Page 77 of Daughter of No Worlds

On one hand: this was good. Just to be known by name by the Arch Commandant had to be a good thing. No question.

On the other…

I felt something bitter and acidic seep into my stomach. I had dismissed Max’s anger on my behalf before, but now, to think that the damnArch Commandanthad befriended me in slavery and thenleftme there…

I clenched my teeth, allowing the tension of my jaw to cut off the rest of that thought. And I placed the paper on the table, folded neatly.

“It makes nothing different,” I said, curtly. “We’re late on training.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Isat cross-legged in the garden, watching as Max dragged a circle in the dirt with a stick. Then, he punctuated his drawing with three lines, all running through the center at various angles.

I held back a grin of anticipation.

A week of delicate, tentative normalcy had crept by, and it had taken about that long for Max and I to slowly settle back into our own heads. When we got there, it was as if we both mutually looked at the calendar and realized, with a start, that my evaluations were only two months away. All things considered, that was not a lot of time at all. Which was why I was thrilled that Max had finally decided to tackle—

“Stratagrams,” Max announced.

He dropped the stick, held out his hand, and various flower petals appeared in his palm, as if snapped to his skin by a magnetic force.

My smile faded. I looked at him, unimpressed.

“Only this?”

“Only this.Please.” He spread out his fingers, picking through the flower petals. There was one lily petal. One hydrangea. One violet. And more and more, never more than piece of any given flower. “What I just did,” he said, “was provide instructions. I want one single petal of every type of flower in this garden. That requires magic to go in a lot of different directions at once, and it requires it tothink.”

“Think?”

“I need to tell it that I want one of every separate species of flowers, and it needs to recognize that. It may seem simple, and in a lot of ways, it is. But it does require magic to go in a lot of different places at once. Controlling it is easier with Stratagrams, though they aren’t necessary. This is why most Wielders need to use them for travel, for example. They need to tell the magic where to take them, where to leave them, and how to get them there. Complicated to do mentally alone.”

He reached into his pocket and a produced a small stack of paper. Then into his other pocket, revealing the bottle of black liquid I had chosen at Via’s.

“It’s ink,” I said, in realization.

“In a sense. Ink with a little something extra built in.” His eyes glittered and I got the impression that I was about to be on the wrong end of a joke. “Now, I want you to do what I just did. A petal of each flower. Since you find it so unimpressive, it should be easy for you.”

I opened the ink and Max handed me a pen. I observed Max’s circle, drawn in dirt on the ground. Then went to draw the same thing—

— And let out a yelp, tumbling backwards. And as soon as I touched the pen to paper, a shock ran up my hand, releasing a puff of sparks and smoke and slapping me in the face with a force that I was thoroughly unprepared for. By the time I got my bearings again, the first thing I heard was Max’s laughter.

I glowered at him. “Thank you,” I sniffed, sarcastically.

“You’re so very welcome.” Max composed himself, though the laughter remained in his eyes long after it faded from his mouth. “To be fair, you picked a particularly fierce one. Fitting, I suppose. Ready yourself for it this time.”

I settled back onto my knees, steeling myself before I touched the pen to the parchment. When I was ready for it, I only jolted slightly, but quickly got a handle on the magic flowing from my fingertips — like I was grabbing the reins of an unruly horse.

“Good,” I heard Max say, but I was too focused on glancing from his circle to mine from beneath a furrowed brow. I copied it stroke for stroke, and then I opened my palm in preparation for the flower petals.

…And nothing happened.

I flicked my eyes up to Max, who looked far too amused.

“I wonder why it isn’t working?” he said. “Here. Let me demonstrate again.” He used the stick to draw another circle in the dirt. And another series of lines. And just as before, a flurry of flower petals rushed to his hands.

But my brow furrowed. This circle was completely different from the first. They didn’t even have the same number of lines within them, and the positions of the ones that remained were wildly different.

“I do not understand.”

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