Page 65 of Avelina

“Not at all. You waited much longer than I would have. And now you need to break up with him because I saw him first. It’s really not fair.”

“Sorry, Roogy, but I can’t do that. I’m planning to drag him kicking and screaming back to my castle. I’ll just have to pay you a wergild or something.”

Ward smiled at my use of his nickname, and I relaxed, relieved that he wasn’t mad at me. We were still friends. We’d be okay. “What’s he doing now?” I asked.

“He went outside. Not sure why. It looks like it might rain.” Ward’s eyes still bounced around the room.

“She’s gone,” I said.

“Who?”

“Spirit. She disappeared for some reason. It was kind of weird, actually.”

“Oh,” he said, visibly relaxing. He didn’t ask any follow-up questions about the weirdness with Spirit. As Rogue, he’d always perked up when he saw Spirit, but I guess the whole ghost thing disturbed him. He opened his granola bar and took a bite. The snack was dainty between his thumb and long, thin fingers.

“So, Ward, I was wondering if you would tutor me,” I said.

“What do you mean?” he asked, stuffing the rest of the granola bar in his mouth.

“I mean, as a human, it appears that you might be kind of a nerd, and you are the only one in this house who finished fragment school,” I said. Ward smiled at that. “I need to know what you know,” I continued. “I am going to have to face Seleca again. Maybe soon. And I need to prepare.”

“It’s not fragment school,” Ward said. “It’s the School of Noble Arts, or SONA, and they teach everything there, not just fragment theory. What do you want to know?” he asked.

“First, I need you to teach me everything you know about Protection, Absorption, and Connection. I need to learn how to pull up a shield faster. Preferably instantaneously. I need to practice absorbing, and I need to know what things transmit Connection. I know I can connect through dirt, but wood doesn’t work.”

“Okay,” he said. “I can tell you what I know from theory, but I’m not sure it will help you with the shield. That just requires practice. Fragmentation is like a sport. Just because you have the equipment doesn’t mean you’ll be any good at it.”

“Oh, so it’s like sex too,” I said.

He snorted. “I guess. Anyway, it took me years to fully shift into Rogue. Transforming yourself is much harder than transforming an object. And it’s painful too. At first, I could barely make any fur grow. My skin would burn like crazy. I learned how to suppress that and got the fur coat down, then I moved on to reshaping my arms and legs. Believe me, I looked like a crazy mutant for at least two years before I even remotely resembled a dog. Luckily, I already had the amber eyes.”

“Why? Can’t you transform your eyes?” I asked.

“You can, but if you don’t have Protection, which most transformers don’t, it’s dangerous. If you have Protection, that fragment easily transforms you back to your original self. Otherwise, you have to use Transformation to not only change into something but also to change back. That requires you to visualize and intimately understand the desired form. If you transform your eyes and don’t do it correctly, you could end up blind, perhaps permanently. I foolishly tried it once, and never got my eyes back to normal. I still see in the dark, but everything is blurry.”

“Maybe you need glasses,” I said. “My nerd hypothesis is gaining more and more traction.”

Ward ignored the remark. “The same principle applies with the organs, especially the brain. Transforming the brain is nearly impossible anyway, but if you managed to do it, you could easily make yourself too stupid to change back. The heart is also very delicate. When I changed into Rogue, I changed the outer shape, the bones, the shape of my face, and the amount of hair on my skin. My eyes, brain, and organs were all essentially the same, just shifted into different positions. Fitting my brain into that dog skull was the hardest part. It took me three years to figure it out.”

“And when you finally did, your reward was imprisonment.”

“Yes,” he said, “but it was minimum security, and the guards were really nice. They fed me french fries and rubbed my belly.”

I smiled. “Oh, it doesn’t sound so bad when you put it like that.”

“It was hard at first,” he said, “but I got used to it. Then I liked it. It was less painful than being at SONA.”

“So, just practice, that’s all I can do?”

“Practice and read. I recognize a few standard textbooks on the bookshelf. I suggest you start with those. Read as much as you can, and practice as much as you can. I can sit with you and try to answer questions. I can’t help you practice Absorption, but you can practice that with Aaron. It will be easier with him, anyway, because you’ve already done it.”

“I have? When?”

“When you made the shield, it seemed like Aaron supported you. Did you see a red-orange color added to your shield?”

“Yes. You couldn’t see the colors?” I asked.

“No, you can’t see those from outside the shield. It just makes you appear a little distorted, like looking through heated air. I would love to see it, though,” he said wistfully.

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