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“Control and discipline are vitally important. Impulsive, emotional absorption will affect the reliability of the magic. Or worse.”

The stone slips out of my grip and I chase after it as it bumps down my body, catching it before it hits the ground. I blow a speck of dust off it and freeze at Quin’s blank-faced disbelief.

I nod sombrely. “Control and discipline. Got it.”

“You’re used to consuming magical properties and filtering from the inside to the out. This requires leeching from the outside, in.” Quin talks me through the process, and when it’s time for me to follow his instructions reminds me to keep my breathing steady, my heartbeat calm, slow.

It’s harder than I expected, especially with Quin’s tight gaze scrutinising my every move. I close my eyes. “Stop looking at me.”

“Don’t blow us up.”

“A more likely prospect when I’m under scrutiny.” I wait until the ticking of my pulse is even, call my earth magic to the surface, and press the opal between my hands. Cool, refreshing energy inches through my veins, more and more and more until I can’t possibly hold any more.

Carefully, I break my connection with the opal and slip the drained stone into my cloak. Quin has pulled his legs into a meditative sitting position. He holds his hands out, and I slip my earthy-cold ones atop his fiery warm ones. Magic sparks between us, a shivery jolt through my abdomen; hurriedly, I push my energy out while he draws it all in.

His eyes are closed. Mine are glued to his calmly concentrated expression. When he’s like this, he doesn’t look half as proud and prickly.

Quin’s eyes snap open, sharp and alert. I flinch, startled by the intensity in his gaze, but his fingers close around mine, grounding me. The contact sends a jolt through me—something more than...

I slap him away, and in moments I’m back against the dome wall.

“Powerful opal,” he murmurs. “Your meridians, though...”

It doesn’t matter if they’re weak. I’ll protect my meridians with my life. They are my life. “It’s everything I need to do my work.”

Quin glances at my waist, to the soldad I’m unconsciously gripping.

I release it. “Will it be enough?”

“To reach dawn, maybe.”

I laugh humourlessly. “I hope you haven’t annoyed your aklos lately.”

“They won’t let me down.”

I cross my arms, and Quin shakes his head at me. In silence, we stare at the brilliant starry sky magnified through a lake-ified Castorvra.

I shrink into my cloak and close my eyes. The day’s events creep over me in a wave of fatigue, and my eyelids grow heavy.

I sag into slumber and wake hours later to Quin calling my name, shaking my leg. “Cael.”

Grey light funnels into our bubble, and I blink in an approaching shadow above. “They really are loyal.”

“A little less surprise,” he rasps.

I sit up. A cloak, blanketed over me, rumples to my waist.

Quin is staring up at the underside of a boat.

I gather the cloak up and hand it back to him. He takes it with cold, trembling hands—his aura is fluctuating. The bubble around us is... thin.

And thinning.

I grab his wrist—his pulse is sluggish. This bubble—

He hisses with pain. “Get to the surface.”

“Can you—”