East

East | Chapter 23

Chapter 23

DEEP BREATH IN. SWEET cedar, wood smoke, laundry detergent, stale furniture, dampness from yesterday's rains. I sniff a little more. No, not yesterday. It might rain again tonight.

"It's cold out," I murmur.

"Mhm..."

Unable to resist, I raise a single eyelid. Ash sits cross-legged across from me, his own eye shut. He looks relaxed. His posture is firm but not unyielding.

"Focus, East," he says, and I shut my eye guiltily. How does he do that?

"I'm trying," I say. "These things just come to me; the water speaks—"

"Tune it out," Ash says for the millionth time. "Push your mind back. Put everything in the background. Listen to my voice."

Slowly I fall into his soft, steady voice, until my mind is clear of everything except him.

Little by little, I empty, unwind, unravel, until I'm weightless, floating... "Open your eyes," Ash says.

I look at him. "Everything I'm telling you from here on," he says, "comes from my relationship with fire." Gold flames whoosh to life from his fingers, up his entire arm. "I don't know if it will work, but you can at least try to reapply some of our techniques."

I nod. Then he takes my hand and I forget how to breathe.

"I have a centre." He pulls my hand to the middle of his chest, puts my palm flat against... "My heart. That's where I imagine my fire starts from. I push it out towards my left hand..." The flames fly up his arms to gather at our joined hands, then roll over his left shoulder and down as per his words. "...and I use my fingers to send them where I wish them to go." He snaps his fingers—fire brushes my collar, circles my neck like a scarf, then dissipates.

"Callia said that touching someone else's fire is intimate," I hear myself saying.

"It can be." He releases my hand. "Try it." I grin at the slight flush to his cheeks.

I try to envision the water as having a core, some sort of starting point, at my heart; then I pull at it, let it stream down the back of my arms to gather at my fingertips...

Drip, drip. Drops of water splatter on the floor. I look down, raise my hands, and they're wet, as though I've just dipped them in the river. "Woah."

"Good," Ash says. "Try to do more with that. Make more water, form shapes."

I really do try, but all I keep getting are the same tiny droplets that refuse to seal themselves into anything. "It's not working," I say in frustration. I'm a bit breathless, sweaty.

"Pull," Ash insists. "Keep pulling. But don't force it; this should be easy, as natural as lifting a finger."

"It won't move! It keeps fighting me. I can't grab hold of it; it moves too quickly, it's—it's slippery," I say more loudly. "It's slippery." And then I burst into giggles. "Of course. It's water. I'm such an idiot. Oh, my God."

He covers his face with one palm. "Of course," Ash agrees with a puff. "You're right. All you have to do..."

"...is the opposite of what you say," I realize. I never had to imagine drawing the water from somewhere within me; Ash has to create fire using his air, his supernatural body heat, but there's water everywhere around me. "But the principle is the same, isn't it? What were you going to say?" I close my eyes.

"All you have to do is ask," Ash says.

I ask, and a whole chorus of voices responds, clamouring for attention. I can't help but grin widely as I sort through their timbres, their words...