“You’re going to be a Russian coach, aren’t you?” Mrs. Mosley commented, heading for her spot all too slowly.
“Would you dare to talk to him like that if he was?” laughed Mr. Dorsey, going even slower.
“Sit down!” Joshua loudly commanded them both, and though they threw him dirty looks they got down. Mrs. Weller, thankfully, was already in place.
“Now,” he started, “in order to do magic, you have to find that ability within yourself. You use a word to release it, but much of the work is actually mental. I want you to raise your hands in front of your face, and link your fingers together. Now concentrate on them. Visualize them as powerful. Imagine them as releasing electricity from the tips. Believe that they can. Believe that they will.”
He waited three minutes, according to Mrs. Weller’s clock. All three of his students were staring down their fingers intently, as if expecting them to explode.
"Then place your right hands in front of you. Lay them on the floor. Now..." He was interrupted when suddenly Mrs. Weller's cellphone started playing that "Things Go Bump in the Night" song Joshua had heard it play a couple of times already. "Ignore that," he commanded.
Mrs. Weller hesitated, "I don't know just which of two woman I'd be keeping waiting..."
"You'll have to keep her waiting; your lives depend on learning this!"
She got the point, and focused back on her hand. A few moments later the phone quieted.
But then Mrs. Mosley had to ask, "Who was the other woman?"
"Michelle Kwan," said Mrs. Weller in a tiny voice.
The name meant absolutely nothing to Joshua, but both of the other two repeated it loudly and turned towards her, their concentration completely broken. "What?" added Mosley. "You need to call her back immediately!”
“She needs to do no such thing,” said Joshua loudly. “What she needs to do, what all three of you need to do, is learn how to defend yourselves and your students. Mrs. Weller, do I need to remind you what my old colleagues are capable of doing?” He raised his hand suggestively. Mrs. Weller meekly shook her head.
“Imagine you are pressing your hand down into a firm pillow. It feels like it’s trying to press back, but is giving way. Underneath the surface you can feel a presence, not solid, like the pillow it can give way, but it is heavy, so heavy, you can feel it protesting against your hand, but still you push. Everything else in the world, everything around you, forget about it, it doesn’t exist anymore. There is nothing in the world except your hand, and the presence it pushes against. Your hand is powerful. It is pushing against the strongest force in the entire universe and you are holding your own. It is time for you to know why.”
“Keep pushing, but let yourself be aware of your arm now. There is a current running through it, and that is what is pushing down on the heaviness. Can you feel it? It is like the electricity that came from your fingers, in fact, it is that same electricity, running down your arm. Can you feel it in the veins of your hands?”
“Let it rise. Let it fill you. And when the time it right, command it out.”
Joshua was very good at this kind of speaking, and he could see he had all three in his power. In the past this would have been his time to strike. For a moment he even contemplated doing so, to make sure they always took him as seriously as they needed to in the future. But it wasn’t worth the risk, not when he needed the three of them in order to have a chance of surviving against who they’d send after him.
“Out!” Dorsey yelled, way too soon. Then he looked confused, then reproachful. “Nothing happened.”
And of course, Mrs. Weller broke her concentration and looked anxious. At least Mrs. Mosley didn’t; Joshua wasn’t sure why she didn’t but he wasn’t about to worry about that.
“The time wasn’t right. You have to seriously focus in. You’ll know when the time is right, trust me.”
It was disappointing, but hardly surprising, when they all started having failed attempts. It was another hour after that, each yelling commands at various intervals, and looking disappointed, then suspicious. Joshua started to worry. He took to releasing some sparks from his hands every twenty minutes or so, to keep them from losing faith.
Finally, at 10:39, Mrs. Mosley suddenly stammered, “Ou-out!” and then reeled back as grey light flew from her hands and eyes. Joshua hastily closed his hands together to contain her.
“Control,” he said, “you must keep control. You two,” he added to the other two as he knelt in front of her, “keep concentrating; I’ll handle her.”
They were going to have trouble doing that; that became clear enough within another moment. But all Joshua could do was concentrate on getting Mrs. Mosley under control. It took him another half a minute to close up most of her senses, so she was aware of very little. With her brain opened, he was then able to project thoughts into her, and he gave her quick, hard instructions, and guide her into grasping onto her new-found power. When he was certain she could hold it in by herself, he released her.
He checked on the other two first. Mrs. Weller had returned to her proper task, he heard her hiss, “Out!” in another attempt. But Mr. Dorsey was doing it only half-heartedly, eyes always at least half on his wife and Joshua.
In front of him Mrs. Mosley blinked hard, and he saw her eyes fly about as her senses resumed their normal function. Dorsey saw, and abandoning all pretense he crept towards them. “Kate?” he asked softly.
It took her a moment or so to react. “Oh.” She looked over at him. “You need to keep concentrating.”
“To hell with that. Are you all right?”
“Fine. Really. Bit frightening there, but this feels...amazing.” Her hands had been clenched into fists which she now unwrapped; a tiny glow emanated momentarily from her hands.
“Mr. Dorsey,” said Joshua. “I gave you instructions.”
“You assume I trust you,” said Dorsey coldly. “For all I know, you’ve just brainwashed my wife, and I will tell you-”
“Doug,” Mrs. Mosley tried to interrupt, “you really-”
“Out!” Mrs. Weller’s nearly screeching it commanded the attention of all three of them, and as the light nearly exploded out of her Joshua starting the closing up process again, saying to Mrs. Mosley, “Try to convince him,” before focusing his attention on the older woman.
It was harder the second time; this was exhausting work, and Betsy Weller’s mind proved denser than Kate Mosley’s; she was older, and both the person she was now and the person she had memories of being in her previous life had been given to a higher amount of brain use. He couldn’t just give her commands; he had to give some sort of explanation of how they worked. He warned her that keeping her partly suspended the way she was for too long could have physiological side-effects; she was skeptical. He dosed her with his own memories; very reluctantly, she moved to obey him. When at last he was able to release her he was very nearly dead on his feet; he wasn’t sure if he’d been able to manage things for Dorsey, especially if the man fought against him. More time had passed too; Mosley had only taken about ten minutes; Mrs. Weller had taken over half an hour.
At least while he’d worked Mrs. Mosley had managed to talk some sense into her husband; he was now trying to focus once again. Her attention had been solely on him, but now that she saw he was done with Mrs. Weller she peered at him, leading him to struggle to sit up straight, desperately not wanting to seem weak.
“You’ve no hope of fooling us,” she informed him. “We had you inside our minds and we know what that did to you. You might as well lie down and try to gather your strength back.”
Joshua put his finger to his lips, but took her advice, lying himself down across from Dorsey so he could observe the man’s progress.
He also watched the two women assess themselves, largely in the way he’d seen countless new recruits do so, though he hadn’t done his usual extra conditioning with them. Mrs. Mosley’s attention was still largely occupied by her husband, but as he continued in the exact same vein as he’d been she diverted more of her attention to her newly discovered powers. Of course she didn’t know how to do anything yet, so she was just sending flashes of light and heat about; he saw her scorch part of the floor and stare at the burn marks in amazement. Yet he suspected from the glaze in her eyes that she wouldn’t remember much of this by tomorrow evening. Mrs. Weller was a bit more cautious; he saw her click her nails together to generate tiny sparks; she was learning control by herself already. Joshua hoped she remembered it.
After some time, she asked, “Mr. Joshua, if I could maybe answer that call now?”
“I’m done with both of you tonight,” he said. “Just take it out of the room; I don’t want you distracting him.”
Mrs. Weller took her phone and went into the dining room. Mrs. Mosley’s eyes followed her out. She glanced at both of them in turn, then stood up. He saw her walk towards the dining room, and at first he thought she was actually going to leave the two of them alone together. But she stopped near the door, standing against the wall, trying to listen, he thought, to Mrs. Weller’s phone conversation.
Ten minutes passed in this manner, and then suddenly her phone rang. “Turn them off from now on,” Joshua told her, then stared in surprised at how hastily she was digging through her purse. “Take it into the dining room.”
“Oh you-I do not have time,” she muttered as she finally pulled the phone out. “Hello?”
“Mrs. Mosley,” he started.
“Not now,” she snapped back.
“Do I have to remind you-”
“OUT!” Both turned as Dorsey yelled it and doubled over as the power flew out of him so hard Joshua could hear it. It took all his will to close the man up, and there wasn’t a piece of furniture left standing in the room when he did.
“Nothing, there’s just some construction going on,” Mrs. Mosley was saying smoothly into the phone. “Rude construction workers too. Anyway, as you were saying?”
Joshua left her to it and moved into her husband’s mind. As he had feared, Douglas Dorsey was stubborn(as was Elizabeth Darcy), but he was also scared; perhaps he had sensed already that his level of natural power was not normal. Joshua’s thoughts easily raised his fear, overcoming his initial resistance until he meekly obeyed Joshua’s orders. He was actually the quickest dealt with; when he withdrew Mrs. Mosley was still on the phone, over in the corner now, though Mrs. Weller had finished her call and returned to the living room, and was standing watching.
“So,” said Mrs. Weller, very quietly “lesson over?”
“We are scheduling a new one right now,” he said quietly back. “You said you three usually have some free time on Tuesday?”
“It’ll have to be late in the day,” said Dorsey, “I have another interview in the early afternoon. I know Kate’ll be fine with that-”
But just then they heard his wife say into the phone, “So until late tomorrow, then. Fine. Good night.” She turned the phone off, came back over, and said, “Well, Doug, Betsy, it’s finally confirmed, Sheila and Diamond have gotten Skate America. It isn’t official until tomorrow, but someone in the USFSA tipped off someone in NISA that it’s been decided on, and they just called me.”
“About time,” commented Dorsey. “If they were skating for any other country, they would’ve gotten a second assignment ages ago.”
“At least they have one now,” said Mrs. Weller, “albeit an ill-timed one, in more than one way.”
Joshua hadn’t the faintest idea what they were talking about, and didn’t care either. Deciding against arguing with words first this time, he flicked his fingers and levitated Mrs. Mosley off the living room floor.
She screamed. Her husband shouted. Mrs. Weller just shook her head.
Impatiently Joshua muted them. He watched their hands fly to their mouths in confusion, then said, “You will cease this conversation now and begin one on which you will agree at what time tomorrow we may meet back here for a follow-up lesson.” He unmuted them.
“This is starting to go beyond even the behavior of most Russian coaches,” Mrs. Mosley said to him. “Put me down.” He did so. “I’m only available before five tomorrow. Possibly a little later, but once that man calls me back I’m not keeping him waiting.”
“The earliest I can hope to be here is probably about 2:30,” said Dorsey, “and three’s much more likely. Mrs. Weller, please say you’re available between three and five.”
Mrs. Weller considered. “I could try to be home by three. I’ll probably be a little late.”
Less than two hours probably. He’d have to hope they had some time available Wednesday as well. “Just get her as soon as you can, then.”
“Christopher...” she whispered as he returned to her room. She barely had strength left to speak.
“I’m here,” he whispered back, and touched her hands. She looked down at them, then shook her head slightly.
He hastily retracted his hand, but she shook her head again. “I can’t feel my hands anymore,” she said.
“Can you feel anything?” he asked. “Is it just your hands?”
“Dunno...” She closed her eyes and tried to breath in deeper. Her chest rattled horribly with the effort. She made a sound in her throat, coughing, he realized; she had no energy even to cough properly now.
He reached towards her without thinking, and somehow she fell into his arms, which he wrapped around her. “You shouldn’t,” she croaked. “You’ll get sick too.”
“I would sooner die from having held you in my arms than live knowing I had denied you them,” he whispered, casting out whatever thoughts of propriety or concealment he had still harboured. He thought he could feel the life slowly leaking out of her skin, even as her heart thudded on and she struggled to breath.
George Fiddleson awoke with his arms wrapped around Diamond, and had to spent several moments reassuring him that it was all right; Diamond slept peacefully and healthily, his chest rising and falling smoothly and steadily beneath George’s hands.
A difficult dream, with the same vividness he’s known already, but he supposed he should be glad he’d been able to sleep that night. At various times in his life Christopher Brandon had been plagued by bouts of insomnia, and both Saturday and Sunday night George had had serious trouble getting to sleep.
He bent his head enough to look at the clock. About five. Any other day of the week and one or the other of them would probably have to get up now, or be up already. But on Tuesday the only one of them who was in the arena was Diamond, who taught a basic skills class in the afternoon. With ice time impossible to get on this particular day of the week, Tuesday was the day for other tasks done at more sane times of day. Though Nessa would spend almost the entire day working at some special book release at the Waterstone’s where she held one of her jobs. She was up already; George could hear her footsteps in the kitchen.
Diamond sighed and shifted in George’s arms, pressed himself closer against him. His hip came into contact with George’s half-hard prick, and George felt his arousal stir further in response.
Here was an interesting point, he thought, because for all their obvious differences in moral views, he and Christopher Brandon did share one very big thing in common: they both believed very firmly in the need of privacy for certain activities, more so than those around them-and in the latter’s time, that had taken some effort-and yet they still defined their terms differently. Since Saturday George hadn’t yet been able to bring himself to kiss Diamond in front of anyone else, even Nessa. Yet they might now be done away with one of the bigger problems of their new relationship, that of having no place to have sex, as George had never been able to bring himself to do anything in this bed with the knowledge that Nessa would probably be able to hear them. Such a definition of privacy had not at all been practical two centuries ago; even the wealthy continually had servants and such on the other side of the door, and George found his own view changing; now the locked door seemed sufficient privacy enough.
Yet he was hesitant. They still hadn’t made love since Saturday, each aware that now there might turn out to be four people in the bed, rather than two.
Diamond was waking up; George could hear it in his breathing. He leaned forward and kissed him lightly, and Diamond’s hazel eyes blinked open. “George?” he asked softly. “Is it morning yet?”
“Only by skating standards,” said George, “and it’s Tuesday, so no.”
“Tuesday,” sighed Diamond, turning around, his head falling back onto the pillow. For a moment the image of Marianne’s head resting against her pillow, her curls framing her face, was so vivid George had to blink hard. Then he hastily reached under the covers and placed his hand on Diamond’s prick; the feel of it in his hand was reassurance.
Diamond moaned softly and pulled George down into a kiss. Pressed together, Diamond’s form beneath his unmistakably male, George began stroking him in earnest, moaning into his mouth as Diamond’s hand moved to reciprocate.
Then there was a knock on the door and Nessa’s voice calling, “George? Are you up?”
George felt himself deflate. Diamond groaned in frustration.
“Sorry,” said Nessa through the door, “But Betsy just called. We’re going over to the States a week early.”
Now George groaned. He hadn’t wanted to do this stupid show in the first place, and for it to cost them a week of training time....what on Earth was Betsy thinking?
Diamond knew there wasn’t going to be sex now, so with a sigh he climbed out of bed and went for his bathrobe. “You don’t have to get up yet,” said George. “It’s still only about five.”
“Yes, but now I’m hungry.” He tossed George his bathrobe as George too got out of bed.
Nessa was waiting for them outside. “Would it cheer you up to learn that Michelle Kwan’s going to be at the rink Thursday morning?”
George admitted the news should not leave him entirely unmoved, but because of her bad timing and worse news, he only shrugged. But Diamond’s face lit up. “Is she? Oh, but Thursday morning and she’ll be working with Betsy when Camille and Rudy are supposed to!”
“Now this whole affair is disrupting us all,” George observed. “Camille and Rudy will have to work with her next week, and she’ll have less time to dedicate to your students, Diamond, before they go off to Sheffield.”
“Well there’s nothing for it; it’s all been arranged,” replied Nessa, who of the three of them had wanted to do this show the most. Their opening it had been her idea. “Come, let us have some breakfast.”
Breakfast at the beginning of the day was something George had appreciated most of his life, which was the only thing that kept him from thinking that he really did dislike Tuesdays.
Doug reached Mrs. Weller’s feeling tired and frustrated; he hadn’t really handled the interview in the manner he had hoped to do so. He noted she wasn’t back yet; Kate’s car was in the driveway but hers wasn’t.
Kate greeted him with a quick kiss and the words, “He wants to see you alone.” She gestured towards the dining room.
As Doug walked into the dining room, he felt a strange tingle run from the back of his neck down his arms. He looked suspiciously at Joshua.
“Now that your powers are awakened, they’re sensitive to the presence of magic in the air. Think of this house as being magically magnetized, because of the three of you releasing power last night.”
“So Kate and Mrs. Weller are feeling this as well?” Doug asked, for somehow he had the feeling they were not.
“On the subconscious level. But you can sense it consciously at the moment only because you have much more raw power than them.”
“So I am more powerful than usual,” said Doug. “I thought I might be.”
“Don’t get too smug about it, Mr. Dorsey,” Joshua told him grimly. “It will mean much more work for you, both for basic safety, and because we will need you to do things the rest of us can’t.”
For a moment Doug thought Joshua had said, “Don’t get too smug about it, Mrs. Darcy,” then he realized otherwise and just shrugged. “Then best we get started as soon as possible, while I’m still making little progress in the job search.”
“I was hoping you’d say that. So when her contacts calls your wife back, would you be willing to have your first private lesson with me?”
“You speak as if you would not paralyze me and drag me away by force should I try to refuse, Mr. Joshua,” said Doug, and laughed. “Please, let us be more honest than that.” Then he saw how Joshua was looking at him. “And if I happen to go into Elizabeth mode,” he added, “you’d best be as accustomed to it as possible; I do not care to control that for your comfort.” He saw no need to mention that he’d weirded Kate out a couple of times. Coming from a background much more like Fitzwilliam Darcy’s than Doug’s was like Elizabeth’s, she bore his influence with less obvious changes.
“Yes, well, make sure you keep your concentration when I try to teach you things.” Just then they heard the sound of Betsy’s car pulling up, and Doug bowed slightly to Joshua as he left the dining room.
“So,” said Kate when all three of them were in the living room, “what do you have to teach us today?”
“We typically took new Disciples through what the book identified as five basic aspects of practice. We emphasized three, but I think now that was just to tie it into the Trinity. Awareness, Motion, Control, Creation, and Destruction, taught in that order.” Mrs. Weller had come into the house, and into the living room, while he was speaking. “Awareness, of course, starts with the awakening, which you have all already done. But right now, all two of the three of you have is the intellectual knowledge and the memory of what’s happened so far. For Mr. Dorsey things are more complicated, but you, too, have much to learn. Awareness is both senses and knowledge, and you will discover that they go hand in hand.”
“Mrs. Weller, I believe we can start with you. What do you remember from last night?”
She took a couple of minutes to speak. “I remember feeling powerful, than powerless, than overwhelmed. I really don’t remember anything else after that. Though I’ve felt...different...since.”
“The feeling of difference is the presence of the magic now active in your system. You have, of course, already been able to use it to generate some flashes of light, but you are not yet fully aware of it-I had to cut off your conscious awareness to the majority of your power until your brain had adjusted to its existence, which it should have done by now. I am now going to reopen your mind. This can be very dangerous if not done properly. I need for you to close your eyes and focus on the feeling of difference. I know that may sound hard, but just do it; it’ll be easier than you think.”
Mrs. Weller closed her eyes, and Doug saw her relax her muscles. It helped, he thought, that like most former skaters she had retained a strong sense of her body and every individual part of it. His wasn’t nearly as good as hers, or Kate’s.
Joshua placed his hands on her shoulders, and Doug thought he felt a ripple through the air as Mrs. Weller’s hands briefly glowed. She let out a soft, “Oh!”
“What do you feel now?” Joshua asked.
“Everything,” murmured Mrs. Weller, looking around in wonder. Her eyes fell on Doug, and she surged forward.
Joshua restrained her. “Don’t touch either of them. It’s not safe.”
“He’s more powerful than either of us,” Mrs. Weller said, “isn’t he?”
“Yes,” said Joshua, “he is. How much more powerful, do you think? Can you give me some idea?”
She closed her eyes again, to concentrate. “Maybe twice, three times?”
“Three times?” exclaimed an astonished Kate.
“What do you remember?” Joshua asked her.
She shook her head. “Only power and madness. And he has three times it?”
“Not entirely, Mrs. Mosley,” laughed Mrs. Weller. “You have more power than I do.”
“Which it is now time to reopen you to,” said Joshua, “and Mrs. Weller, Mr. Dorsey, I want you both to pay attention while I do this; you will both have some things to sense.”
Kate closed her eyes and Doug saw her go into what he called her “trust mode.” Joshua’s hands were on her shoulders and he was watching her impatiently; she did this neither quickly nor easily. He saw, too, Mrs. Weller’s confusion; it would seem odd that a former lady pairs skater should have such difficulties with trust. It was no surprise to him only because he knew her as well as he did.
But at last he saw her relax, and then again he felt that ripple, only stronger this time, strong enough that he could chart it coming from Kate. He saw her grow panicky, and felt the danger.
So did both of the other two. Mrs. Weller reached out to touch her and Doug hastily grabbed her arm. Joshua, meanwhile, raised his hand up, and Doug felt him cast a sort of wall around Kate. “You liked this last night,” he said. “Do you remember?”
“I remember you said it felt ‘amazing,’ Kate,” Doug added. But then he thought about how he remembered very little concrete after he’d yelled “OUT!” that last time the previous night. He had even been confused when Kate had mentioned changing Sheila and Diamond’s training schedule again the next morning, before she’d helpfully reminded him they’d been informally confirmed for Skate America.
“Maybe I did,” said Kate. “I might have found it exciting at first.”
“But then you can find it exciting it again,” Doug argued. “Did you not say to me once, Mrs. Mosley,” he had to stop himself from calling her “Mr. Darcy,” “that you went back and forth on skating itself, liking and disliking it, and for the same reason, and that you would do likewise with me for an indefinite period of time-”
“Which may not have yet expired,” Kate warned him.
“And I see no reason,“ Doug persisted-Kate might get pissed off with him for a day or so at most, but the time to avoid that unpleasantry was passed, “that you should not be open to accepting this as playing a similar role in your life.”
“Can you take your own advice, Mr. Dorsey?” she challenged, and it was a good thing Joshua had put up that boundary, because Doug could sense her power swirling about her. “You spar with me and make good use of your woman’s memories, but I know tomorrow you will be lamenting your lack of comfort with them again.”
She was right. To some extent, Doug actually liked the roles each of them played in their memory. He liked that he had played the foil to the rich and proud Fitzwilliam Darcy, that he had humbled him and broadened his mind. But he was a man, damn it all, and now he was stuck with memories of having breasts and menses and babies and a husband’s dick in a place there shouldn’t have even been an entrance for it. He could only wonder how Diamond was coping, with his need to be sure of his own body while he was skating competitively, and you could say what you want about gay guys, but Doug doubted that helped Diamond very much with some of those things he now had to remember experiencing.
“What can you see him him right now, Mrs. Mosley?” Joshua suddenly asked. “What thoughts, what feelings, what power?”
Kate met Doug’s eyes, and it felt strangely as if she was doing it from a distance. “A lot of power,” she answered, “I can certainly say that, though it’s still suppressed. Anxiety, from multiple sources-about me, about your new powers, about Joshua, about the people who might kill us-you’re not thinking about all that right now, but it’s in the back of your head. Pride, in yourself, and in me-love.” He saw her face soften; she would not be angry with him after all.
“I can’t sense that much,” remarked Mrs. Weller.
“That is because of your lack of connection with him,” Joshua explained. “We can’t do anything about that right now; connection requires mastery of all five basics first. But you both will be able to sense a lot more after I reopen him. Mrs. Mosley, I will need for you to be able to keep yourself from doing anything with your powers. Now listen closely to my question and consider your answer carefully: do you think you could, at this moment, be aware enough of what you are doing to control your use of your powers?”
For all his dramatizing it, it seemed like a straightforward enough question to Doug. Yet Kate took a more than reasonable amount of time before she answered, “Yes.”
Joshua still looked hesitant, but Doug saw/felt the wall come down. Around Kate, however, he could sense very little that he hadn’t been sensing all day. That struck him as a good sign.
Joshua’s hands were trembling when they settled on Doug’s shoulders, which was enough to truly scare him. Summoning up all the control he had, too little, too little, Doug tried to relax his body and clear his head.
He first felt something creep into his brain, a tingling sensation in the back of his head. Then suddenly the awareness came crashing down on him, like a mad torrent of water, so much power he thought he back ought to break under the weight of it, and everything in the world was coming in, invading his senses, making him go blind and deaf from overload.
“Elizabeth?” A voice asked, and there was a hand placed over his own. A memory came up, so intense it overwhelmed all else, his hand on top of hers when her pain had become unbearable, ignoring the indignant midwife’s attempts to dismiss him from the room. It hadn’t been enough; her hand had grabbed him and squeezed hard enough to break his fingers, and now Doug felt his wife push him back, or try to, but she couldn’t hold, and he somehow willed himself to a stop.
He was lying on the floor, feeling flashes of heat invade his body, all part of all the new stuff in the world that he knew existed now, too much to take in at once. One thing only concerned him. “Kate? Is Kate all right?”
To his great relief he heard her voice, “I....”
“You’re both on overload right now,” he heard Joshua say, “but you should be fine within a bit. Meanwhile, I see you two have started into the rudimentary first steps of Motion, which will make things more complicated right now, but might just benefit us all in the long run.”