I slept on the stone, or something near it, and woke with the shape of the Grey corner still printed behind my eyes. For the first time since entering the tower, a piece of my magic had felt like my own again. The ache in my head had gone from fraying to clean. Progress, not survival.
Julius was already at the rail, as if he had been there all night counting something. He didn't greet me. He set a loose stone on the floor between us, no bigger than my fist.
"Yesterday you folded space," he said. "Good. But you carry four pens, and you have been writing with one." He tilted his head. "Your Mythweaver. On your first day here you wrote a line on the air. It failed. Tell me what it said."
"'All speech plain.'"
"Small," he said. "Plain. Three words in the white space beside the room, not a tent pulled over it. Someone taught you that."
"My mother," I said. "She writes in the margin. I do copywork every morning. One line, then two. 'Tonight is for rest.' 'Today, we start together.'"
