the scream that almost followed, turning it into a slower exhalation of air. Janice hyperventilated briefly until she could eventually regain her composure. The look on her face as she stared at Will was anything but happy. “Please don’t ever do that again!”
“Which part?”
“Any of it. How did you take over the link like that? That surprised me, then you took everything else! I was sort of all right, until it all went black. I don’t think I’ve ever been so terrified in my life.”
“Control of the link is a matter of will. The initiator has a slight advantage, but unless they’re close to the strength of the person that they’re holding, they won’t be able to maintain it in a contest.”
“I’ve been attaching to you easily enough, though.”
“That’s because I’m cooperating. It isn’t a matter of skill. It’s a matter of will, which is something that comes from time, experience, and what type of training you do.”
She stared at him thoughtfully. “Well you don’t have me on time or experience, so it must be whatever weird training your original master gave you, right?”
He grinned. “Probably.”
“Maybe you can teach me someday?”
“Maybe. It was pretty horrible, not to mention risky. Let’s talk about that some other time.” They returned to practicing, and after another twenty minutes Janice eventually had the hang of how to do what he wanted.
“All right,” he told her. “Let’s do it again, but this time don’t release it. Keep me locked inside myself.”
“For how long?” she asked.
That was an excellent question, one for which he didn’t have a good answer. Once she had locked him inside himself and disconnected him from his own source and senses, he would have no way to signal Janice when he wanted her to release him. He thought about it for a minute, then made up his mind. “Give it fifteen minutes. If it hasn’t been long enough then I’ll ask you to do it again.”
“And if it has been long enough?”
“Then I won’t say anything. I’ll seem like I’m asleep, or dead maybe. I’m not sure what my body will be like exactly, since I hopefully won’t be in it.”
“Are you sure this is safe?”
“Perfectly,” he lied, but when Janice tilted her chin downward in disbelief, he stopped. “It’s a little risky. I’ve only done it a few times before, and those were by accident.”