Fracture (The Machinists) (9 page)

“Today, we are going to work on controlling your mind. We are going to strengthen it so that it can ignore your body’s impulses.” Jaxon pulled something out of his pocket and tossed it to Allyn.

It was a small box, several inches long and a few inches deep, with a hinge on the back. Allyn opened it. A thin gold chain with a diamond pendant the size of a nickel rested inside. Confused, Allyn looked up at Jaxon.

“Pull it out,” Jaxon said.

Allyn held the thin necklace in front of his face. The gold chain was tangled in several complicated knots. “What do you want me to do with this?”

“Untangle it.”

Allyn looked at the necklace in disbelief. “This is ridiculous. My sister has been kidnapped, and you promised to help me. Instead, you have me sitting in the rain, freezing my ass off, trying to untangle a necklace. What’s the point?”

“Tell me how you feel.”

“How I feel? I’m fucking pissed.”

“Are you cold?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Are you cold?” Jaxon repeated.

“I don’t know. Not anymore.”

“Then you understand.”

Allyn shook his head. “Understand what?”

“That it’s possible to control your body.”

“I didn’t control it. I ignored it.”

“What’s the difference? They both require a conscious decision. Both are a testament of will. You chose to ignore it, which means your task was more important than your body’s impulses. That’s control of a sort, and it’s a start.” Jaxon took a seat in one of the tree chairs behind him and threw his legs up. “I still want you to untangle that necklace, and anytime you get too cold or your hands go numb or you can’t stop shivering, I want to you to remember this. Control is a state of mind.”

Without argument, Allyn set to untangling the necklace. It was tedious work made more difficult by the weather. At first, Allyn’s limbs burned. His pale bare skin turned an irritated red under the rain and harsh wind. White splotches soon replaced the redness, and shortly thereafter, he lost all feeling in his fingertips. They were completely numb. He locked his jaw to prevent his teeth from chattering.

At the end of the first hour, he’d made little progress, and it was hard not to feel discouraged. The center was still wound together in an intricate knot, but Allyn thought there was more chain on each side.
It’s like a Rubik’s Cube. It will look worse before it looks better.

Allyn saw marked improvement over the next hour. The knot was noticeably smaller and looser. The rain had let up, and the constant wind had become little more than erratic gusts. The sun even escaped the prison of overcast skies from time to time. It seemed the true winter rain hadn’t begun.

Allyn rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. He probably
would
get sick, but his attention was elsewhere. He pulled the end of the chain back through a loop and then pulled tightly on each end. The chain twisted around itself and fell free, letting the diamond pendant dangle back and forth. Blinking in surprise, Allyn looked at the necklace. He’d done it. He turned to tell Jaxon, but the chairs were empty. Jaxon was gone.
Probably inside, where it’s warm,
Allyn thought, frustrated. He wiped his forehead with the front of his shirt, and maybe he had a fever, but he wasn’t cold anymore.

Jaxon was in the dining room when Allyn found him. He’d changed into dry clothes—so he wasn’t as tough as he pretended to be—and was eating a steaming bowl of soup at a table that could seat close to twenty. The room was elegant, with forest-green walls above warm, dark wainscoting. An impressive silver chandelier hung above the center of the table with smaller sister chandeliers on both sides. Tossing the necklace onto the table, Allyn took a seat beside Jaxon.

“What did you learn?” Jaxon asked.

“That you’re not against leaving me to freeze to death.”

Jaxon snorted. “We haven’t even had our first frost. You had nothing to worry about, except battling discomfort. You people are soft and pampered. It’s no wonder you’re so weak.”

“I succeeded.” Allyn gestured toward the necklace. “Despite my
weakness
.”

“The necklace wasn’t the point. It was only a tool. The lesson was to learn to control your body, that your mind has power over it. You were supposed to learn that when given a task that requires deep focus, your mind could ignore the body’s impulses. In this instance, resisting the cold.”

“I was only distracted.”

“No. You blocked everything out that wasn’t a part of the task at hand. In order to wield, you need to focus on the power within and ignore the rest. With practice, you will learn to focus with precision and direct it wherever you need it, even in multiple directions at once. Still, I must say, I didn’t expect you to finish.”

“Why not?” Allyn asked. “I want to learn.”

Jaxon shrugged.

“You thought I’d quit, didn’t you?” A sense of pride swelled within Allyn. All he’d done was untangle a stupid necklace, but he found joy in proving people wrong. “I don’t know what I’ve done to make you think I’m worthless or that I give up when things grow difficult, but let me assure you, I don’t quit. And I
will
prove you wrong.”

Jaxon eyed Allyn for a moment and then nodded. “Good. Then meet me in the clearing again tomorrow at dawn, and we’ll begin again.”

Chapter 9

“W
hat’s it like outside?” Liam asked, peeking over the monitor.

“Cold and wet.” Allyn sat across from the boy working on his own computer. Liam had jumped on Allyn’s offer to help digitize the library’s archives and had lent him his spare computer. It was a battered and bruised relic, but it had a word processor and, after Liam’s personal modifications, was able to join the manor’s network—another of Liam’s growing list of technical accomplishments.

“No, I mean
outside
. What’s it like where you live?”

“Well,” Allyn said, stalling to find an answer, “it’s noisier.”

“Noisier?”

Allyn leaned back in his chair. Liam, it seemed, was more interested in asking questions than working, and Allyn was fine with that. They were sitting in the center of the library, working across the table from each other, each transcribing a separate book. It reminded him of studying in his college library, though fewer people came here. Except for Nyla sitting in the back of the library, working on her own research, they were alone. He hadn’t seen her since he and Graeme had encountered her in the library on his first day, but she still made him nervous.

“Yeah, you know how it is,” Allyn said. “It’s a lot busier than your little secluded area in the woods.”

Liam’s face flushed, and he looked away.

“Wait, have you ever been outside before? Have you ever left the manor?”

“Of course,” Liam said, a little too quickly. “Noisy. Busy. I know what you mean.”

“Come on, Liam. You’re the only one I feel is completely honest with me around here. It’s okay if you haven’t left the manor. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“I’ve left before. I’ve just never been to the city.”

“Well, like I said, it’s busier. There’s so much going on, you’ll never be able to see it all, with enough people that you’ll never be able to meet them all. Which is funny, because compared to other major cities, Portland is actually pretty small.”

“Sounds exciting.”

Allyn laughed. “It’s not some magical fairyland or anything. It’s just the way things are. It’s actually a little boring.”

“How can it be boring with so much going on?” Liam stood and took the book he’d just finished back to the shelf.

Damn, he’s fast
. Allyn wasn’t even halfway through his own book. And his was shorter.

Liam grabbed the next book on the shelf and brought it back to the table.

“It’s like life here,” Allyn said. “I look around, and to me, it seems like a lot is happening, but to you, it’s normal. It’s like that for me, too. My average day starts at four thirty in the morning, and I’m at work by five or five thirty and usually work until at least eight at night. I do that seven days a week. It didn’t leave a lot of time for excitement.”

“That’s like one hundred hours a week!”

“Sometimes more.”

“Does everyone work like that?”

“No. I was trying to stand out to impress my boss and get promoted. A lot of good it did me, too. I’m an assistant librarian now.” Allyn smiled, hiding the bitterness.

“Thanks for the help, by the way. It’s nice to have someone talk to.” Liam nodded over Allyn’s shoulder.

Nyla was sitting at a desk, scribbling something in her notebook. Her white hair was frazzled and tied into a knot on top of her head. In the three days since Allyn had offered to help Liam, Nyla had been in the library, too. She hadn’t said anything to either of them—though Allyn often heard her muttering to herself.

“What’s she working on?” Allyn whispered.

“I don’t know for sure, but I think it has to do with the way Baylis was found.”

“Her husband?”

“No, but something was going on between them. I think they were…”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

He’s hiding something
. “What happened to him?”

“To Baylis?” Liam asked. “They found him
dry
.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’re training with Jaxon, right?”

“If you can call it that. Today, he had me separating a bucket of gravel into different groups organized by color, keeping count of how many were in each bucket—all while sitting in front of the fire, wrapped in a blanket. Each time I lost count, he moved me closer to the fire.”

Liam laughed. “Mental exercises. Sometimes, I think he finds joy in thinking up new cruel mental games. Has he told you where a magi’s power comes from?”

Allyn patted his chest. “Within.”

“I mean the actual fire, water, or air.”

“No.”

“Well, it does come from within, but probably not how you expect. Take water, for example. Have you ever heard the term
water weight
?”

Allyn nodded.

“Okay, well, a normal person has about thirteen gallons of water inside their body, so when a magi wields water, they’re actually pulling it out of their bodies. They’re not creating it or pulling it out of thin air or anything. It’s
their
water. Obviously, our bodies need that water, so we can’t pull too much out, or we’ll die of dehydration. That’s why most magi turn it into ice. Since water expands when it’s frozen, they don’t have to use as much. Plus, it’s more lethal that way, but that’s a different point.

“But the same goes for fire and air, too, though fire is a little more difficult to understand. Whatever a magi wields, it comes directly out of their body. Baylis was found
dry
. He had
nothing
left in him. No water, no air, no heat. Someone had pulled it out of him.”

“How is that possible?” Allyn asked.

“It’s not supposed to be. A magi can only wield from their own body. Even a cleric uses their own body’s strength and wellness to heal.”

Allyn shifted uncomfortably. Nyla was sitting behind them and could likely hear what they were saying—if she was listening. “Graeme said I was healed. Doesn’t that mean a cleric pulled the pain and injuries out of me?”

“No. A cleric doesn’t
pull
it from you. They just replace it with their own health. Think of it this way. If you have a cut on your arm, a cleric bandages it with their skin. Your wound will heal, but the same wound will appear on their arm, and they don’t have anyone to heal them. They have to heal the natural way. What happened to Baylis shouldn’t be possible.”

Allyn watched Nyla scribble in her notebook, oblivious to their conversation. He understood her tenacity. She hadn’t lost a friend. She’d lost someone deeply important to her—a piece of herself. “No wonder she hates me.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s the one who healed me,” Allyn said. “She lost Baylis, and then I gave her my pain, too.”

Jaxon came for Liam a short time later. Liam never talked about his training, but Allyn assumed it was pretty advanced. Graeme was a grand mage, so like the ability, his proficiency was probably in his blood. If his computer ability was any indication, Liam would be a force to be reckoned with. Liam’s departure left Allyn alone with Nyla, but she was in her own world, somewhere far removed from Allyn or anyone else.

Allyn watched her from across the room. She pored over several open books that surrounded her in a semicircle. Scribbling furiously in her notebook, she quietly muttered to herself. He didn’t know if she was reading aloud or talking to herself, though neither would have surprised him.

She looked up from her notebook and in Allyn’s direction. He threw his head down, feigning concentration on the computer screen in front of him. He’d been finished for some time, but didn’t know what to do next since Liam usually chose his projects. When he built up the courage to look in Nyla’s direction, she was back to work.

Without knowing what else to do, Allyn returned the book to the shelf. It wasn’t a book so much as a journal recounting a magi family’s struggle to hide after the Fracture. It ended abruptly, leaving Allyn with a pit in his stomach. He hoped the family had fled and left behind their nonessential belongings, including the book, but something told him that was unlikely. He selected the next book, but it was written in a language using an alphabet he didn’t recognize. Frowning, he put the book back but made a mental note so he could tell Liam where he’d left off.

Behind him, Nyla rose to her feet, gathering the books on the table into a stack in her arms. She grabbed the ladder awkwardly with her free hand, using her chin to hold the books against her chest, and pulled the ladder into position. She was halfway up when the books fell. Allyn winced. It was like watching an elderly man fall and knowing something would be damaged. Liam had instilled in him a respect for the text. To respect the text was to respect the author and the life they lived—their struggle, glory and all. In most cases, the texts were the only remaining history of the author’s life, and that deserved a gentle hand and honored treatment.

Before he knew what he was doing, he was across the room, helping Nyla scoop up the books. Thankfully, there wasn’t any serious damage. “Do you need some help? I could hand them to you.”

“I’ve got it,” Nyla said.

“Let me help. You obviously have your hands full. I don’t want to see these books get ruined before we’ve had a chance to transcribe them. For Liam’s sake.”

“Fine. That one first.” She pointed at the bottom book. It was thin, probably a collection of papers that had been bound together at a later date. Allyn handed it to her after she rose to position.

“Where to next?” He grabbed the ladder. She pointed to the far end of the room. “Hold on.”

Book by book, Allyn and Nyla returned the books to their rightful places.

“Thank you,” Nyla said when they were done.

“You’re welcome. I’m in here almost every day. If you ever need help—”

“You can’t help me.”

“Of course not.”

“No. You can’t help me because I don’t know what I’m looking for.”

“You’re right. I wouldn’t be much help then, would I? But if something changes and you could use an extra pair of eyes, let me know. I’m good at doing research. It’s something I do every day at work.”