Cassian didn't look up when I entered.
I stopped three paces from the desk and waited while he finished reading. The room smelled faintly of ink and heated stone. Morning light reached the carpet, but none of it seemed to warm the place where I stood.
My father in this world had the same eyes I saw in the mirror. They looked worse on him.
Dark hair, drawn neatly away from his face. A plain coat that probably cost more than everything I had owned on Earth. Nothing about him suggested he had hurried to keep this appointment.
The steward shut the door behind me. I heard the latch settle and kept my hands at my sides.
"You have been restricting your output," Cassian said.
"Yes."
He turned a page.
"Deliberately."
My own description, returned through someone else's mouth.
"To keep the release even."
He looked up at last.
I had expected pressure in his gaze. Something supernatural I could blame for wanting to look away. His eyes simply stayed on me while I tried not to move.
"Your guard failed against a light practice strike."
"I watched the contact point and moved too late."
"You could have answered that more briefly."
"Yes."
The silence afterward made it difficult to tell whether I had improved.
He closed the report and indicated a narrow table beside the desk.
A pale stone sat in a metal frame. Four shallow channels ran from its center to the edges, with a smaller dark plate fitted at one end. I recognized the general arrangement from the primer. A simple circuit, built to carry a flow between two points.
The fittings were much better than the ones in the practice room.
That did not seem like an advantage.
"Right hand."
I put my palm on the dark plate. He watched the fingers settle. The old burn was visible until I turned the hand down. My left shoulder had started aching again, but nobody had asked about that one.
Cassian placed two fingers on the opposite end of the frame.
Cold pressed beneath my ribs. I hadn't drawn on my core yet.
My breath caught, and the pressure sharpened.
"Circulate."
I started too quickly. The familiar path tightened halfway across my chest. Cold gathered against it instead of moving through, and pain spread toward my back.
I wanted to pull my hand off the plate.
Cassian watched the pale lines without changing his expression.
If I lifted my hand now, he would see an unstable core that couldn't answer even a limited examination.
If I kept forcing the flow, he would see the same thing after I fell over.
I let out the breath I had been holding, slowly.
The pressure remained. I couldn't stop what he supplied. I could stop adding more of my own Aether against it.
I reduced the flow until it was almost nothing.
The pain narrowed from my whole chest to a point beneath the left ribs.
"Again," he said.
I followed the leftward path.
Cold slid past the catch. It reached my elbow, then my wrist. One of the pale lines on the table darkened close to my hand.
Only one.
My father looked at it for longer than I liked.
"That is your recovery?"
I had prepared an answer. Several, in fact. With his fingers resting on the circuit, I could remember the meaning of them better than the words.
"The flow is cleaner. It doesn't last."
He increased the pressure.
The darkened line broke in two places.
My fingers curled against the plate. Heat struck the base of my palm, and the damaged path inside me seemed to pull tighter with every breath.
I stopped trying to extend the line.
Hold what I had. Keep it moving. Don't seal the path while pushing from the core.
The mistake from my first release was still clear enough to help.
I loosened my fingers one at a time. Something hot touched the corner of my mouth. I realized I had bitten the inside of my cheek.
Cassian lifted one finger.
The pressure eased, though not enough to make standing comfortable.
"You changed the approach."
"The other path catches sooner."
"I asked about the flow."
"I stopped feeding more into it."
His gaze moved from the circuit to my face.
"At the first resistance."
It sounded like an accusation.
I wanted to explain that I had waited until the second resistance, that my hand was burning, that trying harder was exactly how I had injured myself before.
He didn't need the entire morning described back to him.
"Before it became a blockage," I said.
Cassian removed his hand.
Relief came so suddenly I nearly leaned over the table.
I locked my knees, caught myself, then loosened them before that became another mistake.
"Take your hand away."
I lifted it. A faint mark remained on the dark plate where my palm had rested. Sweat, mostly. A small line of red near the edge belonged to me.
The skin under my fingers had split along the old burn.
I kept the hand open.
He examined it without touching me.
"Still poor."
I couldn't tell whether he meant the hand, the output, or the entire son. Probably all three.
He stepped back to the desk and opened a shallow drawer. I watched despite knowing I should keep my eyes on his face.
A thin metal instrument lay inside, beside a case of sealed stones. I didn't recognize its function. It looked precise, expensive, and completely unsuited to a conversation I wanted to continue.
Cassian took out a small crystal mount.
The instrument stayed in the drawer. I made myself breathe again.
He set the mount on the testing table and turned its base. A dull film formed between two short metal arms.
"The contact release."
Now.
After the pressure. After the hand had started bleeding. After almost every useful condition in my rehearsal had been removed.
I looked at the film.
The center was opaque. Along the edges, it thinned into the arms that maintained it. A small pulse traveled downward on the right and returned through the base.
Different from the practice disc. Same need to return somewhere.
I didn't know whether the join was weak enough for me to use. I didn't know how much more his fixture could supply after I interrupted the first thread.
Putting my hand in the middle and hoping would answer both questions badly.
I moved closer to the right arm.
"Not the face?" Cassian asked.
"The return."
"I see where you are standing."
My throat felt dry.
"The face would take more output."
He waited.
No correction. No permission either.
I studied the pulse once more. It reached the lower fitting and briefly narrowed before turning beneath the base.
There.
I could attempt that seam with a short release. If the fixture supplied more than I could interrupt, I needed to remove my hand rather than feed it until I broke.
The armsman's blade had taught me what happened when I stayed to admire the first half of a success.
I set my palm against the edge.
Firm resistance. The open skin stung at once.
I waited for the small pulse to pass the upper fitting.
One breath. Begin the flow.
The leftward path was harder to follow now. Pain caught where the pressure had pressed on the damage. I reduced the thread, let it move, and kept my shoulders from rising.
The pulse approached the base.
I released. Heat tore through my palm.
A dark crack crossed the film near the fitting. The right side folded inward, pulling the rest of the ward unevenly after it.
I took my hand away. The film collapsed.
For half a breath, the metal arms stood empty.
Then the base flickered and tried to feed the ward again.
Cassian turned the control off before it reformed.
I kept my right arm low. The fingers wanted to close. I let them bend slightly instead of forcing them straight and making the tremor worse.
He looked at the fixture, then at me.
"Brief."
"Yes."
"Show it again."
The words landed harder than the pressure had.
I could try. One more attempt. A little more force to get past the damaged path. Maybe the clean moment would repeat itself.
I had thought the same thing after almost every session.
I looked at the blood gathering beneath my middle finger.
If I failed while trying to prove I could continue, I would erase the only useful thing he had seen.
"The hand won't give you the same release."
His eyes stayed on mine.
"I didn't ask what it would give me."
I felt the room become very quiet around us.
I couldn't refuse him as if we were discussing a second helping at dinner. I needed him to consider the cost, and it had to be a cost he cared about.
"The next attempt will force the damaged path," I said. "You'll be measuring what breaks after the pressure test."
He took one step closer. I nearly stepped back.
"And what should I measure?"
"Whether the clean release returns after rest."
The answer had come from my notes. Now it sounded small in the space between us.
"You have become careful," he said.
I couldn't tell whether that observation was more dangerous than the request to repeat the release.
"Forcing it hasn't restored the strength."
"And caution has?"
"It let the flow reach my hand."
He glanced at the small fixture.
I wished I had stopped after the first answer. The words were true, but they sounded too much like an argument when spoken to a man who didn't need to win one before acting.
"The result is narrow," he said.
"Yes."
"Then don't make a virtue of the limit."
I lowered my eyes for a moment.
"Understood."
He wanted the weakness treated as temporary, something his heir would overcome rather than explain. I could give him that expectation without promising another release today.
Whether I could meet it later was a problem still waiting beyond the door.
Cassian looked down at my hand again.
I could hear a clock somewhere behind the desk. I counted three ticks before making myself stop.
He took the report from the closed folder and read the last few lines.
Contact achieved. Physical guard failed.
I knew exactly which words were there.
"Control without strength is insufficient," he said.
"Yes."
"Strength without control is waste."
I didn't answer. He wasn't asking me to complete the lesson.
He picked up his pen.
"The faculty will have enough opportunity to measure whether this improves. You will not make the family responsible for a public failure."
I held still.
That sounded like permission, but I wasn't going to turn it into permission myself.
He wrote beneath the report and closed the folder.
"The scheduled examination is concluded. No corrective procedure will be performed today. Continue the restricted practice and present yourself for departure clearance when called."
He finally looked away.
"You may leave."
I inclined my head and turned toward the door.
Walking took more attention than it should have. Three paces. Another two. Hand near the side seam so blood didn't fall onto the carpet.
I reached the door without touching anything for support.
The steward opened it from outside.
His gaze dropped to my hand. He moved aside without asking a question.
My attendant waited beyond the outer desk. He had a cloth ready before I reached him.
I took it.
No one tried to stop me. That was the first part I believed.
Back in my room, I sat on the bed because the chair was farther away. The attendant brought water and a clean dressing. I let him help with the coat, then told him to leave the tray.
Only after the door closed did I open the Ledger.
[ THE VILLAIN'S LEDGER - ENTRY ]
────────────────────────────────────
CREDIT
+ SLOT #02 DUKE'S FIRST TEST - CLEARED
+ NDI 0.0% TO 1.0%
DEBIT
- RIGHT HAND - BURN
- CORE STRAIN - RECOVERY REQUIRED
SLOTS CLEARED 1 / ACTIVE 0
OTHER OPEN 46 / TOTAL 47
VP 30
────────────────────────────────────
COMMENTARY: The house records recovery.
One. I read the cleared line twice.
The test had ended. The procedure that killed Cedric in that branch hadn't happened. My father still owned the house, controlled my departure, and expected more strength than I had.
But this particular door had opened again.
I closed the Ledger and lowered my hand into the water.
It hurt enough that I swore aloud.
Then I stayed on the bed until the bowl stopped shaking against my knees.