Chapter 89: Stop Knocking

Chapter 89: Stop Knocking

"So I stop," Silas said.

"Try it," Elyra said, in a tone that suggested she already knew what would happen.

He closed his eyes and stopped. No thread, no push, nothing going out at all. He listened as hard as he could.

The second layer of the room went flat. Nim was still there, because Nim was always there, but everything else was simply gone, as if someone had shut a window he hadn’t known was open.

"Nothing," he said, opening his eyes. "Worse than nothing."

"You stopped reaching altogether," Elyra said. "Keep the contact. Stop changing it every time you breathe."

"The note says to offer attention," Silas said. "I thought I was doing that."

"You were offering it over and over. Try once, then hold it steady. Give yourself time to notice something that isn’t your own mana."

He tried. It was harder than it sounded. Every time he breathed out, his body wanted to push, the way it wanted to blink. Twice he caught himself doing it. The third time he managed a thread that stayed thin and level for perhaps ten breaths, and something changed.

The second layer came back, but quieter. And there, behind him and to the left, was a presence. Large and warm and unmistakable.

"There’s something behind me," Silas said.

"Yes," Elyra said. "That’s your cat."

"I’m not his cat," said Nim, from behind him and to the left.

Silas turned. Nim sat at the end of the bed, the bell between his paws, looking unimpressed.

"In fairness," Elyra said, "he’s very loud."

"I’m not loud," Nim said. "I’m sitting."

"You’re loud to him. You’re bonded. He’s going to hear you before anything else." She looked at Silas. "That’s your real problem, and it’s a good one to have. You’ve got two things filling the room: your own thread and Nim. Before you can hear anything new, you have to know those two so well you can set them aside without thinking. Like knowing the sound of your own house at night, so the one strange creak stands out."

"Then I need to practice with Nim," Silas said.

Nim’s ears turned toward him. "That sounds like work for me."

"It is," Silas said. "I’ll pay you."

"Extra?" Nim asked.

"A little extra," Silas agreed.

Nim considered it with the gravity of a merchant. "Then yes."

For half an hour, Nim moved around the studio. Elyra had Silas describe his presence before opening his eyes. Position alone wasn’t enough; he knew his room too well to trust a lucky guess.

Once he pointed confidently toward the desk. Nim spoke from the bed.

"I’m over here."

Silas opened his eyes. The impression by the desk remained. It had to be something.

"Ease back the mana you’ve left there," Elyra said.

He did, and the supposed presence faded with it. His face warmed.

"You felt something real," she said. "It was yours. Remember the difference."

On the next attempt, he caught the mistake before pointing. That pleased him more than his earlier correct guesses.

After that, Nim got bored, announced that he was finished, and fell asleep on the pillow with the bell under his chin.

Silas didn’t feel the little spirit arrive. The panel did.

[Guest: unidentified minor spirit. Threat — external: Negligible. Territory: Negligible.]

He looked at the window and saw nothing but late light on the glass.

"Oh," Elyra said, following his glance with mild surprise. "You noticed. It’s been on your sill since I got here. I think your practice drew it, or mine did. Little ones like old buildings with warm walls." She smiled at the empty window. "It’s come in now. Don’t chase it. If it wants you to see it, it’ll let you."

He didn’t chase it.

She left when the light went orange, with the book’s margin note copied onto a scrap of paper for him in her own neat hand. At the door she said, "I can come back in four days. Same time. Practice until then."

"I will," Silas said.

"I know," Elyra replied, and went.

He practiced after dinner and between his ordinary obligations. There were still Sorel’s lectures, evening cultivation with Steady Current, and work with the dart in the east yard. During one moving throw he caught his heel and stumbled, saved himself, and checked behind him before trying again.

In the studio, he stopped when concentration began to slip. Guessing through a headache taught him nothing. More perception hadn’t made him any better at understanding it.

That first evening, the little spirit returned. Its guest reading told Silas it had entered, but he couldn’t pick out its presence. He resisted the urge to flood the room with mana. Instead, he practiced reducing his own output without losing contact, until the exercise felt less crowded.

On the second evening, Nim helped again. With Spirit Communion active, Silas began to distinguish the familiar warmth of their bond from the bright, restless impression of Nim himself. When Nim crossed the studio, one impression moved more distinctly than the other. Silas could finally describe the difference.

The little spirit remained beyond him. He saw it briefly on the top shelf of the bookcase, a pale speck of light, before it slipped through the glass. He hadn’t sensed it first.

He called Mara that night.

She was in her small sitting room in the Rooke house, with her hair down and a cup of something on the table beside her. She asked about his leg first. He’d told her about Carrow Hall the morning after, the shortened version, and she made him stand up and bend his knee in front of the screen until she was satisfied.

Then he asked the question he’d been carrying around for two days.

"If you could live on your own," he said. "Not in the house. What would you want it to look like?"

Mara’s cup stopped halfway to her mouth.

"That’s a strange question," Mara said.

"I know," Silas replied. "I want to hear your answer."

She set the cup down. He waited.

"Work," she said finally. "That’s the first thing. I was a good medic, Silas. I miss being useful with my hands. I miss being somewhere people come to because they need something I know how to do." She looked away from the screen. "And a door that’s mine. Somewhere I could come home to without wondering who’d been in my room."

"Has anything changed about getting leave?" Silas asked.

"No." Mara’s voice stayed gentle, but it went flat underneath. "Your father wouldn’t allow it. If I left without permission, I expect he’d have someone bring me back. And the clinics near here depend on keeping good relations with the house. I couldn’t count on them taking my side."

She looked at him steadily. "The money you sent has helped, Silas. Please don’t think it hasn’t. But it hasn’t changed that."

"I know," Silas said.

Mara looked at him sharply. "Don’t go buying me a house."

"I wasn’t going to," Silas said.

"You were thinking about it," Mara replied.

"I was," Silas admitted. "But I’m asking what you want first."

Mara looked down at her hands. "I’d have to find out what had changed. Medicines, equipment. You can’t simply go back after years and assume you remember enough."

"You could learn," Silas said.

"I could." She sounded surprised by how firmly she said it. "I’d like to."

He wanted to start offering solutions. Instead, he asked what kind of patients she used to see, and listened while she told him. By the end she was correcting his idea of a clinic rather than explaining why she couldn’t have one.

"I’ll think about it," Mara said before they ended the call. "Properly. Don’t arrange my whole life before I do."

"I won’t," Silas promised.

On the third evening, the guest reading announced another visit. Silas kept his eyes closed and maintained the contact he had practiced. He could recognize Nim and his own mana now. He waited for something different.

Something was there. Very faint, very small, like a draft so slight that only the hair on his arm could feel it. Cool rather than warm. High up, near the bookshelf by the window.

His heart started to pound. He kept still.

He opened his eyes. Between two books on the top shelf, the pale light appeared. It was no bigger than a thistle seed, a soft greenish white, and it drifted in a lazy circle before it settled.

Silas almost laughed. Then he stopped.

It had been on that same shelf last night.

Had he felt it there, or expected it and supplied the feeling himself? He couldn’t tell.

Not yet, he thought. Again. Somewhere I won’t guess.