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With a final, savage blow, the dummy’s head snapped back and stayed there, sticking on its hinge. Taly wiped the sweat from her brow and turned to find Aimee. Her lips moved silently. She looked angry.

Oh. Reaching for the remote in her pocket, Taly turned down the volume on the training hall’s stereo system. Today’s soundtrack was a selection of highland-Fey pulse and Faery-Daemon dance tunes.

“—down!” Aimee yelled into the sudden silence. She blinked. “And here for a moment, I almost began to hope you’d found something else to occupy your mornings.”

Taly smirked, just a little. It was true. Her regular workouts had been neglected lately, replaced by a much more enjoyable form of activity between the sheets. Cardio mostly. Skye was a wickedly relentless taskmaster.

“Do you need something?” she asked, unwrapping the long straps of fabric from around her knuckles and flexing herfingers. Aimee was wearing her clothes again. She hadn’t said anything so far, but this time her new cousin had pilfered a pair of striders she’d gone looking for the other day but failed to find. It was obvious they were too small. Aimee kept scrunching her toes and shifting her weight.

“I think it’s only reasonable to ask that you keep the music to a volume where a normal speaking voice will carry,” Aimee said, hands on her hips. “I don’t want to have to strain to hear your instruction. Also, while I can appreciate that you and Skylen are, um… honeymooning? I’d prefer if we could meet at a set time every morning.”

It took Taly a moment… “Oh, that’s right, I did agree to that.”Damn.

“I’m ready to get started when you are.”

Taly wanted to say she was drunk when she agreed to help Aimee with her magic, but it wouldn’t have mattered. She flicked through the threads of possible argument, eyes tracking the afterimages that danced across her vision.Nothingshe could say would dispel her cousin’s expectant look of dogged determination. Resistance only prolonged her eventual defeat, making the whole ordeal drag on longer.

“Okay, fine,” Taly conceded. “You were working on your water whip. Show me what you can do.”

Aimee blinked. “… oh, wait, you’re actually…” Taly stared at her, waiting. “Sorry, I just… expected more pushback.”

Then Aimee brought her palms together, water stretching between them as they moved apart.

Taly studied the whirling eddies. The ribbon was impossibly thin yet vividly clear, reflecting the ambient light in a dazzling array of colors. Tiny droplets spun off its edges like sparkling diamonds, only to be reabsorbed into the fluid stream.

“The spell is good,” she said. Aimee immediately swelled with pride. “Come with me.”

Leaving the row of training dummies, Taly made her way to the large, ornate cabinet set against the wall. Opening both doors wide, she studied the rows of narrow boxes piled neatly on the shelves inside.

“What are you doing?” Aimee asked.

“Teaching you how to throw a water whip.” Finding what she was looking for, Taly slid a box from the shelf, tossing back the lid and pulling out a thin wand with pale wood accents and a core of blue water crystal. “The spell is good,” she said again, “which means the problem is your technique.”

Aether shimmered in the crystal core as she deftly gripped the wand between her forefinger and thumb, pointing the tip at her palm. A bead of water appeared. As she began sketching small circles with the tip of the wand, it grew.

“You can wield a wand?” Aimee asked.

Taly’s eyes lifted to hers. “And?”

Aimee shook her head. “It’s just a… strange thing to see on Tempris. I’ve always been told they wouldn’t work.”

“They work, just not very well. You’ll maybe get a few good pulls on a single charge.”

With an expert flick of the wand, Taly drew a wide circle around her body and over her head. The sphere of water swirled and stretched, trailing behind the tip of the wand in a ribbon.

“You’re very good at that,” Aimee murmured.

Taly shrugged. “I’ve had a lot of practice.” Wands were the closest she’d ever come to wielding actual magic, hence why the training hall had accumulated so many of them over the years. “Alright, so… feet apart.”

Taly adjusted her stance, still waving the wand in wide circles that encompassed the full length of her arm. The ribbon of water stretched thinner, longer.

“There are two parts to cracking a water whip: throw and follow through. For the throw, keep your arm straight and your elbow locked. Then all you do is lift your arm, and let it drop.”

On the next rotation, Taly’s arm reared back, the ribbon of water fluttering with anticipation above her head.

When it dropped, the water whip gave a sharpcrackthat had Aimee jumping back.

“That’s the throw,” Taly said, resetting her stance. “Next is the follow through. And you’re going to want to use your whole body for this. It’s where your power is going to come from. Starting with your weight on your back foot, step forward. Then, as your weight shifts,lookat your target instead of letting your arm drop straight down. Make sense?” Aimee shook her head. “Okay, watch me.”