The air over the polished oak counter hummed with a thin, brassy deep ring that set the tea saucers shivering on their shelves. Tavi pressed his calloused right thumb into the center of the amber slate. Then, there was no violent explosion of light and no tearing agony in his muscles.
The cold gray stone under his thumb seemed to soften, warming to the heat of living blood. The thin, chiseled iron borders flared with a clean, golden incandescence that fully banished the green sulfur dusk of his childhood. Across the surface of the slate, the bone-ash letters dissolved, swirling into three nested rings of pale fire before settling into sharp, permanent characters:
A sudden wash of warmth, like hot clover tea sweetened with comb honey poured over frozen hands, sank through Tavi’s chest bone. It traveled down his ribs, into his spine, and up behind his eyes with an unrushed, gentle weight.
It didn’t grant him brute strength. It didn’t harden his skin into horn or turn his fingernails into claws. Instead, his visual senses settled into an austere, crystal-clear order.
The cluttered room resolved into distinct, prioritized tiers of movement and stillness. It a moment earlier had been an overwhelming blur of strange lamps, unfamiliar dockets, and shadows. He could parse the swing of the brass swinging weight against the flutter of the window drape without conscious effort. His mind mapped the twenty-eight waybill cubbies behind the desk, noting the spacing, the angles of the pigeon-holes, and the…
