“Have you found him?” Petre’s voice came from far away. For a moment, Skate worried that responding to him might break her concentration. Something—the comforting guest in her head perhaps—led her to guess that this concern was misplaced. The finding was the hard part, like searching blindly in the dark. Once found, she simply had to hold on to it.
“Yeah,” she said, not taking her eyes off the image. He had made it into the crowd and was pushing and slipping his way forward. “I found him. Can he hear me?” He had jerked his head around and looked in her direction.
“No. Some seeing devices exist that allow such communication, but this isn’t one.”
“Who else is in here?” She brought a finger to tap on her head.
“You’re probably feeling the enhancer at work. It would feel like a warmth or a comfortable pillow.”
“A guest.”
“Sure. It’s there to help you, and it looks like it has.”
“Yeah. I felt it as soon as I found him. Or right before.” Skate’s words felt fuzzy coming out. She was too busy watching her friend to pay much attention to the conversation anyway. Twitch had made it to the front of the crowd. He was evidently pleased watching whatever was there, because he started laughing. It was contagious, and she couldn’t help but join in.
“Well done. Well done indeed.” Petre sounded pleased, even impressed, with her success. “You’ve done it. Most people who try give up in frustration after a few hours the first time they try. I’ve only met one person who did it faster, and she was…well, she was special. You should feel proud of yourself, truly.” He chuckled.
Twitch continued to look with wonder at something. Skate guessed it must be some street performance, one that used lights or fire; every few seconds, different colors would flash across her friend’s face as he stared and laughed. “Now then, it’s time to pull back. Let the image recede from your focus.”
“Why?” The image in the glass seemed to grow larger. If she had thought about it, she would have realized that she had moved closer to the crystal. She did not think about it.
“Because,” Petre said gently, “you’ve been three hours at the crystal. You need to eat.”
“Three hours?” She repeated the number without much energy. It hardly mattered to her.
“Yes, three hours.”
Skate heard the flapping of wings and the clicking of legs, but that also hardly mattered. A single metallic clink caught her attention. The comforting warmth in her mind winked out like a candle. The image in the crystal ball began to waver and fog over.
“No!” she said, putting all of her effort back into concentrating. Twitch. Twitch. Blond hair. Show me Twitch. The obscuration of the picture slowed not at all. Twitch. Don’t lose Twitch. Show me Twitch. His laughing face clarified for an instant; then everything in the ball faded to nothing. Skate was looking at her own scowling face and the distortion of the room she was in once more. She looked at the enhancer, which was lazily swinging on one of its axes. Rattle had taken its leg away and floated near the desk, staring blankly at her. “I wasn’t done!” she said to it, rising from the chair much as Belamy had, though it did not scoot back so far.
“You needed to be,” Petre said, no anger in his voice. “Three hours is quite long enough, especially for a neophyte to the practice such as yourself.”
“Who are you to tell me what to do?” Heat was rising in her cheeks, and she could feel her arms shaking in impotent rage.
“Skate. Stop, and think. Did you hear what I said? It’s been three hours.”
She was about to ask “So what?” when she stopped and realized why that information mattered. The ache in her abdomen told her she was hungry, her mouth was painfully dry, and she needed the chamber pot very soon. Her eyes ached, and her rump was sore from the seat. “It was three hours?”
Petre closed his eyes and nodded. “Seeing, or clairvoyance, is a strain for even practiced users. It’s outright dangerous for novices.” Skate turned from Petre’s blue glass sphere to the empty one she’d been engrossed with only moments earlier. She felt the urge to chuck the thing across the room; she felt betrayed by it. “People have collapsed—even died—of starvation and exhaustion, caught in the allure of the sight.”
“Why?” She knelt down to eye level with Petre. “If it’s so dangerous, why’d you let me do it?”
“I was here to guide you. So was Rattle—who has made, incidentally, a fine warm dish it learned from a traveling Deruvian chef, exiled from his homeland on suspicion of espionage. I never could determine whether he was guilty or not, but his food was amazing. Rattle’s imitation will be perfect, as always.”
Skate ignored the remarks about the food. “You said it wasn’t easy to do. I thought magic took years to learn.”
“It does, it does,” he said, his azure-rimmed eyes bobbing up and down in a nod. “This is just a small bit of what magic can do, when learned and directed carefully. Anyone can do what you did with practice and the right tools. As you saw, the enhancer helps tremendously, and you need a specially made clairant device besides, like Barrison’s crystal. It can be done without special tools—I’ve seen an old woods witch do it with a brackish puddle of water—but that takes a spell. That would be beyond you.”
Skate pulled the chair back up to the desk. She folded her arms on the desk and put her head down, if for no other reason than to give her eyes a rest. “It didn’t bother Mr. Belamy.” Her voice was muffled by her arms, but she was heard.
“Barrison is an incredibly skilled and experienced wizard, and unliving besides. He doesn’t get tired, sore, or hungry. It doesn’t strain his eyes or his mind because neither of them are capable of being strained anymore. Being unbothered by clairvoyance is one of many perks of being what he is. In some ways, though, it can be even more dangerous for him for all that.”
“What do you mean?” Her eyes were closed, but she was in no danger of falling asleep; her stomach and bladder were making sure of that.
“He could, if he had the urge to, sit in that chair and search and find and watch for as long as he wanted. He’s told me that the draw—that feeling of needing to keep watching, keep looking no matter what—is just as strong as it always has been even though he’s not really alive anymore. If he were to fall into it completely, he might gaze for days, weeks, or months at a time. He’s done so before.” Petre shook his head, sending the fog rolling around his prison in shimmering swirls. “He knows how dangerous it is. That he’s willing to do this to find his friend’s bullies speaks volumes about his determination on the matter.”
“Is all magic that dangerous?”
“Yes. Not necessarily always in the same way, but all magic carries dangers with it. Think of a sword—or a knife decked in jewels, if you like,” Petre said with a wink. “It’s useful for all kinds of things—cut rope, defend yourself, skin a deer after a hunt. But it’s dangerous, too, as you well know. Magic is much more useful than a knife, and it’s correspondingly more dangerous. The study of magic can yield marvels but should not be undertaken lightly.”