Days fell into a pattern.
Wake up. Breakfast. Training. Bath. Dinner. Sleep.
The only thing that really changed was the size of the light in Elissa's hands.
At first, the sparks were pathetic—quick, blink-and-miss flashes that looked more like accidents than magic. Then, slowly, they began to hold. By the end of the first week, they had shape. They looked less like accidents and more like…intent.
"Again," Dante said, as always.
Elissa exhaled, fingers poised, feeling the ache in them like a bruise.
"Hearth," Dante reminded her. "Not fear. Not anger."
She pictured the old fire—small, steady, stubborn.
"Now," he said.
She pulled.
A thin line of light jumped between her fingers—longer now, bright and focused like a matchstick held the right way. It burned for a full heartbeat…then another…then flickered out.
Vane gave a low whistle. "Look at that. Our spark has evolved."
Kestrel, perched on the low wall, clapped slowly. "You didn't flinch," she called. "You used to jump like it surprised you."
Elissa stared at her hands, chest lifting and falling a little too fast. "It still feels like it might explode," she said.
"If it was going to explode, it would have done it already," Vane said. "That's what my magic did. Messily."
"Don't compare your lack of impulse control to her progress," Dante said.
He looked at Elissa. "Again," he said, but this time there was the smallest hint of approval in his voice.
She tried again.
Some days, the light came easily, match-bright and eager. Some days, it flickered and died before it formed. On the worst mornings, nothing answered at all and she wanted to throw something at the sky.
But there was no denying it: she was better than she had been.
Her focus sharpened. Her hands shook less. The tiny match-flame was becoming something she could call on purpose, not just by accident.
"It's still small," she said one afternoon, lowering her hands. "I'm still…barely anything."
"Barely anything is more than nothing," Dante said. "And it's not staying 'barely' forever. Not if you keep working."
Stop forcing," he'd say. "You're not throttling it. You're inviting it."
"Feels like I'm begging," she'd mutter.
"Then beg better," Vane would throw in, earning himself a shove.
Kestrel was the one who filled in the edges.
"You're less wobbly," she said one afternoon, watching Elissa from under lowered lashes.
Vane clapped her gently on the shoulder. "At this rate," he said, "you'll be able to light all the candles at the ball and make the southerners gasp."
"I don't think that's what they're hoping for," she muttered.
Kestrel dropped down from the wall and came closer. "Listen," she said. "First day, your sparks looked like a sick firefly. Now they look like fire."
"Match-fire," Elissa said.
"Fire is fire," Kestrel replied. "We'll argue about size later."
Even Martha noticed.
One morning, as she brushed Elissa's hair, Martha said, "You're not waking as much."
"Not as much," Elissa said. "The dreams are still there."
"Of course they are," Martha said. "You've got a castle and a war in your head. But something's changed. You're fighting back in them. I can hear it in the way you mutter."
"I mutter?" Elissa asked.
"And swear," Martha said. "We'll work on improving your insults later. For now, I'm just glad you're not freezing yourself on balconies."
The tiny improvements knitted together inside Elissa into something unfamiliar:
Hope.
If I can do this, she thought, watching that little flame burn for a heartbeat longer each day, maybe I'm not entirely useless here.
Everyone else seemed to feel it too.
Dante still didn't praise much, but his "Good. Again." started to sound less like a demand and more like a genuine next step.
Vane became annoyingly supportive, in his own way.
"Do that again," he'd say. "But imagine my face on Hollow. It'll help."
Kestrel kept appearing at the edge of the yard, leaning against the wall, tossing comments like stones into a pond.
"Your hands are steadier," she'd say. "Your knees aren't knocking. It's unnerving. I liked you floppy."
Only one person seemed to grow more tense as Elissa's magic steadied.
Alistair.
He was there most days, at the edge of the training ground.
He never interfered. Never gave orders. He kept to the shadows of a pillar or the long stretch of wall, arms folded or hands tucked in his trousers pocket.
He watched.
At first, Elissa had told herself she was imagining it—that he just happened to be looking her way when she glanced up. But as the days passed, the weight of his gaze became impossible to ignore.
Whenever she called the light, she felt it.
When she held it steady, she felt it.
When it fizzled out and she cursed under her breath, she definitely felt it.
By the end of the week, his stare had sharpened from "intense" to something closer to a glare.
The better she focused, the more uneasy he seemed. The more her hands stilled, the more tightly wound he looked.
No one understood it.
"Again," Dante said one cold afternoon.
Elissa drew in a breath, shut her eyes, and pulled.
Light snapped into being between her fingers—match-bright, thin but steady. One heartbeat. Two. Three.
Her fingertips tingled. Sweat slid down the side of her neck.
"Let go," Dante said quietly.
She released it.
The light went out.
She opened her eyes. The yard swam for half a second, then settled. Her hands were trembling just a little, but not like before.
Vane let out a low sound. "That was clean," he said. "Did you see that?"
"Yes," Dante said simply.
Kestrel whistled. "If you keep this up, you'll be able to light the chandeliers by glaring at them."
Elissa's chest lifted, pride and relief mixing in a strange way. "It actually listened," she said, almost disbelieving. "I told it to stay, and it stayed."
"Exactly," Dante said. "You're learning control. That matters more than size."
"Can I try again?" she asked, hungry for one more success.
He shook his head. "No. You stop on a good note today. Drink. Rest. Tomorrow we push again."
She made a face, but she knew better than to argue when his tone went like that. "Fine."
As she stepped out of the circle, Vane gave her a mock bow. "Congratulations. You have officially risen to the level of 'dangerous to curtains.'"
"High northern honor," she said smiling.
"Very high," he grinned.
Kestrel hopped down to join them, bumping Elissa's shoulder with hers. "Be proud," she said quietly. "You're doing this with half a deck of cards. Most witches would have sulked twice as much."
"Thanks?" Elissa said.
Kestrel smirked. "You're welcome."
Elissa couldn't help it. Her eyes slid toward the edge of the yard, to where she knew he would be.
Alistair stood near one of the stone pillars, cloak dark against pale stone, eyes fixed squarely on her.
Their gazes met.