Alvin walked up and down the desks, stopping in front of Tyron and Royce. He chuckled as he looked over Royce’s flower.
“It’s a fine specimen, Royce, I won’t deny it.”
Royce puffed up slightly, but Alvin continued to talk.
“But beware when it comes to living things such as this. As you know, power cannot create matter. If it is created from nothing, then it will remain only as long as power continues to sustain it. What we have done here is not create a flower but encourage one to grow unnaturally fast. But as I mentioned earlier, we have done it at an unsustainable pace, not giving it the proper tools it needs to grow healthy and strong. There’s a reason our growers don’t produce harvests in such a manner.”
“But you said that doesn’t matter here,” Royce said.
“It’s true that I set you all the task to create a flower meant for a short-term purpose only. But this flower has grown to such a size that I suspect it will not last long enough for your intentions to be fulfilled. Look.” He pointed at one of the petals. “It’s starting to wilt already.”
I tried to see what he meant, but it was hard to do from this angle. Glancing around the room, I again compared the other flowers to the one I had created, frowning to myself. I had told it to grow large, but I hadn’t expected it to so outstrip the intention of the composition.
“Whoops,” Bryony muttered quietly, grinning at me.
She didn’t seem to have any compunction at my having brought a lecture down on Royce’s head. But even though he was consistently unpleasant to almost everyone, I felt a few small pangs of guilt.
I tried to relive those few moments of controlling his composition, even as the full understanding of its scope was already slipping out of my mind. The problem, I concluded, was that I had overestimated Royce. The creator back in Corrin had made a terrible mistake in his composition, but he had still understood the fundamentals of what he was crafting. His accidental overlay of the competing instruction had destroyed an otherwise sound composition.
For those few moments I had controlled his foundation, I had only needed to redirect it in the manner he had originally intended. His own knowledge and expertise had ensured that it operated correctly from there. But this composition had been different.
Royce had no expertise in the matter of creating flowers, and the composition had already been flawed on creation. I had thought he was writing quickly, and it looked like I had been right. He would have done better to take a little more time and care over his choice of words. He wasn’t the only one either. Several of the flowers were already wilting by the time the class neared its end.
A little of my guilt lifted. I had only exacerbated a problem Royce had already created. But it was a good lesson for me as well. If I was going to be taking control of the compositions of other beginners like me, then I needed to be more prepared.
In fact, I needed to study just as hard as they did—as if I was the one crafting the composition from the beginning. The wave of understanding that came when I connected with a composition would be essential for situations where the knowledge of the mage in question far outstripped my own. But it wouldn’t do me nearly as much good at the Academy.
In one way the experiment had been a complete success, however. No one was looking at me—no one even seemed to have any undue interest in Royce. I had successfully practiced with my ability—and had learned a lot in the process—with no one any the wiser.
Even as I thought it, the weight of a pair of eyes drew my gaze sideways. One person in the class was looking at me, his inscrutable gaze making it impossible for me to guess if his interest had anything to do with what had just happened. There was no reason to think Darius—or our instructor—could possibly have felt my involvement. Not if I was right and I was using energy to make my initial connection with the composition.
But still Darius’s eyes burned into me. He had said I could assure my aunt I was being watched over at the Academy. Apparently I would have to be wary of that in the future.
That night, when I returned to my suite well after the evening meal, my mind still whirled with my experiment. I itched to try it again. Distracted, I walked straight through my sitting room, headed for my bedchamber door and my bed.
But a flash of purple caught my eye, making me slow. When I got a good look at the spot of color, I stopped completely. My first instinct was to glance wide-eyed around my sitting room, but I was alone, just as I had thought myself.
Walking slowly over to the small side table beside one of the sofas, I picked up the brilliant purple flower that lay there. My eyes flashed to the tapestry, but it lay just as still as usual, giving no sign that anyone had used the door it hid.
And yet, how else had this flower gotten here? Ida could have brought it, perhaps. Another trainee—or even instructor—might have requested her to leave it for me, and she likely wouldn’t have seen any harm in doing so. It was just a flower.
Or a token of love, a dangerous voice in the back of my head whispered. One created by someone with enough power that it still hadn’t wilted.
I told myself I had no reason to suspect such a thing, but I still slept with the flower under my pillow all night. The next morning, my heart beat extra fast when I saw Darius at breakfast, but he paid me no more attention than usual.
So I threw myself into the distraction of my new experiments. I paid far more attention to Alvin’s previously tedious lectures than I had ever done in the past. I was even grateful for his constant need to go over the most basic material again and again. In my spare time, I returned to my old haunt of the library, studying the art of composing.
I often encountered Isabelle there, usually lost in the section on wind working. At first I thought she might be hiding in the library since she was somewhat at odds in our year without any particular friends. But every time I saw her, she seemed cheerful and genuinely interested in her reading.
The first time I passed her perched in a puffy armchair with her gaze focused out a narrow window instead of reading, I paused awkwardly. But she turned to me with a broad smile.
“Isn’t it cozy to be hidden away in here, looking out at the world? I can tell you like it as much as I do.”
I blinked, taken aback. “It is pleasant,” I said after a moment. “And warm. Bryony would be out in the training yards all year round if she could, but it’s much nicer in here.”
Isabelle grinned. “It is starting to get a bit cold out there, isn’t it? When you’re studying wind working, you don’t get much of an escape from the outdoors. I think that’s why I like to spend time in here.”
“You’ve mentioned your family live on the coast and your estate includes a lot of farmland. I’ve always pictured you striding up and down wind-swept beaches or through wet and muddy fields. Don’t tell me you actually have a hatred of the outdoors!”
She laughed, the merry sound startling in the quiet library. “Oh no, I don’t hate the outdoors. Wind working would have been a terrible choice if that was the case. I just enjoy the contrast—the library seems even more warm and cozy after time spent outside, and after long enough ensconced in here, I start to itch for fresh air again.” She looked around. “Plus it reminds me of home.”
I looked around at the enormous library blankly.