Andrei

"Boat, ball, or banana?" Riz's upbeat voice echoed off the stone walls.

Meanwhile, it was still morning and I hadn't fully awakened. Riz had insisted we claim the training hall early, shaking me awake before dawn. I hadn't had the desire or the motivation to tie my hair back, and that day I wore a pair of loose trousers and a linen tunic—far more practical than the robes I'd been feeling less and less comfortable in of late. I'd never noticed how irritating the fabric felt against my skin.

"How am I supposed to answer your question without knowing what the options mean?" I asked.

"You pick one and then you say it."

While I mused over boat, ball, or banana, Riz led me to what I estimated was the centre of the room. He then told me to wait while he proceeded to make a terrific amount of noise—loud, scraping against the stone floor. A sloshing sound—water, moving against… something. Boat, ball, or banana.

"Banana," I decided.

"Brave choice," Riz replied, joining me. He reached for my hand and turned it face-up before slapping a waxy, crescent-shaped object into my palm. Banana.

"Okay," he said. "Now peel it."

I was skeptical, but what did I know? I peeled the banana.

"Okay," Riz repeated. "Now eat it."

"What?" I asked. "Why?"

"Because you didn't have breakfast and you'll need the energy."

I'd been in too much of a hurry and had been feeling much too anxious to eat that morning, and while that hadn't changed, the fragrance was enticing. It was sweet, but sharp. The fruit hadn't fully ripened yet. I took a bite, chewing carefully.

"What would you have done if I'd have chosen boat or ball?" I asked.

"Who would choose boat or ball when banana's an option?"

I shrugged and Riz continued.

"Boat or ball?" he asked.

I frowned, chewing and swallowing another bite. "Boat."

The air shifted as my instructor stepped away, and there was that scraping sound again. And the occasional resounding ding. And the sloshing. Once he was finished, I was told to be seated.

"All right, Riz began, "let me start by giving you a quick breakdown. There's water, air, earth, fire, and other."

I was aware of the first four elements, of course, but, "Other?" I asked.

"Yeah, everything that isn't water, air, earth, fire, or water. Everything in between. Time, space—all of it. To go invisible, for example, you need to make nice with all five elements, but most importantly: other."

"Very well," I said.

"Right in front of you is a metal trough filled with water," Riz continued. "A small wooden boat floats on the surface. Make it move."

"Aren't you going to teach me how to make it move?"

"Oh, I won't be doing any teaching."

"Then why would you offer to teach me everything you know?"

"Because it sounded more enticing than offering to watch you teach yourself everything you know. Everyone's relationship with the elements is different. Personal. The only thing every Celestian Partisan has in common is that this is what we were born to do. It's intrinsic."

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"Is this what it's like for a beginner at Palisade, or is this your own take?"

"You're not an eight year old, Drei," Riz said. "Come on, make it move."

It was quiet in the training hall—three, four, five minutes in silence. Only, the longer I sat, and the longer I focused on that silence, the more I realized how noisy it actually was. My brows pressed inward as I concentrated—a distorted and hollow whoosh... whoosh... whoosh...

...and then, a soft whistling sound—distant, but not. A quiet, high-pitched ringing, and a deep, hollow thrum. I concentrated on the whoosh in hopes I could tune out the rest. Water—I could move the boat by asking the water. Or—I focused on the whistling instead. Air. I could ask the air and move the boat with a breeze. Which one? But why not both? I didn't think I was ready for both, but what harm? As long as it wasn't fire. With my course now decided, I isolated the whistling, took a deep breath through my nose, and exhaled softly through the hole between my lips. I asked the whoosh to join the chorus, coaxing the water toward me with both hands.

Finally, I broke my concentration to ask, "Did it move?"

"About a quarter of a banana."

Besides the banana, I had nothing against which to measure my success—or failure. I wasn't certain whether to be happy or disappointed with myself. I settled on neither.

"Oh," I said.

And suddenly, Riz smacked me on the knee. I sucked in a sharp breath, felt the drop in temperature around us, and there it was: crack, crack, crack, crack. I reached forward to find the edge of the trough, and I lowered my hand—slowly—until I felt the frozen surface against my skin.

"Sorry," I said.

"Yeah, you need to work on that," Riz replied. "But other than that? You're a natural. A quarter of a banana and no geysers or shipwrecks is the best you could hope for. Have you even been trying all these years?"

I shrugged. "Not really. I've been conditioned to treat my Celestian side as if it were a disease. Disassociating myself from it was the only way I felt I could move forward."

"Well—that makes sense," Riz said. "But seriously, I'm not surprised you had it in you. Your mom was a legend. I never met her, but yeah—phew. She was one of the few us who've been able to work with time."

"What do you mean?"

"The other isn't keen on doing favours for us as a general rule—especially time. Your mom, though? She knew how to make it listen."

I thought of Zacharias Vonsinfonie in the catacombs where we had awakened him from his slumber, and where it was like the world around us had stopped. Nothing but the melody.

"Are you saying my mother could control time?"

"That's what they say. People still talked about her back at Palisade when I was there. Quietly, granted. Oranen hates it."

"Can she control time?" I asked. "Councilwoman Oranen?"

"Fat chance." Riz scoffed. "Oranen's terrible—yeah, as a person, but she's a shitty elementalist, too."

"Sinclair told me she can turn invisible."

"Almost everyone can do one thing well, can't they? I think that's why she resented your mother so much. Not only was she less powerful, but Councilwoman Oranen only got that seat on the Assembly because your mother couldn't claim hers."

"Councilwoman Faust said they were cousins, so you mean—?"

"Your mother didn't have any sisters, so when she died, and then when her mother died—" A pause. "Do you really not know any of this?"

"No," I said. "Do you think Councilwoman Oranen had something to do with their deaths?"

"Directly? Nah, and I'll tell you why. But indirectly? Yeah, of course. And I doubt she lost sleep over it."

"Do you know how it happened? How they died? They say my parents were traitors, but I don't know why."

A long, heavy pause. "They were Consulates, right? Your parents."

The tone of the question was rhetorical but I nodded anyway.

"Well—they were killed on the job by Strachan Enforcers."

"Enforcers?" I asked. "Why?"

Another pause and a familiar, soft rustling sound—Riz was running his hands through his hair. "The Assembly caught wind that your parents were siphoning kids—or whatever—from Palisade. I don't know how. But for every few Partisans they picked up from the orphanages as Consulates and delivered back to Palisade, they sent an equal amount somewhere else. They were working with Rhydian Sinclair, so, I think you can imagine."

I could imagine. There was no mistaking what Riz was saying: my parents were killed for intercepting children destined for Palisade and bringing them to the lair instead. I wondered for how long my parents had gotten away with it, and how? And what would it have meant if the Assembly had never found out? Would my mother have been a double agent serving on the Council? If they had survived, would they have come to rescue me, too?

I recall the sensation of warmth, and the feeling as though my chest were expanding. I no longer felt ashamed of myself—of my origin. I felt proud.

"Thank you," I said. "For telling me."

Riz didn't have anything more to say on the subject, so he took my hand and patted it against the block of slippery ice in the trough.

"All right," he said, "now make it melt."

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