wouldn’t realize he’d already got his life, with some changes, until afterwards.
Once he finished, the globe was as full of lightning as it had been the day before, though only a handful of miniature bolts shimmered along its surface. “Tris, I want to try something,” Keth said. He took the finished globe off the blowpipe and held it in one hand. “I want to see if I can take back some of the lightning I put in.”
“Now that the globe’s closed?” she asked with a frown. She supposed it could work. To her the glass shielded the lightning inside, but it might well be a barrier that would not affect Keth at all.
“I think I can do it,” replied Keth.
“Have you ever taken in lightning you just got rid of?” Tris asked, still trying to think it all through.
“No. There doesn’t seem to be any reason why it won’t work.” Keth grimaced, then admitted, “I’m scared, a bit.”
Tris chewed on her lower lip, calculating. “It could be tricky. One moment.” She went to the cullet barrel with its mix of broken and discarded glass. She saw plenty of sparks from Keth’s magic in there, from the pieces they’d thrown in. Perhaps her next move ought to be a container for magicked glass, to keep the power from spreading, or perhaps Keth could learn to remove the power and make it harmless. She put those thoughts in the back of her mind to brew, and threw the protective barrier she had once used to guard Keth around the barrel. With it in place, she raised her hands and lowered them, opening the protections on the top of the barrel, until it was sheathed from rim to ground in white fire.
“Now try,” she advised Keth, shooing Glaki and Little Bear into a far corner of the shop. “If you can’t bear it, throw it into the cullet.” She stood beside the barrel, her hands loose at her sides.
“But I should be able to take it back, like you do when you take the circles down,” he protested. “I can feel you reclaim the magic that was in them.”
“That’s magic. This — ” she pointed to the globe — “is lightning, even if it’s sheathed in magic to keep it from burning everything in sight. Once you free lightning, I’m not sure you can reclaim it.”
“It’s my lightning. I can reclaim it,” he replied stubbornly.
“Lightning doesn’t belong to anyone,” she said, but he ignored her. Tris sighed. He might be right; if he wasn’t, he’d soon realize his mistake.
Keth cradled the globe in both hands. Tris watched as his power flowed out around the globe to envelop it. First he peeled away the surface lightnings, pulling them back into himself. Then he reached deeper, through the glass. Slowly he drew some of the inner lightning out, pulling it back into his chest.
She could see it hurt him. His face went red; sweat popped out all over his upper body, He grimaced and continued to draw on the lightning, until he was gasping. “Tris — ” he began to say. She pointed at the cullet barrel. He turned towards it and opened his mouth.
Lightning roared from his throat and slammed into the junk glass. The moment the last of it came out of Keth, Tris enclosed the barrel in a globe of power.
She backed away, feeling his power batter her protections. For a moment nothing happened. Suddenly the barrel quivered, shook and exploded with a roar, hurling charcoal and glass into the magical barrier. Smoke filled it as if her power was glass, whirling and twisting inside.
“Beautiful,” whispered Glaki.
“Stupid,” said Keth with chagrin.
“You needed to find out,” Tris told him, hands on hips as she watched the smoke and ash settle. “Now you know.”
“I have to pay Antonou for the cullet, and replace it,” Keth remarked, glum. “We need it to make other glass. But it should have worked, curse it!”
Tris shrugged. “It’s lightning. It’s no more amenable to ‘should haves’ than you are.”
“Ouch,” Keth said, wincing. He looked at the globe in his hands. The surface was clear, but he’d drawn hardly any lightning from inside it. He sighed and sank on to a bench. “So we wait,” he said, resigned. “I — ” He stood, swaying.
“I’ll get our midday,” said Tris, seeing the magic under his skin gutter. It was funny how academic mages were never exhausted by their first workings, she thought, but ambient mages were. “Why don’t you see if