“Keth, watch — ” Tris began, but it was too late. He’d let himself get worked up. When he blew into the pipe, a fat streamer of his power went with the air, straight into the glass. It lengthened and burst, spraying droplets on to the wall.
Tris surveyed the damage. Luckily the walls, though wood, had been treated to resist fire. “You know, a few more of these, what with the drops you put on the wall the other day, and you could make a design,” she remarked, falsely cheerful. “It looks pretty, in an over-enthusiastic way.”
Under his breath Keth told Tris what he thought of her comments. She caught the small puff of air from his mouth and twisted it in her hand until they both heard “claybrained flap-mouthed impertinent — ”
“Now, was that nice?” Tris asked, releasing the puff of air. “I was only trying to help.”
Very gently Keth beat his head against the wall, rousing Glaki from her sleep. “Ow,” the four-year-old observed, watching Keth.
“Men are like that, little one,” Tris replied. “Keth, feel sorry for yourself later. Start again.” She dug inside one of her packs until she found the dates and dried figs she’d bought at the skodi. These she gave to Glaki, who ate silently.
Keth cleaned his blowpipe, then thrust it once more into the kiln and its crucible. Chime glided over to sit on a shelf beside the furnace and observe. Keth drew out the gather and began to count, breathe, twirl and blow. Gently he coaxed the bubble along, reheating and twirling, enlarging it each time, growing more confident as everything went smoothly.
“One more,” he murmured as he drew out the gather. “One more go.”
Tris saw his magic spike, leaping to flood down the barrel of the blowpipe and out over the skin of the ball. Burdened with its strange weight, the glass ball dropped from the pipe and on to the floor, where it sprayed outward.
“I used to be able to do this!” yelled Kethlun, furious. “I used to be able to do this in my sleep! How can it be so hard? Why does the magic fight me? Why do I fight me? This will never work!” He flung the pipe into the corner and got to work to clean up the mess.
Tris leaned her chin on her pulled-up knees, watching him through slitted eyes as she thought. One day she, Briar, Daja and Sandry had been on the roof of their home, basking in the sun and talking. They had spoken of their first real experience with their crafts, the one they didn’t actually associate with magic. Talking it over, Sandry and Daja could see how their teachers had used magic to teach them something about spinning with a hand spindle, in Sandry’s case, and drawing thin wire from thick, in Daja’s. Maybe what Keth needed was help with his craft.
She waited until Keth was ready again. Glaki moved into a corner with her doll as Tris got to her feet. “Here,” she said, walking over to Keth. “Let’s try something. You’re going to meditate like before, and blow like before, but you’re going to close your eyes and let me help you.”
“I don’t need help!” Keth snapped, red-faced and out of patience with himself and the world. “I know perfectly well how to do this!”
“You know perfectly well how to blow glass,” she said. “That’s what you’re going to do. You’re not going to interrupt yourself by sticking it into the kiln to reheat, that’s all. I’ll keep the glass warm.”
“How can you do that?” demanded Keth. “Your lightning will fry it.”
“I won’t use lightning.” She walked her fingers through her braids until she found the loops on either side of her head that she used to store warmth. She removed their pins, then undid two centimetres of each braid. Pulling her fingers through the freed hair, she collected two palmsful of that heat, drawn from the molten rock of the earth’s core. She pressed her hands together to mix their contents, then drew them apart. Now she had a thirty-centimetre-square surface to use on the glass. She checked it against the furnace, making sure they were equally as hot, before she looked at Keth again. “Stand at right angles to the furnace once you have your gather,” she told him. He looked green, as he always did when she fidgeted with her braids. “Now, start breathing.”