23 Nevrine

The good news: everyone with fire or mind-moving pouvrin can work their magic at a distance of 100 feet, which is from one side of the ballroom to the other. The bad news: we’re pretty sure everyone’s actual range is a good deal farther than that, and we can’t practice finding the real distance without dropping fire or stones on the heads of people in the lower city.

In order to have that kind of practice area, we’ll have to go outside the city—at least a mile outside the city. And transporting all of us is a logistical nightmare. We lose too much work time in transit. But I don’t dare suggest that we set up a camp outside the walls, out in the cold and snow (it’s been snowing heavily for two days, on and off), or I’d have a mutiny to deal with. So as frustrated as I am, I’ve had to accept the situation as it is.

So tomorrow morning there will be many, many carriages to drive us to our new practice grounds. All of us, including those who don’t have an offensive pouvra, and Relania’s group tried to pitch a fit about that until I said they would be learning new tactics that did not involve doing violence to anyone. I guess we’ll see tomorrow whether espionage falls under their rules about non-violence.

I wish there were three of me. I have two, maybe three mages who are almost capable of taking over the fire pouvra instruction, and when that happens I can focus on—well, it’s not exactly “focus on” if there are three things you’re splitting your attention between. I’m excited about teaching my pacifist mages thief skills, seeing if any of them take to it naturally. I was, after all, a thief before I was a mage, and I’m proud of those skills.