Electra is right: Edward does in fact know how to cast all four of the spells she’s thinking of. The two we’ve been taught are the General Counterspell and General Animation Spell, and the others are the magical-force spell Edward used during the riot and the simple shield spell he taught me afterwards.

It’s obvious why three of those spells have their places on that list, and I only need to remember Electra’s knives to realise why the Animation Spell is the fourth. That’s the end of the first theoretical segment of our lessons, and Electra takes us to a large room in the Academy’s basement, bare and empty except for a set of large cupboards against one wall. She opens the nearest with a wave of her hand to reveal it contains a group of wooden dummies.

I’m set to learning the magical-force spell and practicing it until I can knock one of the dummies over from the other side of the room, while Edward is challenged to do the same while simultaneously maintaining the shield spell. It’s not hard to see that simultaneous casting is an immense advantage in combat, though it does come at the cost of normally reaching burnout faster.

Despite the earlier safety lecture, though, there isn’t the remotest risk of burnout with these four spells. Electra claims she once reached it with the Animation Spell alone, but that was controlling considerably more objects simultaneously than she expects from us. She warns us against putting too much power into the magical-force spell and deflects Edward’s queries about the levels of warding on the room we’re in, and then we get to work.

I pick up the spell quickly, helped by Electra giving me words of advice in between levitating various projectiles in Edward’s direction to test his shield. He doesn’t pass all of those tests, and more than once he’s hit in the face by a marble moving fast enough to cause quite a bit of pain.

Over the next while I gradually move backwards, casting the spell and watching the dummy topple over again and again. Electra gives me tape to mark the position I stand in on the ground, since I have to go back and forth to set the dummy upright each time I succeed.

The gestures and incantation become familiar, almost routine, as I keep working at it. Is this the amount of practice you need to properly master a spell? It’s certainly more time than I’d normally spend on it outside of classes.

But I reach the limit of my range still a good yard from the wall opposite the dummy. I’ll have to channel more power into the spell. I’ve been cautious with it up to now, possibly too cautious. There’s a difference between making sure I can control the power and using so little of it that my spells aren’t effective enough.

I take a moment to close my eyes and breathe after two failures. Calming exercises like that also make it much easier to cast effectively, and so when I try again my spell topples the dummy easily.

Electra nods to me, absent-mindedly twitching a finger to send another flurry of marbles at Edward’s shield. It withstands the assault this time. I jog across the room to set the dummy upright once more for another attempt.

After maybe fifteen minutes more, Electra calls a halt. “Now we can start properly,” she says. “You can both cast the four spells, but that is very much not the same thing as being able to use them in combat. In general that requires casting a spell in less than a second at the bare minimum. And the only way to do that is to practice extensively.”

What follows is… well, about what I expected from private lessons with Electra. She calls out one of the four spells, and Edward and I have to cast it immediately. If we mess up a counterspell or shield, the results are inevitably mildly painful or humiliating; Electra rights the dummies with a lazy wave of her hand when we knock them over with the force spell, and makes us trace patterns in the air with the marbles we levitate. And no more than a second later, before I have time to breathe, she calls out the next spell.

It's less than two minutes before my control is slipping enough that I can no longer trace the patterns correctly and I realise a flaw in all of my usual coping mechanisms: they rely on having the time to breathe or close my eyes or recite a list to myself, which I very much do not have when I already have another spell to cast.

“Stop,” Electra says, and I stop, realising as I do so that my body is shaking and my heart is pounding far faster than it should be.

I force myself to breathe slowly and calm down. Charles First-King. Edwin the Just. “I can’t do this,” I say when I trust myself to speak.

“That was the intention,” she replies. “If you could do an exercise such as this perfectly, there would be no point to my setting it.”

“Edward – “

“I wasn’t even close to perfect, Tallulah. I messed up eight spells there.”

The fact he had enough mental space left to count that proves my point.

“Besides, he’s practiced similar exercises before. Haven’t you?”

Edward shrugs. “Not anything quite like this, but I have worked on my casting time for all four of those spells before.” When he taught me the shield-spell, he tried to work on mine as well. My failure with that exercise meant that until now I haven’t practiced combat magic at all.

“Perhaps it would be easier to work with each of you individually,” Electra muses. “Tallulah, rest for a while. Edward, let’s try something a little harder.”

Stolen novel; please report.

Edward and I share grim smiles. “Tell my dad I love him,” he says.

“If I intended to kill you, do you really think I would leave Tallulah alive to serve as a witness?”

I flinch. Edward laughs. “Fair point,” he says.

I feel a lot less bad about not keeping up with Edward when Electra explains the new and harder exercise: it uses simultaneous casting extensively, so it would be impossible for me to do the same thing. Effectively, what he’s doing is the same as before, except twice at once.

Even he finds that more than merely difficult. After a few minutes of that he’s in the same state that I was after the first exercise, gasping for breath and staring around wildly.

“Stars,” he chokes out.

“You’re not accustomed to failure, are you?”

“I know what I’m – “ he pauses to take another gulp of air – “capable of. And not capable of.”

“That’s not the same thing. How frequently have you been set exercises that you could not complete?”

Edward narrows his eyes. “My father did that, a couple of times.”

I assume he’s thinking of the cubic equation incident he told me about a couple of nights ago.

“A couple of times. And since you came to the Academy?”

He is silent.

“At all, by any teacher other than me?”

“Felicity once asked me to demonstrate specific animation to the class, before I had learnt specific animation.”

Electra laughs a little. “I suppose you have now learnt specific animation?”

Edward nods.

“Because of that incident?”

“Yes.”

“Then that proves my point.”

I’m not entirely sure what Electra’s point is. Nor is Edward, and he says as much.

“How a person reacts to failure,” she says, “tells you a great deal about them. Many people are discouraged, and believe that they are incapable and shouldn’t even try. It is a waste of time to teach them anything beyond the essentials.”

I wince. Electra’s words feel far too harsh, but I don’t think she’s wrong. I remember the day I Fell and the incident that triggered it. Ruby didn’t make any real attempt to understand what she was working on before bringing it to me. There were a lot of people like her at Genford.

“Some people, though, respond quite differently: they resolve that if they are currently incapable, they should simply become someone who is better.”

Yes. That’s what I want to do. Except there’s nothing simple about it.

“Failure is what drives these people. And if they do not experience it, they will never reach their full potential.”

“So you want to make us fail… so we become better?” I ask.

“Precisely.”

That is just such an Electra way of doing things. Strange and twisted – but quite possibly effective.

“On which note: are you ready to continue?”

No. “Yes.”

I’m alone this time, which doesn’t make much of a difference. Electra does not make the exercise even the tiniest bit easier. The knowledge that it’s designed to be near-impossible helps a lot, though it doesn’t make it any less impossible.

I miss a spell, then another, and get hit in the face with a marble before I have a chance to get a shield up. Naturally, there isn’t so much as a second’s pause to check I’m okay before I’m having to levitate the very same marble and move it in a helix pattern. Well, it would be charitable to describe its movement as helical.

“Counterspell,” says Electra, smiling. I dismiss the Animation Spell and let the marble clatter to the ground, then frantically begin casting. Not quickly enough: the floor beneath my feet suddenly becomes slippery enough that I lose my balance.

“Animation. A regular pentagon in a vertical plane, please.” She’s still smiling.

I cast before even trying to get to my feet, and push myself upright while trying to remember the approximate internal angles of a regular pentagon and most likely failing. Stars, I want nothing more than to wipe that smile off her face. Maybe this is for my own good, but –

“Shield.”

I’m too slow again, and I take another marble to the face. She’s enjoying my suffering. I hate her. I’m not some toy to be played with for her amusement.

“Force.”

I manage a force-spell, but too slowly: she asks for another shield spell before I’ve finished casting, and I’m hit by a marble for the third time in less than a minute. I barely feel the pain this time. She thinks this is all I’m capable of? She thinks this is supposed to be impossible?

“No,” I whisper. “She’s wrong.”

“Counterspell.”

My hands are moving almost before she finishes the word, and I complete the incantation within half a second. Nothing happens: I’ve succeeded.

“Force.”

Again, the movements and incantation come without the need for conscious thought. The dummy tumbles easily, and I –

“Shield.”

The feeling when the marble bounces off my perfectly formed shield is immensely satisfying.

“Animation. A six-pointed star in a horizontal plane.”

That’s a more complicated shape to make from a single continuous line, but I still barely have to think about it.

The pause that follows that spell is a fraction longer than before, but then the calls keep coming. Shield. Counterspell. Force. Counterspell again. Animation, a pair of interlocking circles. Shield. Force. Counterspell. Am I imagining it, or is Electra getting even faster? It doesn’t matter; I’m casting faster than thought, as fast as is humanly possible. If this isn’t perfection, it must be pretty close. I don’t falter for a moment.

“Stop.”

Why would I stop? I could keep going forever. I could do more, harder – I stop moving, stop casting, and reality rushes back to me. I’m standing in a room in the Academy’s basement, a little out of breath, my entire body suddenly shaking. Electra is staring at me with mild curiosity, and Edward with undisguised awe.

“That was a most interesting performance,” Electra says. “Edward, are you ready to continue?”

“Most interesting,” Edward repeats. “No. No – not – “ He pauses for a second. “Unless I’m very much mistaken, that was a flow state or something similar. And you know that, Electra. You can’t just brush that off as nothing. It wasn’t nothing.”

I blink a few times. Yes: now that I think about it, the way I felt in those minutes matches how Electra described the flow state near-exactly. I understand now why it’s so dangerous – and why Edward wants to reach it so much.

Stars. This is a major feat of magic, something I shouldn’t be capable of. Something Edward isn’t capable of, and yet I did it. Just like that, without even trying to. I don’t understand.

“Such a thing is unusual, but not entirely unheard of,” Electra says. “It will require further analysis, certainly, but I would rather Tallulah rested first so I can be certain that there are no ill effects. So in the meantime: are you ready to continue?”

Rest. That’s not what I need, or what I want. There’s still a lingering feeling of power, unfamiliar and addictive. I think if I tried to teach myself new spells right now, the power of that feeling would let me get every one first time. I’m longing to try.

Edward, though, gets to his feet without another word. “I’m ready,” he says.