Sleight of Hand

Chapter 17

Trebor tried to seem indifferent as he descended the stairs on Saturday afternoon in his usual combat garb, but secretly he was excited. Kurtis had informed him and Aivilo on their session on Wednesday that they'd start to use their abilities today. The fact that Trebor was the last one to get to train with his abilities sparked crossroads of different possibilities in his mind.

Did Kurtis think he was the least likely to struggle to summon his power again?

Was Kurtis just trying to test his patience?

Was it some kind of punishment?

Not that it mattered... in the days leading up to this training session, Trebor had practiced summoning his power until it felt less tiring from chasing it around his con­sciousness and more like second nature again. He struggled a little to summon blades like he'd done on Wednesday, but he'd been angry then. It was probably a stupid thing to try when he'd be so vulnerable to lose control of his power, but... it had felt good to release it. He didn't even think to try traveling through shadows for fear he'd get stuck and die of asphyxiation and no one would know what had hap­pened to him.

He met Aivilo at the door, and they ventured to the warehouse together. It was an overcast day, and Trebor knew it would start raining at some point, probably while they were training. As they walked, Trebor peered at her from the corner of his eye. After their training on Wednesday, he'd asked her what had gone wrong when summoning her power. She'd brushed off the question like she didn't know what he was talking about, but he knew she was lying. She'd never been the best at it.

Now, she walked with her shoulders slightly hunched and her eyes clouded with thought, as if she were protecting herself from the outside world.

Trebor realized with a pang that he'd never known Aivilo before war. Before she'd suffered a greater loss than he could ever imagine. He wondered what she'd been like before her parents had died. Sure, he'd seen glimpses of her personality before, but it was never truly... her. It was always a shadow of what she truly was like that he got to see. Aivilo caught him staring and snapped her head up.

"What?" she asked, and he shook his head.

"I'm just wondering what you're thinking about, that's all," he replied, prompting her to talk.

But he was disappointed when she just shrugged. Trebor attempted to make conversation by asking where Blitz was. Aivilo just said she let her fox companion roam wherever she wanted while Aivilo was training and left it at that. Trebor gave up trying to get her to talk.

They entered the warehouse to find Kurtis already there. He was fiddling with some rope in a shaded area of the warehouse, where he'd blocked the fluorescent lights with large sheets of canvas to create shadows within the building. It was beyond Trebor's understanding how their elderly trainer did such things by himself. Trebor had done the math. If Kurtis had been forty-eight when they'd been

defeated by the Mage, that would make him seventy-three now.

"Good afternoon," Kurtis greeted, and waved them over. Trebor studied the little room on the other end of the warehouse.

"Where are Tom and Sierra?" he asked.

Kurtis replied, "I didn't want them coming to training today, so they're reading up on your kind with the others."

He dropped the rope and straightened, facing them in full.

"We'll go through summoning your power again as a quick warm-up. Then, I figured since Aivilo has been wor-king hard all week, we can give her a break and focus on your abilities, Trebor."