“Because he never looked exhausted or even tired,” Ryanne suddenly stated.
“Exactly, dear. He never used his own reserves at all, did ye, lad?” Ashling asked, turning to me.
I shook my head.
“He borrowed it,” she said.
“Huh?” Britta asked, looking at the others around her to see if anyone understood.
“So what do witches or even psychics do when they want to use power? You all pull energy into yourselves from whatever yer affinity is, right? Then you push it back out to do yer will. And all yer lives you practice holding as much magic essence as ye can, don’t ye, because it limits the works ye can do?” she asked. The witches nodded back at her.
“But what if ye never took the energy to yer core, to yer magical piggy bank. What if ye just passed it through ye and put it to work? How would that be?”
“What, like when a circle leader takes power from the circle and uses it?” Jael asked.
“Very much like that. Almost exactly, only instead of yer sister witches pushing power at ye, ye pull it from yer affinity and send it on its way at the same time.”
“But that would only be a trickle… It wouldn’t amount to anything at all, would it?” Ryanne asked.
“And that’s the trick of it, deary. Ye got to find enough of a source of power that matches your need. Tell me, boy, what did ye use for the dirt beastie?” Ashling asked me.
I held up both hands on an imaginary steering wheel and made driving motions.
“Ah, the cars?” Aunt Ash asked. I nodded. “Clever lad. What he did was to borrow the power of the vehicles on the roads around us. And being right in the middle of Burlington, there are lots, now aren’t there?”
“How do you borrow the power of a car?” Britta asked.
“Practice, dear, practice. And a little from each. Everyone, close your eyes. That’s it. Now extend your senses and feel outside these walls. If ye be having the ability to cast afar, then do so. Or if not, just listen and feel,” my aunt said. A truck rumbled by outside. “Feel that? A road tractor, so powerful it shook the floor. The shaking of the floor is power to be harnessed, as is the rolling of its mass, the vibrations of its engines. Now, if ye were science types and ye were to measure the motor output for each car me lad here borrowed from, I think ye’d find that they all lost a little bit of oompf here and there. Declan took all those wee little pieces of energy, blended them together, and powered his beastie with it.”
“But that’s insanely complex. Why not just one or two big trucks?” Michelle asked.
“Well, yes, except that what would be happening to the trucks?”
“They would lose all their power?” Michelle guessed.
“Just so. Right in the road. If it’s all ye had, then so be it, especially for life and death, but that weren’t the case here, now was it? So by taking wee bits and pieces, no one was the wiser and no one was in danger. It just required a lot of concentration and skill by the Crafter. Well done, lad, but yer still in the doghouse and don’t be forgetting it.” She shook her finger at me.
Erika looked like she was concentrating hard, or maybe had gas—it was hard to tell with her, but she suddenly exhaled loudly and then looked at my aunt in frustration. “You can’t get any energy that way,” she said.
A strong wind blew up around the room before swirling down into a tight little cyclone of spinning air that swept up all the loose dirt I’d missed. The powerful dust devil spun through the space between the class and Ashling, blowing hair and papers around before rising up over the game model and collapsing downward, dropping all the soil onto the landscape in a puff of dust.
“You can’t… yet. I can,” Ashling said into the silence and awe. “I borrowed that energy from the wind outside what’s blowing fierce and I’m still fresh as a daisy. But don’t be worrying about it. We’ll work on it next class, along with your avatars, which I suggest you talk about now.”
The class did exactly that, breaking up into groups and clusters. Some studied the landscape or handled the avatar I had made. Others drew on paper or tablets. And almost all of them asked questions of both my aunt and me.