For the rest of the week, Hyraj and I practised the light magic to pass the time in the evenings. Well, mostly me, Hyraj giving a bit of a lesson before reading her books, checking on me now and then.

I wasn’t really sure I was making any progress, though. It all felt… as weird as before. Like my body could feel magic, but not, like, do anything with it. Same way I could feel the wind, but that didn’t mean I could just make wind blow with my mind.

Over and over, making rings with my hands, squashing them into nothing. Sometimes feeling a tingle by my bones, sometimes feeling the sort of magnetic push. Mostly, though, I just started thinking my hands looked weird, or that I needed to trim my nails.

Of course it was frustrating. We weren’t in the forest where there really was nothing else to do, not really even a need for magic here. It wasn’t like knitting where, even if I messed up, I was still making something. I wasn’t making progress—at least, not making any progress I could see.

However, whenever it started getting to me, I took a deep breath and remembered her telling me she wasn’t a good teacher. Maybe she was right, maybe she was wrong. I didn’t know. What I did know was that I wanted to prove her wrong, make her proud—prideful.

It wasn’t like I had anything else to do either. Honestly, I’d mostly read her old book to learn the language, not really a big reader. Her taste… it was a very slow, meandering story, full of longing sighs and looking at starry skies while deep in thought. Thankfully, it wasn’t, like, an “adult” book, nothing more than a few kisses happening. The love interest hardly appeared in the story too, most of it about the female lead, her family, and her group of friends (and the people she called friends with a polite smile). Not just a love story.

Anyway, I guessed her new books were like that, their names kind of romantic, so no interest in reading them. I just spent my evenings making circles, falling in and out of thought, maybe even falling asleep at times.

When Saturday finally arrived, it came with heavy rain. After getting through two months of the season, though, it didn’t seem all that bad. Desensitised to it. A storm, but not enough of a storm to stop us going out.

Unfortunately, as Hyraj told me after I asked: “Whether or not we are willing to make the trip, I doubt the store owner would.”

I deflated with a sigh. “That is it, she wouldn’t,” I mumbled, thinking of the old woman, hair grey and walking stick in hand.

Hyraj smiled sort of apologetically. “If I had thought on the matter, I could have picked up some wool on my break,” she said, a touch softer than normal.

“If I had thought on the matter, I would have asked you,” I said back, smiling.

She chuckled, covering her mouth. I liked the sound. Liked making her laugh. She had seemed so serious for so long, but, the better I knew her, the more… normal she seemed. Not so grown-up.

We had such different childhoods, literally came from two different worlds, but there wasn’t a… barrier between us. I could reach out and touch her—right now—if I wanted to.

And I kind of did. She’d calmed down with the storms by now, but I still noticed her silently gasp when the first thunder rolled, when the first flash of lightning lit up the room. How I sometimes had to say her name a few times because she tried to lose herself in her book.

So strong, so fragile. Like how dark colours looked all the darker on a light background. Helping her, it was ingrained into me. I wanted to hold her hand and tell her she could squeeze mine if she felt scared.

Of course, I didn’t. She wasn’t a child. But the urge was still there, reminding me that, in my own way, I was more grown-up than my age.

“Did you have any chores or shall we practise?” she asked.

I had so many chores to do. “None,” I said, still smiling.

Like I had cast a spell, she relaxed. Did I notice because she was more comfortable around me or because I was better at noticing her little changes? Well, I still didn’t know. Maybe a bit of both.

Whatever, I got what I wanted. She did so much for me, this much wasn’t much at all, but it was all I could do.

Mindful of how I was doing this to comfort her, I patted the bed next to me. “It will be easier to show me if you here, right?” I said, trying to sound like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Whether or not she fell for it, she tapped her thumb and finger and stood up the next moment. All it took was one step. She wasn’t really much taller than me, but always held herself so tall—and wore thick boots. Quite tall for this world, though. Mr Arl seemed a normal height for a man and, with her shoes on, Hyraj about matched him.

With how she liked to stride everywhere, her pace quick if she wasn’t slowing down to match me, I imagined her legs must have looked pretty good. It wasn’t the sort of thing books talked about, but people did. The girls at school loved it when spring rolled around and the boys were out in their shorts for sports. I didn’t really see the appeal, though.

She sat down, jostling me out of my thoughts. The mattress wasn’t exactly springy, I thought with a wry smile, remembering how fun it was to sit next to the little ones and make them fall into me for a quick hug before putting them to bed.

Funny how these kinds of memories came back to me.

“What exactly would you like me to show you?” she said, soft, almost a whisper. Such a gentle voice. Honestly, if I was more shameless, I’d ask her to read me one of her stories like that, so soothing.

But I still had some shame and wasn’t quite ready to lose it yet. “Maybe… I’m not making a good circle?” I said, coming up with an excuse on the spot.

“Show me.”

I took a breath, then carefully made a ring, touching my thumbs together and my forefingers together. Now conscious about it, I fidgeted a bit, trying to make it look rounder, not really succeeding. Giving up, I overlapped my forefingers and thumbs and started shrinking the ring.

Again, more conscious of it, I tried to keep it as round as possible, not so much sliding my hands over each other like I usually did, but more cupping one hand with the other? The inside hand curled almost into a fist while the other wrapped around it. By the end, both hands made a ring, thumb and forefinger touching, one on top of the other.

And I felt a buzz.

It wasn’t like before, the electric buzzing that prickled just below my skin stronger, painful. But there was only a thin line of pain—like it was a single nerve. As distracting as it was, I tried not to flinch, so close I just had to push through.

Gathering my determination, I took a deep breath and then squeezed.

Nothing happened. Something happened. I felt more than saw it, the nothing in my hand feeling like a bundle of vines, not exactly squirming, but moving, sliding through my hands, part of some giant fabric I couldn’t see.

Then it was gone, my hands snapping shut. I stared at where the magic had been. My heart thumped, ached, the joy I felt a moment ago now gone and that sudden plunge left me feeling empty.

I could have stayed like that for an hour if not for Hyraj chuckling. Turning to her, not upset, I surely showed my confusion.

She settled into a smile. “That is it, my mentor told me that the reason she would put up with such spoiled brats is that they make the most wondrous expressions once they first grasp magic with their own hands. I understand what she meant now. The joy and the despair, they are rather sweet.”

Hearing that, I laughed too, sure I must have made quite the expressions. After a sigh, that humour faded away. “Did I… do it?” I softly asked.

She hummed a note. “That is it, no, not as such. You… accomplished the first step, which is to take hold of the magic; however, it is necessary to hold it while… thinking of what you wish to do. It is like learning to use a muscle you haven’t used before. I can only tell you to try and try again until your body makes the connection, then reinforce it.”

That made some sense. Not that, like, I knew anything about magic, but the idea of just saying words and stuff happening was kinda weird, really. This felt more… real?

Still, I was a bit burnt out after that, not ready for another go just yet. “Can… many people do magic?”

My distraction worked perfectly, Hyraj taking in a deep breath. “Well, it would depend on what you mean by ‘many’,” she said, her hand on her lap gesturing along with her lecture. “In much older times, it was usual for villages to have an elder who could do magic and, as the children grew up, the elder would choose two to take on as their apprentice. That wasn’t to say no others could do magic, but they would usually be limited in what they could do. Perhaps they could ignite a stick or fill a cup with water, but the elder would start the bonfire in the evenings where everyone took their starters from, and they would fill the well in the mornings. If the fields needed irrigating or a night search in the forest was needed, they would help with those kinds of things too.”

Her lecture continued on to the role of magic in towns and cities, going from when the continent was first settled to the more recent innovations—like the plumbing that had even spread to here. Apparently, there were water towers all over the place now, producing clean water the same way the fridge stayed cold—using new techniques of “tying magic knots” or something. She admitted she wasn’t too knowledgeable on this aspect and I wasn’t exactly clever either, barely keeping up, never mind deducing how this stuff worked from her descriptions.

By the time she finished, I felt ready to try again. Even though I was doing this to distract her from the storm, that bit of success went to my head, eager to keep going.

Until I went back to failing.

Loop after loop, I felt nothing squeezing them closed. The frustration felt all the worse right now. Irrational, desperate, entirely forgetting what I was doing as I just went through the motions faster and faster, like it would work if I did it enough times.

Open, closed, open closed, the whole world shrunk down to my hands.

Then her hand broke into my world, settling on top of mine and finally stilling me. “Breathe a breath,” she whispered, her quiet voice so loud in my ears. Like I could feel her breath, ticklish.

I did as she said, the haze in my head melting away, leaving behind shame. So upset with myself for acting like a child.

“Gentle,” she said and, before I could even process the word, her other hand came over, both her hands cupping mine, guiding them. Mind blanking, I followed her silent instructions, let her shape my hands.

Maybe because my head was in such a weird state, I was so conscious of her touch. It felt hot, almost prickling—magic? But I only ever felt the magic in my fingers and it was like her touch ran up my arms. I didn’t hate the feeling, warm, gentle, but it confused me, making me even more unready when she continued the lesson.

“Your fingers cannot break,” she said; it took me a moment to remember the “break” she used was like “break apart”.

Still, I heard that and forgot it, entirely focused on her hands. They didn’t feel smooth, but weren’t as calloused as, like, the cook’s. Not an entirely pampered life. Long fingers, easily able cover mine while on the outside. A… strength to them, firmly holding my hands in place, but not hurting me.

We’d held hands before for one reason or another and I hadn’t really noticed. But, right now, the world was our hands and her quiet voice. I didn’t hate that.

I gradually recovered my senses while making no progress with the magic. Minutes passing with the two of us side by side, her hands around mine.

“Thank you, I think I understand,” I said, finding my voice.

Her hands lingered a second longer, then she let go. “Of course.”

Back to actually trying, I slowly went through the steps and managed to get almost as far as I did earlier. Not quite “grasping” the magic, but feeling the tingle in my fingers, the pressure against my skin like I was holding onto something invisible. Almost there, but not quite.

Relaxing, preparing myself for another try, I thought again it wasn’t the same as when she’d touched me.