The terrace was cold enough that my breath showed.
Avalon kept its weather polite inside the city wards, but at dawn, forty floors up, nobody had told the wind. I stood barefoot on the stone with my hands loose at my sides and the city still blue beneath me, and for a while I didn't do anything except breathe.
Three months. Three months since Luna, who had let me fight a whole guild war on channels the Grey had torn because there had been no other choice, had finally put her foot down. Three months of nothing stronger than a light spell. Three months of Rachel's paint and Seraphina's congee and my wrist rotated in small circles like a carpenter's joint. Three months of reaching for mana and feeling something deep down push back, the way a bad tooth pushes back when you bite.
This morning, when I'd woken, it hadn't.
"If you're going to do it," said a voice behind me, "do it properly. I'm not standing out here in my nightgown for a light spell."
