That night, Bee fell deeply asleep, and had no dreams that she could recall. In the morning, she slept a whole two hours longer than she usually would.

Foxglove let her. This magic was clearly something that took a lot out of you.

As she rubbed wet clothes against a washboard, Foxglove thought about everything that had happened the day before.

It wasn’t common for people in Kandra to flat-out deny that magic existed, but it had been a long time since it had played much of a role in Kandran life. From what Foxglove could remember from school history lessons, magic had slowly become less and less effective over the centuries, and nowadays the very best wizards could perform little more than party tricks. (There were, in fact, niche applications for the kind of weak magic that was still possible in this world, but that wasn’t something the average person concerned themselves with).

Foxglove didn’t feel too well. For sure, she was happy that Bee was happy. But she was scared. This was new, a wildcard – who knew what it meant, or where it was going? And it had caused quite a few minor accidents already.

Foxglove decided then on what she wanted to say to Bee.

A while later, a cry of joy followed by a cry of pain alerted Foxglove that Bee was awake. “I’m okay!” Bee called out.

Foxglove went to the kitchen, where she had heard Bee’s voice.

“I just burnt my fingers a bit!” said Bee as Foxglove came in. She was holding up a smoking piece of toast.

Without saying a word Foxglove went to the medicine box and took out some salve and a bit of gauze. She gave Bee’s three reddened fingertips each a light kiss, then carefully applied the salve and made little bandages to keep it in place.

Foxglove looked Bee earnestly in the eyes. “You’re really okay?” she asked.

“Yeah,” said Bee. “I mean, maybe I should slow down a bit. I mean, I know I should. I’m just having so much fun.”

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Foxglove nodded slowly. “Can we agree on no more fire magic for the moment?”

Bee sighed. “Yeahhh…”

“Actually,” said Foxglove, “I was wondering if we could take a break altogether for a little while.”

“What?!”

“I don’t mean forever! I’m just so scared, Bee. What is this? Where did it come from? What does it cost you? I want us to try and understand it a bit better. Someone must know something.”

Tears welled up in Bee’s eyes.

Foxglove felt as if she could start crying too. “Bee, I’m sorry. I know this is a big deal for you.”

“It’s just… I don’t know how to describe it, Foxglove! I feel like… I feel like I’ve been wanting something like this all my life! Suddenly it’s like a black-and-white picture becomes colourful. Doesn’t it… doesn’t it just make sense? That your mind could affect the world like this? Doesn’t it just feel instinctive somehow?”

Foxglove nodded slowly.

“It’s so fun and so free. And I’m kind of scared it would disappear. Every time I do it, I’m like, does it still work?”

Foxglove nodded. “I… I just don’t want you to hurt yourself,” she said.

“Yeahhh…”

“Can we at least agree to put some kind of limit on it?”

“Like what?”

“An hour a day. And we do it together, so I can try and keep you safe. For a week. While we look for an answers. Then we talk about how we continue.”

Bee frowned. Foxglove was so sure she was going to say no. Finally, Bee said, “Okay.”

She looked so sad it broke Foxglove’s heart a little. “It can be more time if you want,” said Foxglove. “I think just any limit would feel safer to me right now.”

“No, it’s okay,” said Bee.

And that was that.

*

They did end up getting a little more flexible on the limits, by mutual agreement, but the next week was calmer. Foxglove sat and watched each time as Bee played around with her strange new abilities; and feeling a little safer now, Foxglove could allow her breath to be taken away.

The best was when Bee discovered that she could create light and sound, and began to conjure all sorts of wondrous apparitions – glowing orbs, sparkles, flashes, lens effects in the air, ripples, shimmers, colourful see-through images of birds and dragonflies…

Bee slept a lot that week. This part was still a little scary for Foxglove. Could this really be okay if it was taking so much out of Bee? But as agreed, she let it go for the moment.

The other part of the agreement was tricker, though. Foxglove had no idea how to go about looking for answers. Bee didn’t want to tell people about her new abilities yet, so they had to ask around in Suringen in a somewhat indirect way.

They did find out about the meteorite impact – it had now become widespread news. As to its odd aftereffects, all they heard so far were reports of a strange multicoloured glow that stained the underside of the clouds above the crater. They didn’t know what to make of that, or even whether to believe it.

It was hard not to make a connection, but then again, it wasn’t much: two very, very unusual things had happened in the world, at about the same time. That was it. Short of spending a week riding to the site of the crater, there wasn’t much actionable information there.