Startled, Fela looked at Elodin. Her eyes flickered back and forth between him and the stone, her face growing stricken and pale.
Elodin gave her a reassuring smile. “Come now,” he said gently. “You know in your secret heart you are capable of this. And more.”
Fela bit her lips and took hold of the stone. It seemed bigger in her hands than it had in his. She closed her eyes for a moment and drew a long, deep breath. She let it out slowly, lifted the stone, and opened her eyes so it was the first thing she would see.
Fela stared at the stone and there was a long moment’s silence. The tension in the room built until it was tight as a harp string. The air vibrated with it.
A long minute passed. Two long minutes. Three terribly long minutes.
Elodin sighed gustily, breaking the tension. “No no no,” he said, snapping his fingers near her face to get her attention. He pressed a hand over her eyes like a blindfold. “You’re looking at it. Don’t look at it. Look at it!” He pulled his hand away.
Fela lifted the stone and opened her eyes. At the same moment Elodin gave her a sharp slap on the back of the head with the flat of his hand.
She turned to him, her expression outraged. But Elodin merely pointed at the stone she still held in her hand. “Look!” he said excitedly.
Fela’s eyes went to the stone, and she smiled as if seeing an old friend. She covered it with a hand and brought it close to her mouth. Her lips moved.
There was a sudden, sharp cracking sound, as if a speck of water had been dropped into a pan of hot grease. There followed dozens more, so sharp and quick they sounded like an old man popping his knuckles, or a storm of hailstones hitting a hard slate roof.
Fela opened her hand and a scattering of sand and gravel spilled out. With two fingers she reached into the jumble of loose stone and pulled out a ring of sheer black stone. It was round as a cup and smooth as polished glass.
Elodin laughed in triumph before sweeping Fela into an enthusiastic hug. Fela threw her arms around him wildly in return. They took several quick steps together that were half stagger, half dance.
Still grinning, Elodin held out his hand. Fela gave him the ring, and he looked it over carefully before nodding.
“Fela,” he said seriously. “I hereby promote you to the rank of Re’lar.” He held up the ring. “Your hand.”
Almost shyly, Fela held out her hand. But Elodin shook his head. “Left hand,” he said firmly. “The right means something else entirely. None of you are anywhere near ready for that.”
Fela held out her other hand, and Elodin slid the ring of stone easily onto her finger. The rest of the class broke into applause, rushing close to get a look at what she had done.
Fela gave a radiant smile and held out her hand for all of us to see. The ring wasn’t smooth as I’d first thought. It was covered in a thousand tiny, flat facets. They circled each other in a subtle, swirling pattern unlike anything I’d ever seen before.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
The Catch
Despite the trouble with Ambrose, my obsession with the Archives, and my countless fruitless trips to Imre hunting Denna, I managed to finish my project in the Fishery.
I would have liked another span of days to run a few more tests and tinker with it. But I was simply out of time. The admissions lottery was coming up soon, and my tuition would be due not long after. Before I could put my project up for sale, I needed Kilvin to approve my design.
So it was with no small amount of trepidation that I knocked on the door of Kilvin’s office.
The Master Artificer was hunched over his personal worktable, carefully removing the screws from the bronze casing of a compression pump. He didn’t look up as he spoke, “Yes, Re’lar Kvothe?”
“I’m finished, Master Kilvin,” I said simply.
He looked up at me, blinking. “Are you now?”
“Yes, I was hoping to make an appointment so I might demonstrate it to you.”
Kilvin set the screws in a tray and brushed his hands together. “For this I am available now.”
I nodded and led the way through the busy workshop, past Stocks, to the private workroom Kilvin had assigned me. I brought out the key and unlocked the heavy timber door.
It was large as workrooms go, with its own fire well, anvil, fume hood, drench, and other assorted staples of the artificing trade. I’d pushed the worktable aside to leave half of the room empty except for several thick bales of straw stacked against the wall.
Hanging from the ceiling in front of the bales was a crude scarecrow. I’d dressed it in my burned shirt and a pair of sackcloth pants. Part of me wished I’d run a few more tests in the time it had taken to sew the pants and stuff the straw man. But at the end of the day, I am a trouper first and all else second. As such, I couldn’t ignore the chance for a little showmanship.
I closed the door behind us while Kilvin looked around the room curiously. Deciding to let my work speak for itself, I brought out the crossbow and handed it to him.
The huge master’s expression went dark. “Re’lar Kvothe,” he said, his voice heavy with disapproval. “Tell me you have not squandered the labor of your hands on the improvement of such a beastly thing.”
“Trust me, Master Kilvin,” I said, holding it out to him.
He gave me a long look, then took the crossbow and began to examine it with the meticulous care of a man who spent every day working with deadly equipment. He fingered the tightly woven string and eyed the curved metal arm of the bow.
After several long minutes he nodded, put one foot through the stirrup, and cocked it without any noticeable effort. Idly, I wondered how strong Kilvin was. My shoulders ached and my hands were blistered from struggling with the unwieldy thing over the last several days.
I handed him the heavy bolt and he examined it as well. I could see him looking increasingly perplexed. I knew why. The bow didn’t have any obvious modifications or sygaldry. Neither did the bolt.
Kilvin slotted the bolt into the crossbow and raised an eyebrow at me.
I made an expansive gesture to the straw man, trying to look more confident than I felt. My hands were sweating and my stomach was full of doves. Tests were fine and good. Tests were important. Tests were like rehearsal. But all that really matters is what happens when the audience is watching. This is a truth all troupers know.
Kilvin shrugged and raised the crossbow. It looked small braced against his broad shoulder, and he took a moment to carefully sight along the top of it. I was surprised to see him calmly draw half a breath, then exhale slowly as he pulled the trigger.
The crossbow jerked, the string twanged, the bolt blurred.
There was a harsh, metallic clank, and the bolt stopped midair as if it had struck an invisible wall. It clattered to the stone floor in the middle of the room, fifteen feet away from the straw man.
Unable to help myself, I laughed and threw my arms triumphantly into the air.
Kilvin raised his eyebrows and looked at me. I grinned a manic grin.
The master retrieved the bolt from the floor and examined it again. Then he recocked the crossbow, sighted, and pulled the trigger.
Clank. The bolt dropped to the floor a second time, skittering slightly to one side.
This time Kilvin spotted the source of the noise. Hanging from the ceiling in the far corner of the room was a metal object the size of a large lantern. It was rocking back and forth and spinning slightly, as if someone had just struck it a glancing blow.