they rent a third room.
After the evening meal, Renly and Darla stayed downstairs to enjoy a few drinks in the common room, but Will retreated upstairs to run through as much of his spell practice as could reasonably be done indoors. By necessity he’d have to forgo the range practice.
He was only fifteen minutes into the multitude of spells he practiced daily when a knock came at the door. It was Laina. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“Spell practice.”
“While we travel?”
He nodded, and Laina’s lips pursed thoughtfully. “How long does yours take?”
Mine? “Have you been practicing too?” he asked.
“Ever since the family had to take refuge at your house,” she explained. “You were so serious about it—every day—even when everything else had gone to chaos. The vampire catastrophe sort of underscored the importance too.” She lifted her chin and repeated her question, “So how long does your practice take?”
“A little more than an hour and longer if I have a good place to work on my aim. When I can, I try to spend an hour on that as well.”
She frowned. “An hour? What spells are you practicing?”
“All of them.”
Laina cocked her head to one side with an expression that said she felt he’d said something ridiculous. “Be specific. It would be impossible to practice every spell in a single day.”
“Every spell I’ve learned.”
“Why the hell would you do that? Is your memory that bad? Besides, most of them you could simply look up if you needed to remember.”
“Maybe not. Besides, by practicing them at least once a day I’ll eventually be able to instinctively cast them. That’s the real goal.”
His sister walked in and sat down on the edge of the bed. “I think we’re miscommunicating. You mean you practice all the battle spells you know, right?”
Will smirked, then demonstrated his greatest accomplishment. A mild wind came up and swept around the room and over the two of them, cleaning their clothes, bodies, and the room itself. He still wasn’t sure why he’d become capable of reflex casting Selene’s Solution, but since it was eighth-order he knew it would impress. Laina’s eyes went wide with shock and she shot to her feet. “Shut the door!” He frowned and started to do so, but she waved her hands at him. “It’s just an expression.”
“Ahh. I was wondering, since most people don’t realize we’re siblings, it might be considered odd.”
She ignored his comment. “How many spells can you reflex cast?”
Will counted fingers. “Five so far.”
“Five? Even some of the teachers can’t do that many, and that’s after decades!”
“It’s just a matter of repetition and practice.”
“How many are you planning to master that way?”
“As many as possible. I figure if I keep working at it like this, an hour a day, I should be able to reflex cast several hundred someday.” The disbelief on her face was obvious, so Will figured it was probably time to have the talk. Taking a few steps, he closed and locked the door, then he erected a force-cage within the room, sealing them inside and limiting the transfer of sound.
Once upon a time Laina would probably have demanded an explanation, or possibly taken such acts as a declaration of war, but those days were long gone. Beneath their abrasive interactions, neither Will nor his sister had anything less than complete trust in each other. He sat down on one bed and gestured to the other across the room.
She ignored him and sat beside him instead. “This way I can reach you more easily when you say something stupid,” she said, making a fist with one hand.
Will laughed, but his features quickly became serious. “You know I’m going to live a long time, don’t you?”
“That depends on who you irritate,” she joked, but when he didn’t laugh, Laina responded more seriously. “Selene mentioned wanting to live longer, but she didn’t really clarify exactly what that meant. Did the old wizards really live that much longer? Surely some of it was exaggerated.”
“Eight times longer,” said Will simply. “From the day I completed the third compression, I can expect approximately eight years for every one year I would have previously had. I’ll likely last at least six hundred years and it’s possible I could make it nearly eight hundred if I’m extremely long-lived.”
Laina stared into his eyes without saying a word for almost a minute, studying his expression. Finally, she responded, “You’re being completely honest.”
He nodded.
“You told me about the compressions before. It depends on the number, doesn’t it?”
“First-order