voice was unwavering—not especially beautiful, but the sound was consistent, easy to mimic. Nero gestured for them to repeat the noise.
Sloane’s cheeks heated up. She had never sung in front of people. She didn’t even sing in the shower. She wasn’t tone-deaf—she just . . . didn’t do it.
She held the oscilloscope’s microphone up close to her mouth and hummed. A wavy line appeared on the device’s screen, as well as the number 165. It took a few tries to hit 170 MHz on the nose, but once she found the pitch, she was able to do it again without too much difficulty. Next to her, Esther was rolling her eyes at the oscilloscope, her lips pursed as she whistled. Matt, however, was singing “Ah” like he was doing a vocal warm-up. Sloane wondered if he would have been in choir if he had been allowed to live a normal life.
Her chest felt tight at the thought.
“Good!” Nero said. “Now—siphons. Put them on your dominant hands, but don’t make any noise just yet.”
The siphon was cold against her skin, and loose. Cyrielle saw her fussing with it and stepped over to tease a small wire from the space between the plates. When she pulled it tight, the plates drew together around Sloane’s hand, and she wrapped it around a small hook to keep it secure. Sloane flexed her fingers. The siphon was clunkier than the one Nero wore, but it wasn’t uncomfortable, and the metal warmed the longer she wore it, like a wristwatch.
“You may have noticed Aelia or me making a small gesture when we do a working,” Nero said. “That doesn’t actually have an impact on the working itself—it’s more of a way of getting your mind to realize that you are trying to do something. So gesture or don’t, it doesn’t matter, whatever helps you to focus your intentions. What we call a magical breath is just a small puff of air emitted magically by the user. When I tell you to, you will make your sound at the correct frequency, and you will try to have that tricky, nebulous thing we refer to in magical study as ‘intent.’ ”
He glanced at Sloane. That was the word he had used the day before to explain why the siphon on its own wasn’t dangerous.
“Nailing down exactly what constitutes intent is the subject of the majority of magical theory,” Nero said. “But there is a reason it’s easier to teach someone magic if they’ve been learning since they were a child. Children don’t need explanations or details in the way that adults do—they can just want something . . . and do it. So I can’t tell you exactly how to have the right intent—you just have to figure it out. The less thinking involved, the better, at this stage.”
“This should be easy for Esther, then,” Matt said.
“Kindly shut the hell up,” Esther replied. She held up her hand in the siphon and whistled while flicking her hand in a dismissive gesture. Esther’s hair fluttered and she stepped back, eyes wide. A moment later, a grin crept over her face, revealing a small splotch of lipstick on her teeth.
“I did it!” she said in something like a shriek. The grin took years away from her face, so Sloane felt like she was looking at the Esther who had not been through the war, who had not fought the Dark One, who had not been caring for her sick mother.
Matt gave Esther a high five, and Sloane, not sure her congratulations would be welcome, opted for a smile.
“Yes, well done,” Nero said. “Now the rest of you.”
Sloane stared at her hand, sheathed in its siphon. Don’t think, she thought. She hummed and the oscilloscope read 175 MHz. Another hum got her closer to her target. Don’t think. Do a gesture that feels natural. She wasn’t sure that any gesture could feel natural with a metal glove on her hand. She tried flicking her first two fingers. That seemed simple enough.
Nothing happened.
Across the room, Matt was singing his “Ah” and waving his hand through the air like he was conducting an orchestra. She would have laughed if things weren’t so bad between them. Esther’s whistling was accompanied by a finger waggle, and she was holding the oscilloscope up to her face to read her pitch.
Don’t think, she scolded herself, and she hummed again. Intent, she reminded herself. Well, maybe that was the problem. She didn’t intend anything at all. She had no