Sael poured the pale liquid from the glass bottle he'd picked up on his way back home, watching it swirl into the ceramic cup with satisfying thickness. The consistency looked right, at least; somewhere between milk and cream, coating the sides of the cup as it settled.

  Strange, calling this place home again. It had been a while.

  He reached for the small jar of honey next, letting a thick golden stream spiral into the cup, then added ground ginger from another container. The spice's sharp, warm scent cut through the sweetness immediately.

  He lifted the cup and took a cautious sip, half-bracing himself for disappointment. Too sweet, probably. Most things here were too sweet compared to what he remembered, merchants convinced that more sugar meant better flavor.

  But no. The taste spread across his tongue with exactly the right balance: rich and smooth, faintly nutty, with the honey's sweetness mellowed by the ginger's bite, neither one overwhelming the other.

  His mother used to make this for him.

  Well, not exactly this. She'd used something other than cow milk, since there were no cows in Hel. The base had come from a beast called a vrakken; something like a goat crossed with a deer, with milk that ran naturally thick and had an almost buttery quality to it. She'd blend it with ground silverroot, a pale tuber that grew in Hel's cold valleys and added that characteristic nuttiness, along with nightflower honey that had a deeper, more complex sweetness than what bees here produced, and fresh fire-ginger, which grew hot enough to make your eyes water if you weren't careful with it.

  He couldn't find silverroot, nightflower honey, or fire-ginger here. They simply didn't exist outside Hel's particular climate and soil composition. So he'd substituted: cow's milk for the base, ground almonds for the silverroot, regular honey from regular bees, and the common ginger that grew in warmer regions of this realm.

  His mother had made this for him as comfort food. When he'd been small and upset about something—though he couldn't remember now what those somethings had been—she'd blend the ingredients by hand, working them together until they were perfectly smooth, then serve it to him in a cup warmed by magic.

  Sael raised one hand, fingers moving in a small circular motion.

  The liquid in his cup began to spin, responding to his telekinetic nudge. Faster, forming a tiny whirlpool that climbed the sides of the container, blending everything together more thoroughly than any spoon could manage. The honey dissolved completely, the ginger distributed evenly, the whole mixture turning silky-smooth. He held it for a few seconds, then let it settle.

  He took another sip.

  Close. Very close. But something was still missing, some element that didn't quite align with the memory.

  Sael tilted his head, considering. Then he reached for the small jar of salt he put on the counter, pinched a few grains between his fingers, and dropped them into the cup.

  Another telekinetic swirl to mix it through.

  He tasted it again.

  "Hmm."

  This was a hmm of satisfaction. It wasn't perfect—maybe ninety percent accurate—but near enough that the memory felt real instead of like something he was grasping at through fog.

  He set the cup down and retrieved two more from the shelf, then lifted the bottle again. Milk, honey, almonds, ginger, a whisper of salt. He measured them out by eye—or rather, by memory—replicating the proportions he'd just perfected. All three cups floated off the counter without him touching them, spinning gently as their contents blended, then drifted through the air ahead of him as he walked toward the door.

  The evening light hit his face when he stepped outside, softer now, the sun beginning its descent.

  Orion sat on the grass a short distance from the house, legs crossed, Eirwyn resting against his shoulder. His head was bowed slightly, clearly replaying events behind his closed eyelids and running through every decision while watching each one curdle in hindsight. His hands rested on his knees, but his thumbs were moving, tracing small circles against his kneecaps in an absent, repetitive motion.

  Oz stood a few feet away, perfectly still, staring at the sunset. The chicken didn't turn when Sael emerged, too absorbed in whatever communion he was having with the fading light.

  Sael walked over, the three cups floating along at shoulder height.

  "I hope you're thirsty."

  Orion's head lifted. His eyes went to the floating cups first, then to Sael's face.

  Sael gestured with his chin, and the cups drifted forward. One descended smoothly into Orion's hands. Another floated down in front of Oz, settling onto the grass with barely a wobble. The third came to rest in Sael's palm as he lowered himself onto the grass beside his apprentice.

  "It's called vel'shira," Sael said. "It's for when you're sad. It really h—"

  He stopped and reconsidered.

  "Just try it."

  "Thank you, Master..."

  Orion lifted the cup to his lips and took a careful sip.

  Sael watched him. The way the boy's throat moved as he swallowed, and how his expression shifted... did he like it? Perhaps more honey would have been a good idea, maybe the ginger was too overwhelming for him?

  The silence stretched as Sael's overthinking made him realize that he was sitting there waiting for a verdict on a drink his mother had given him when he was small and probably couldn't even taste properly anymore because his palate had been a child's palate and now it wasn't, and what if it was actually terrible and he'd just served something terrible to the boy...

  "...So?" The word came out more tense than he'd intended.

  Orion swallowed, then looked up at him. "It's very good."

  The boy didn't sound like he was just being polite which made relief hit Sael harder than it should have. He exhaled through his nose, some knot in his chest loosening.

  "What about you, Oz?"

  He turned and found that Oz had already finished. The chicken stood with his head just emerging from the cup, beak still wet with pale residue, looking extraordinarily pleased with himself.

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  Sael stared.

  Oz ruffled his feathers and announced: "It's acceptable."

  "I'm glad."

  They sat in silence for a while after that. Sael drank his own cup slowly, savoring it, watching the sky deepen from gold to amber. Beside him, Orion held his with both hands but barely drank. He'd take a sip, then go still, his eyes fixing on some middle distance that had nothing to do with the sunset.

  His thumb had started tracing circles on the cup's surface now. The same absent motion from before, transferred to a new object.

  Sael waited as the sky had shifted to a deeper amber when Orion finally spoke.

  "I'm sorry."

  He didn't look at Sael.

  "...For today, I mean. I shouldn't have let myself get provoked. It was..." He paused, searching. "I was reckless."

  Sael took a sip from his cup and let the silence sit for just a moment—not too long, not enough to make the boy think he was being weighed.

  "Hmm. You were."

  Orion flinched. Barely—just a tightening around his eyes—but it was there.

  "But you don't need to carry it around like a stone in your chest," Sael continued, keeping his voice even. "You made a mistake. You know it was a mistake. Turning it over and over in your head won't unmake it. What matters now is what you do next."

  Orion was quiet. His fingers had gone still on the cup.

  "You've been composing that apology since we left the field, haven't you?"

  There was a pause at that. Then, very quietly: "...Since the market."

  Sael huffed a breath that was almost a laugh. "I now see why you were staring at a jar of honey like it had personally wronged you and I could practically hear you rehearsing."

  Orion's mouth twitched. Not quite a smile, but adjacent to one.

  "I should tell you something," Sael said, shifting his weight so he was leaning back on one hand, the posture deliberately relaxed. "You must have noticed by now that I'm not... particularly good at this. Talking." He gestured vaguely with the cup. "The whole—mentor gives a wise speech and the student feels better—thing. I have the emotional articulation of a stone wall most days. I'm aware of this."

  This time it was a smile. Small, brief, and almost involuntary, flickering across Orion's face before the weight settled back over it. Was his social inaptitude a funny subject? Hmm, maybe a subject to ponder later.

  "So rather than me fumbling through some profound lesson about mistakes and growth," Sael said, "how about something more practical?"

  Orion looked at him.

  "Training," Sael said. "Proper, structured training. Starting tomorrow. Four hours a day, every day, mornings."

  The boy's posture changed. It was subtle—a slight lift in the shoulders, a loosening in the jaw—but it was the first genuine shift Sael had seen since the field.

  "Four hours a day?" Orion repeated.

  "Four to start. We'll adjust as needed as we approach the tournament."

  There was a beat, a fraction of a second where something crossed Orion's face. His gaze dropped to his cup and stayed there, and his breathing changed and his grip on the ceramic tightened, knuckles briefly whitening, before he consciously loosened it and brought the cup to his lips for a sip that lasted a beat too long.

  He didn't say anything.

  Sael could see why. The way the reality of what lay ahead—the tournament, the arena, everything wagered and waiting—kept crashing over the boy in waves now that the adrenaline had drained and left nothing behind to cushion it. Each time Orion steadied himself, another wave came. Each time he smoothed his expression, his hands betrayed him.

  Sael could have said I see that you're afraid and left it hanging in the air between them. But he'd either fumble the words into something clumsy and useless, or worse, adequate, and it still wouldn't matter. Orion didn't strike him as someone who steadied himself through consolation, but through having something concrete to do with his hands and his hours. Which, frankly, Sael appreciated.

  "The training ties into something else," Sael said instead. "Eirwyn."

  Orion glanced over his shoulder at the staff, almost reflexively. She now rested against his back.

  "She's not cooperating with you fully," Sael said. It wasn't a question.

  "...No." Orion's voice was steadier now, back on familiar ground. "She responds, but... reluctantly. Like she's doing the minimum."

  "Because she doesn't respect you yet."

  The words were blunt, but Sael's tone wasn't cruel.

  "Staves like Eirwyn aren't tools. They're closer to companions. They choose who they work with, and Eirwyn hasn't fully chosen you. She's tolerating you. There's a difference."

  Orion looked down at his cup. "How do I change that?"

  "You earn it, I suppose." Sael set his empty cup down on the grass beside him, it was a pretty successful vel'shira, all things considered. He'd make some for Margaret, too, he decided. "And the way you earn it is by showing her you're worth the effort she'd be putting in. Your core is deficient. I know this, you know this, and Eirwyn certainly knows this. Circulating mana with a core like yours is hard. Most people would call it impractical."

  He turned to look at Orion directly. "But hard is not the same thing as impossible. And I think Eirwyn knows the difference. What she wants to see is whether you know it too. Right now she sees a mage who can barely push mana through his own pathways, and she has no reason to believe that's going to change. Give her a reason."

  Orion seemed to be listening.

  "So that's where we start," Sael said. "Mana circulation. The fundamentals. I know you've tried before, everyone with a deficient core tries, and most hit the same wall. But I can help you past it. There's a technique for jumpstarting the flow. A push from the outside, to get the current moving until your core learns to sustain it on its own."

  "You can do that?"

  "I've done it before. Different circumstances, but the same principle." Sael paused, then added: "I won't lie to you; it's not pleasant. Your pathways aren't used to carrying sustained flow, so the first few sessions will feel like stretching a muscle you didn't know you had. Painful, but productive."

  Orion nodded.

  "W-when do we start?"

  "How about now?"

  Orion looked at him. "Now?"

  "Yes."

  "Like, now now?"

  "That's an odd way to emphasize it, but yes. Now now."

  Orion looked down at the half-finished vel'shira in his hands, then back up at Sael, as if checking whether this was some kind of test. Sael held out his hand for the cup and the boy gave it to him.

  "Here's what's going to happen," Sael said, placing both cups aside. "I'm going to push your mana. Force it into circulation from the outside and get the current moving through your pathways. That's the hard part, and I'll be the one doing it. Once the flow is established, your job is to sustain it. Keep it moving for as long as you can, and when you lose it, I'll push again. We do this over and over, session after session, until your core adapts to the rhythm and learns to initiate the flow on its own."

  "How long does that take?"

  "Depends on the person. Depends on the core." Sael shifted to face him fully. "Sit up straight. Hands on your knees."

  Orion obeyed. His posture changed: shoulders squared, spine aligned, the fidgeting gone. Whatever else was churning through his head, his body knew how to listen to instruction.

  Sael placed his palm flat against the center of Orion's back, just below the shoulder blades. He could feel it immediately, the boy's mana sitting low and stagnant in his core, pooled there like water behind a dam that had no gate. His core didn't lack mana, not exactly. It lacked the mechanism to move it. The reservoir was there; the current simply wasn't. But with some practice, it would develop some capacity for it.

  "Breathe in," Sael said. "Slow."

  Orion inhaled as Sael pushed.

  It wasn't a physical push, though the hand on Orion's back served as a conduit. It was more like reaching into a still pond and dragging your hand through it, forcing the water to follow. Sael's mana pressed against Orion's, nudging it forward along pathways that hadn't correctly carried flow in possibly ever.

  Orion gasped sharply, his whole body going rigid under Sael's hand.

  "Breathe," Sael reminded him.

  "It—"

  "I know."

  The mana moved. Sluggish and resistant, fighting every inch of the pathway, but it moved. Sael could feel it creeping through the channels. Orion's breathing had gone ragged, each exhale carrying a faint tremor.

  "There," Sael said, easing his own pressure back by a fraction. "You feel that? The current?"

  Orion nodded tightly. His jaw was clenched, veins standing out along his neck.

  "Hold it. Keep it moving. Don't let it settle back."

  Sael pulled his hand away.

  For three seconds—maybe four—the flow held. Sael could sense it circulating on its own, wobbly and uneven but present, Orion's core sustaining what had been forced into motion through sheer desperate focus.

  Then it collapsed. The current died, the mana pooled, and Orion exhaled like he'd been punched in the sternum.

  "Ow."

  "I know."

  "That's—" Orion pressed the heel of his hand against his chest, grimacing. "It feels like my veins are on fire."

  "Because they've never carried flow before. They'll adjust, and it'll become easier soon."

  Orion looked up at him, slightly pale, sweat beading at his temples despite the cool evening air.

  "Again?" he asked.

  Sael almost smiled. "Again."

  He placed his hand on the boy's back.

  Some distance away, Oz observed Orion seize up a second time.

  "Tsk."

  The chicken turned, towards the wooden steps of the house, and disappeared inside.