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One moment the tent was empty, and in the next Alera stood over the sand table at its center post She chuckled warnize my presence How is it that you have learned the trick of it so quickly?"

"I've spent most of my life without any furycraft to helpto do with it"

"Almost certainly," Alera said "Very few of your people realize how e"

"Really?" Tavi asked

"Certainly Hoould they? Watercrafters, for exaain a sensitivity to others that beco They have few, if any, memories of what it was like to exist without that sense Nearly everyone in Alera has their senses expanded in soree If they suddenly lost access to their furies, for whatever reason, I expect that they would feel quite disoriented I should think it would be soe "I notice," he said, "that you haven't answered my question"

Alera smiled "Haven't I?"

Tavi eyed her for awithout realizing it?"

"Without feeling it," Alera corrected "You make clear toit, within my limitations But the effort for it still co It's a steady and gradual process, one you don't feel happening You only becoin to trouble you" She sighed "It killed Sextus; not as h he did - as because it , incorrectly, as part of this process"

Tavi sat up and studied Alera more closely She held her hands in front of her, folded inside the opposite sleeve of her athered over her head in a hood Her eyes looked sunken For the first tireat furywo," he said "It was a strain on you as well It's hastening your your dissolution, isn't it?"

"It was a strain upon all of Alera, young Gaius," she replied, her voice quiet "You upset natural order on a scale that is rarely seen - in concert with the eruptions of two fire-mountains, to boot You and your people will feel the aftereffects of these few days for centuries to colanced at him and smiled, briefly "Ah, there it is I sometimes think that if one cut open the scions of the House of Gaius, they would find well-chilled prag in their veins instead of blood"

"I have provided abundant evidence to the contrary, today, I believe"

"Have you?" she replied

"And again," he said, "you have avoided answering my question"

Her s habit," he said "My grandfather must have learned it froed "Sextus was strongly devoted to the idea of being as mysterious as possible when it came to his capabilities of furycraft He would have looked at his staff and shrugged when they wondered how such a thing as an unthinkably late freeze and a steady breeze for several thousand miles' worth of travel would be possible"

"When in fact, anyone with a High Lord's talent could e it," Tavi murmured "If he had, as his partner, someone such as you, who could direct his power to precisely when and where it needed to be to have the greatest effect, however widely dispersed those places ht be"

"I suspect the scions of Gaius did not wish the notion to become widespread," she said, "for fear that all of those folk with a High Lord's talent would i such partners of their own"