Chapter 8 #2
Thea set her teacup on the table in front of her and stared at it.
Nothing happened for a good two minutes, though Lucien could feel the girl's energy reserves turning molten within her.
Thea would be a powerful practitioner one day, perhaps even more so than him.
Even being in the same room as her was starting to set off an ache behind his left eye.
"Thea's natural affinity is Telepathy," Ianthe explained a little proudly. "She struggles with Telekinesis, however, and her control is limited. She's so determined to do something, that she can often do it once out of frustration, but rarely at will and never whilst calm."
Thea's lips pursed, her fingers clenching into fists as she glared at the cup.
It took almost a minute, but the iced lump of tea gradually pooled into water, until a miniature iceberg floated in the cup and then bubbles started floating to the surface, slowly, then faster, until the tea was boiling.
It was an impressive display, relying on sheer force of will, rather than ritual and Words of Power. Or it would have been, if the room wasn't so cold. Lucien had to stand and move away, the girl's power bleeding all over him.
"Now freeze it again, but this time, I want you to focus on your meditative techniques.
Remember what we discussed about building your sense of ritual?
You were angry again, which means you were able to melt the tea, but you cannot allow that to form a block in your mind, which ties your power to emotion, or else you'll never be able to advance. "
"I will advance." Thea took a steady breath and closed her eyes, but emotion painted rainbows of color across her face—anger, defiance, frustration, hope, perhaps even fear, if he was reading that dark, indigo blue correctly.
The tea stopped bubbling, but even when Thea began murmuring her ritual words, it remained stubbornly steaming. Her lashes flickered, those hands beginning to curl into themselves.
"Stop," Ianthe instructed. "You're getting angry again. Let it all go, Thea. Release all of your emotions and your power and have some breakfast. You can begin again afterward."
When Thea opened her eyes, mutiny burned there. "I can do it."
"How do you form ice?" Lucien found himself asking, his voice calm and cool.
"Absorb the energy in the water," Thea explained. "Energy and friction compel the water to heat, yet by removing all of the energy and absorbing it yourself, you force it to cool."
"Yet emotion drives us to expend energy, which is why boiling water is easier than cooling it."
"Yes, but I froze the water, even when I was using emotion as my driving force of will!"
He smiled faintly, sharing a glance with Ianthe. "I'm starting to feel some sense of kinship with my own mentor."
Ianthe sipped her tea. "And I believe I'm starting to understand why Drake passed her apprenticeship onto me.
I'm learning rather a lot myself, most particularly the fact that His Grace has an odd sense of humor.
He's probably been waiting for this moment ever since I first began my apprenticeship. "
"I thought it was rude to discuss someone when they are sitting right there at the table with you." Thea stabbed a kipper with ruthless intent. "I don't understand why we cannot simply use the tools we already own. Expression works! Why does it matter if I'm angry, or scared, or—"
"Has your mentor never explained why we tie our sorcery to ritual and power words instead?"
Ianthe glanced his way. "Lucien—"
"The girl should know the truth."
Ianthe's lips thinned. "I didn't wish to frighten her."
Thea's eyes widened. "What do you mean?"
"Most of our first forays into sorcery are caused by emotion," he said.
Like his yesterday, which was an uncomfortable truth.
He pushed it aside. "A girl is beaten by her father so often, that one day some mental block in her mind snaps.
She wants him to stop hitting her. Her desire and her emotional energy force the laws of nature to her will, just for a moment and often uncontrollably.
Perhaps she throws her father across the room?
Perhaps she breaks every bone in his body or chokes him to death?
Sometimes the girl can even force her father to never lift a hand against her again by placing a compulsion in his own head, though such a thing is extremely rare.
It's most often telekinesis or pyrokinesis, something destructive, something that is relatively easy for the will to perform.
Sometimes these girls or boys are so afraid of what they can do that they form a mental block in their minds, which means they can never do it again.
They... suppress their sorcery. It becomes a mysterious miracle, or I'm sure you've heard of mysterious healings, or deaths, or catastrophes? "
Thea's eyes grew distant, her lower lip trembling, just a fraction. "I-I–"
"That's enough, Lucien," Ianthe murmured, taking the girl's hand. "She understands what can happen." Thea turned into her, and Ianthe squeezed her hand and drew her closer.
Of course she did. Most of them did, and now he'd unwittingly blundered into some dark scar of memory that the girl owned.
"My apologies. I did not mean to touch a nerve.
" He cleared his throat. So many times these days he missed social cues and blundered through human interactions.
He'd never been so careless before his incarceration.
Lucien knelt on the rug at Thea's skirts, taking her hands in his. "Expression is incredibly powerful, more so than harnessing your will, but so dangerous, Thea. So uncontrollable. That is why we use ritual and meditation to teach ourselves to harness our will."
Thea looked eminently subdued. "What if I cannot learn to do so?"
Miss Martin kissed Thea's forehead and hugged her.
"I remember a time when I was certain I would never learn to harness my will.
The more I could not do it, the more frustrated and impatient I became.
But it finally happened, and once learned, it became so much easier, Thea.
That is why we set you such complicated tasks to study at first—to unknot a rope with your mind, or to use telekinesis to move a wooden puzzle piece from the bottom of a tower of them whilst holding the others in place—because whilst Expression is powerful, it cannot perform complicated tasks. It will come, Thea. Trust me in this."
Thea nodded.
"Finish your breakfast," Miss Martin pressed.
"No more talk of Expression and dire disasters.
I believe we have enough on our plate as it is.
" She glanced his way, finishing the last mouthful of her tea.
"Have you quite finished, my lord? I believe we have an old acquaintance of Morgana's to question this morning about her potential whereabouts and a Relic Infernal to find? "
Lucien stood. "Actually, I was starting to wonder at your lack of enthusiasm this morning. You seem quite calm, considering someone—possibly a dangerous sorceress with a price on her head and a yearning for revenge—has stolen two infamous relics."
"One relic, Rathbourne. We're not quite certain she has the other in hand yet.
As for lack of impatience, Drake sent out Sensitive's to comb the streets of London last night for hints of sorcery.
If they'd found anything, we'd already know it.
" She flashed a warm smile at Thea. "I want you to continue trying to freeze and boil the tea.
However, if you find yourself growing irritable, you are to set aside such a task and return to your meditation.
Use your rituals to simply gather your power to the point where your skin is brimming with it, then disperse it and do it again.
The more you use ritual, the more your mind will form that path, until it becomes instinct, not emotional channels. I shall see you tonight, hopefully."
They left her staring forlornly at the dining table.
Lucien leaned back in the carriage and tried not to stare at the woman bound to him. He could sense her emotions pricking at his skin like needles, and the color wash of it over her face was immense, despite her expressionless face.
She was staring, arrested, at a pair of young children playing in the park across the street.
The girls couldn't have been more than nine or ten and were laughing as they deliberately splashed each other, stomping their boots into puddles.
Ianthe fingered the locket at her throat and looked as though the world might not have existed around her.
Through the bond, it felt as though her heart was breaking.
Lucien looked again at the girls. Happy young lasses, wrapped up in bonnets with a plaid shawl thrown over their shoulders. One of them had shiny black hair knotted into a plaited chignon, and the other wore pigtails.
He couldn't for the life of him figure out why the sight of them ached within her so much. Pressing a hand to his chest, he squeezed, but it was merely a phantom emotion. The bond between them was strengthening. If he wasn't careful, he'd begin to hear her more outspoken thoughts—and she his.
"You are fond of Thea," he said, both out of curiosity and also to see if he could discover what had set her emotions roiling.
"You sound as if you're surprised."
"Perhaps I am. I would never have suspected you to own a maternal side."
Ianthe reacted as if he'd slapped her. "You do not know me at all. I know you hold me partly to blame for your incarceration, but that does not mean I am a cold, wicked woman, devoid of feelings."
"I know." Lucien cleared his throat. "My apologies. I didn't mean to offend you. I just... I was trying to understand you."
"What you must think of me." She gave a tight, pressed-lip smile. "All these words you throw my way: mistress, whore, unmotherly—"
"I never called you a whore," he said sharply.