After making Beast her own little ink-kitten—and the woman returned to the front of the room to play with it—Det got back to work on controlling the flow of his magic. Beast had been a little too insistent for him to practice while he’d created her new friend, so he’d let his instincts completely take over. Like normal, this resulted in that third rendition climbing off the page in almost two seconds, exactly.

  In the past, Det had always assumed the two-second thing was because of how long it took the right amount of energy to move into his painting. The fact he took longer when he used less energy supported that. Except, with that last rendition—after doing the first two more purposefully—it almost felt like he had put too much in. Like the painting had been overflowing, just a little, before the kitten crawled out.

  “Sir?” Det asked, since Beauty was still close.

  “Yes, cadet?” the instructor said, hands clasped behind his back as he surveyed the cadets working their magic.

  “If we use too much energy, what happens to it?” Det said. “Does it make our magic stronger?”

  “Depends,” Beauty said. “If you use more, and control the process of your energy channeling into your magic, then, yes, it can be stronger. However, if you use too much, as you asked, then it is likely being wasted. Lost to the atmosphere, in the same way heat can be lost on a cold day.”

  “Where does it go then?” Det said.

  “All around us,” Beauty said. “This room is likely saturated with excess—wasted—energy at this very moment. It’s harmless, though it can be harnessed by our artificers. ReSouled bodies also naturally pull ambient energy out of the air, it’s part of the way we recharge, shall we say, and we will work on training methods to increase that absorption. It’s not terribly efficient, on a time for energy scale. Because of that, we will also work on techniques that will improve your body’s natural generation of energy.

  “We are the best sources, after all.”

  Det’s attention perked up a little at hearing there was a technique that would allow him to produce more energy. More energy meant more magic.

  “When will we learn all that?” Det said.

  “In a few weeks,” Beauty said. “Once you’ve had a little more practice and basic training, which will help stabilize and refine your channels, we’ll be able to more accurately assess your three magical measures. Energy generation, capacity, and output.”

  “How fast we create energy,” Det said. “How much we can store, and how much we can use at once?”

  “Excellent guesses,” Beauty said. “That is correct. But, that is a future lesson, and you should be working on the present one.”

  “Ah, right, sorry,” Det said.

  “As to your original question,” Beauty said before he moved on. “You were much more wasteful in summoning the kitten for Beast, than with the previous two. I’m sure you’ve noticed that as well, since you asked about it. You have another seven minutes before we move on to the next part of the lesson, so I suggest you use that time to see if you can figure out why.”

  “Yes, sir,” Det said, giving the man a nod, and dipping his brush into the ink bottle. Since the academy had been so kind as to give him all this ink, it would be a shame if he didn’t use it. More than a shame, practically an insult.

  So, with the righteous vigor of taking full advantage of the school’s generosity, Det painted out his next summons. A third kitten—only partially because Aria kept glancing over her shoulder to look at Sage’s kitten playfully rolling around on his desk—would help him with his next test. There had been a noticeable difference between the first and second renditions, and now that he’d noticed that, it was time to explore it.

  As soon as his brush finished the last stroke of the kitten’s ear, Det put his fingers on the page and closed his eyes. He didn’t need to see the ink shimmering to life. He’d watched it happen hundreds of times. Instead, all his focus was on following that line of energy traveling from his gut, up through his chest, and down his arm.

  When the energy got to each node, he watched it swirl there for a second, small strands of it bleeding off into the smaller channels leading to his muscles and bones.

  Is this why ReSouled have superhuman bodies? Whatever this energy is, it’s constantly reinforcing me? Or, does it only happen when I call on my magic? No, that can’t be it, since I never use my toes to call on my renditions. It would be like I was skipping leg day all the time if that were the case. The energy is just doing more work as I’m actively calling on it.

  Which means I do need to find a way to use my feet to call on renditions, so my legs can benefit. That’s… going to look kind of silly if I need to walk around barefoot.

  Det gave himself a mental shake for going off-topic in his own head, and turned again to the energy that’d passed his elbow and reached the palm of his hand. Unlike the nodes in his shoulder and elbow, the one in his palm felt different. More porous. That was the best way to describe it.

  Sitting there, the energy wanted to escape. To evaporate out through his hand, with the skin and muscle there doing very little to stop it. Only the fact Det intended to push it through his fingers and into the paper kept it from running free like the wind.

  Again, intent is important. Just like with my renditions. Something to pay more attention to later.

  Studying it in the palm was something he could do later, back in his suite on his own time, though. Now, Det pushed the energy down his fingers, the same way he had last time. Like squeezing a tube of toothpaste from the far end.

  It wasn’t an uncomfortable sensation, but controlling the flow—the pressure—of how much energy would escape his fingers took far more concentration than he’d be able to afford in a fight. There was no way he could do this while those Wordless ants were trying to eat his face.

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  Which is exactly why we’re practicing here in a safe classroom.

  When the first wisp of energy left his fingers, it almost felt like a pressure release. The energy in the channels in his fingers had found its way out, and there was a sudden rush of it wanting to escape. For a heartbeat, the flow went from constant to surging, before Det got it back under control. It wasn’t like a dam had burst or anything like that, but the amount of moving energy had briefly tried to return to its normal level.

  That’s the difference between what I am controlling now, and what I instinctively use.

  The amount had probably been more than double what he was feeding into the paper at the moment. Controlled, and barely enough. The only question was, how long would it take to manifest the rendition?

  Three seconds, as it turned out.

  Fifty percent longer to summon the kitten, at half the cost.

  Good data.

  Tapping Aria on the shoulder lightly, so as not to startle her—or interrupt her, hopefully—Det held out the newest ink-kitten in his other hand. As soon as she saw it, her eyes lit up.

  “For me?” she asked.

  “For the next thirty minutes or so, yeah,” Det said.

  “Thank you!” she said happily, and reached out to take the kitten from him, only to notice she had a baseball-sized stone in that hand. A second to put it on the desk for a moment, and she spun in her chair again to take the kitten.

  “I’m Aria,” she said.

  “Det,” he replied, though it was impossible to tell if she heard him, her attention completely on the adorable little kitten. Not that he could blame her; they had that effect on people.

  “Thanks again,” she said, rotating back around to face her own desk.

  Good enough, Det had work to do, and…

  He caught Cadet Trium looking his way with some very respectable puppy-dog eyes.

  “Next one is yours,” Det said, somehow managing not to roll his own eyes.

  The woman gave a quiet fist pump, then snapped forward again at a convenient cough from Beast’s direction.

  Putting them out of his mind, Det dipped his brush in the ink, then flashed out his next ink-kitten. With how many of them he’d done at this point, it was closer to fifteen or twenty seconds to get it out in perfect condition. He would’ve been hard-pressed to do it faster even if he had a stencil. Then again, the Wordless gauntlet back in his room could do it quite fast. Would it be worth it to carry stencils with him?

  He shrugged and put the question off to later with the rest from the session. It was already quite a list.

  If I can manifest the kitten in fifty-percent longer with half the amount of energy invested, what would happen if I doubled the amount of energy? Probably more waste, but the only way I’ll know how it feels is by doing it myself.

  Rubbing the tips of his fingers together to get ready, Det gave the painted image one more look over, then put his fingers on the paper and closed his eyes. Like before, he pulled the power up from his gut, funneled it down the same channel as before, and then collected it in the palm of his hand. At this point, before, he’d held the subsidiary channels through his fingers more closed than open, then gently pushed tiny threads of energy through them.

  This time, Det didn’t just focus on opening the channels as wide as he could to let the energy tumble down them. No, he actively helped push it down. If this was the tube of toothpaste analogy again, he was trying to fire-hose it out of the end and spray it all over the bathroom mirror.

  Visuals aside, it didn’t work quite that well. He didn’t have anywhere near the practice or ease with the process to add that kind of pressure. The result of what he was doing was more like holding an icing bag over a cake while having a seizure. It wasn’t pretty, with gobs of energy coming between veritable droughts where energy evaporated uselessly into the air because of his bad aim.

  He didn’t need to see his painting to know the ink was flashing like a kaleidoscope lightshow, so he didn’t bother opening his eyes. As much of a disaster as the experiment was, it was also a learning experience.

  With the breaks between energy entering the painting, it gave him a chance to sense where it went. Contrary to what he expected, the energy didn’t spread evenly. It wasn’t like water filling pipes. Instead, the energy clung to itself, leaving globs of it empowering sections of the painting a bit at a time. A full ear here, a half-filled tail there, and more splotches in between. With more chunks of energy getting added between heartbeats, the spaces quickly filled in, and where energy touched itself, the two sections seamlessly joined.

  The process was ugly and amateur, but in the end, it worked. Even dumping energy in like it was going out of style, and immense amounts of it overflowing out of the lines of the painting, it still took two full seconds for the cat to crawl out of the page.

  As soon as it did, Det opened his eyes, half-expecting to see a deformed monstrosity cursing its creator for the horrors he’d inflicted on it. Instead, he found a cute, little, ink-kitten licking its paw and rubbing it across its face. It even looked up at him with a quite nya, then turned its head in Trium’s direction.

  Since Det had the intent in mind when he’d created it, the ink-kitten knew what its role would be.

  Before he just handed it over, though, Det picked the kitten up so it stood on the palm of his hand while he inspected it. It looked normal. Just like the previous two. No growths or malformations. No abnormally large fangs or crazy eyes plotting his eventual demise. It was exactly the same as…

  Det squinted. Huh. It wasn’t exactly the same, after all. The ink-lines were as they should be, but the white space between them, there was almost a shimmer to it. Just barely. Kind of like oil on water, though even as he watched it, it was lessening.

  “That’s the excess magical energy you invested into it burning off,” Beauty said so close behind Det’s ear, he nearly jumped out of his seat. Unfortunately, the startle caused the ink-kitten to go soaring into the air with a very surprised nyaaaaa!

  Luckily, ReSouled reflexes and agility saved the day, with Trium snagging the flying kitten out of the air before it could hit the ground.

  “Got you,” the cadet said, pulling the kitten close to her face to look it over and make sure it was okay. It proved it was more than fine as it reached out its small paws to rub along her cheek, absolutely melting ninety percent of the hearts in the room with the gesture.

  “You should be more careful with your charges,” Beauty said.

  “And you shouldn’t sneak up behind your students!” Det countered.

  “I don’t sneak,” Beauty said.

  “He skulks,” Beast called from where she played with her own ink-kitten on the front desk.

  “That may be partially true,” Beauty admitted. “How did your little test go?”

  “Quite well,” Det said. “But, you said that wavy look to the kitten was from too much magic?”

  “Yes,” Beauty said. “I may not be an expert on your unique type of magic, but the visual effect is very common for anybody who creates or summons anything. I’m sure you’ll see similar effects with Two, as Cadet Neferan attempts similar experiments as you just did, instead of simply creating his duplicate over and over, and over again without changing anything.”

  The way Beauty said those words—and the look he shot in Neferan’s direction—suggested it was as much a hint to the man as it was praise for Det. From Neferan’s expression, Det wasn’t the only one who figured that out, and he didn’t appear impressed with getting called out like that. It was also pretty clear who he blamed for that. Not Beauty.

  “Would you like an emotional-support-kitten too?” Det offered. No reason to make extra enemies this early in his career. He was going to be making more kittens anyway.

  “No,” he said curtly, head snapping around to the front with an audible tsk coming from his lips.

  “We don’t like cats,” Number One said from where he stood protectively beside Neferan. “We like birds.”

  “I’ve got a couple of birds for you if your manners don’t improve,” the cadet behind Eriba said, and Det couldn’t disagree with the man.

  Gotta learn his name later.

  “You have six more minutes,” Beauty said, patting Det on the shoulder. “Don’t stop now.”

  “Not planning on it,” Det said, another kitten already painted out on the piece of paper. And, considering Beauty hadn’t stepped away to go work with the other students again—along with the man’s one good eye locking on the image—Det already knew where the next rendition would be going.