Charlie nodded. Their footsteps squelched on.
“Control is what we will attempt, in our sessions together. Control is everything. Right now you have none. When you are hurt, your body repairs itself. That is all. But there is much more you can do, Mr. Ovid, many strange uses for a haelan’s gift. I understand you already know how to conceal objects in your flesh. But there are haelans who have removed parts of themselves—bones, even—when their use was needed. And other haelans whose control was so great, they could bend the dead tissue in their bodies, rather than simply repairing it; they could shape their bodies.”
“Shape their bodies?”
“It is called mortaling. You might even say it is the real talent, the purpose of the haelan’s art. They could elongate their arms or legs, they could squeeze their flesh to pass through impossibly small spaces. They could pick locks by pushing their fingers into the keyhole. That sort of thing. The pain must have been extraordinary. Learning to bear it is a significant part of our training here.” Her nostrils flared as she breathed in slowly. “As I said: an unusual talent.”
All this Charlie listened to with an increasing sense of dread. Miss Davenshaw with her eerie watchfulness, her gaze that could see without seeing. He was remembering, as if through a haze, the examination by Mrs. Harrogate, in London, in that first week at Nickel Street West. She had wanted him to do something like this, hadn’t she? He glanced back at the outbuildings, far behind them now, then he let his eyes drift around the empty field. Despite it all, he couldn’t help himself, he was intrigued.
“How do I do that? This … mortaling?”
“You? You do not.”
“But you just said—”
“You are not sufficiently trained, young man. I will show you. Come closer. Do not mind the feel of the wards, the glyphic will not harm you. He knows we are here, he knows our intentions. Now, here, where these two stones meet in the wall.” She took his hand and moved his fingers softly along the crack in the stones. “Here is a gap you could slide through. It seems impossible, hm? Nevertheless. The mortaling will move a body without a body’s moving. It will overflow your imagining.”
Charlie felt the gap. He shut his eyes. His entire body was thrumming with the energy of the glyphic’s wards. There was stillness; and all at once the silence was like a sound in his ears. Something was happening. He could feel his fingertips where they pressed up against the stones, seeking the space between, and he tried to envision that gap creeping open, a narrowness he might pour his fingers into. Nothing happened.
“I … can’t,” he said, breathing hard. “I just … can’t.” He felt, strangely, as if he’d disappointed her.
“Indeed, Mr. Ovid,” she said. “One thing at a time. If you are ready?”
“Right,” said Charlie, trying to keep the anger from his voice. “I’m ready.”
Miss Davenshaw gestured to a ring of stones, laid out in the red clay.
“Then let us begin,” she said.
* * *
The days passed.
Charlie was in the candlelit library one afternoon when Komako found him. He had taken to wearing his mother’s ring on a cord around his neck, in part because it wasn’t easy or painless cutting it out of his flesh. He was gripping it unhappily where he sat, brooding, on the wide sill of the window, when he heard the heavy brass pull of the door, twisting. Then he heard the click of Komako’s shoes on the inlaid parquet and slid the ring back inside his shirt.
“Ribs is looking for you,” she said, hesitant.
“What for?”
“Oh, not for anything.” A sly grin, just at the edges of her mouth. “I just think she can’t relax unless she knows where you are.”
Charlie frowned. If she was teasing, he couldn’t tell. She came forward a little and drew out a chair and sat, very close. He could smell the lye soap in her skin.
She was wearing the fingerless kidskin gloves again, protecting her sore hands. “How was your first lesson with Miss D? I hate to think what a haelan learns. Did she make you recite the five talents?” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Did she tell you about the sixth?”
“There is no sixth.”
Komako tugged at her thick braid. “Or is that just what they want us to think? Ask Ribs about it. Ribs has all sorts of theories about the sixth. The dark talent, she calls it. There’s a story the old-timers like to tell, about the dark talent bringing about the end times, and destroying all the other talents.…” She paused, shifting to see his face more clearly against the window. “Hey, Charlie. I’m just teasing. Are you all right?”