She needed to try it, right now.

She cupped the orb in her one hand. She concentrated on the colours, its cold hard pressure on her hand, its weight. She tried to remember how it felt to see what others were thinking. Had she made any conscious effort? No. She had just...known. She pushed out with her mind, or at least, she imagined herself pushing out with her mind. Was she actually doing anything? Her arms were getting tired, holding the orb out in front of herself. She looked up, frustrated.

"Trix? Trix, are you OK?" Jeremiah was saying.

"I'm fine. I was just trying it out. It didn't work."

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A week later, Trix was still struggling. Jeremiah had assured her that she would be ready in two weeks. Apparently, she lacked talent. Certainly, he kept saying that patience and subtlety were essential to success. Those had never been her strong points.

Each morning she would repeat the exercises. Sitting on the beach with her eyes closed, legs folded, trying to quiet her mind and let it expand out to find the orb that was held in her lap. Do not push your awareness out, Jeremiah would always say, You need to allow it to happen by itself, you just need to get out of your own way and permit what is natural to occur. Do not overtax yourself, practice a little each day, or you might hurt yourself.

He had demonstrated himself, sitting beside her and breathing slowly. His orb had begun to glow, the red crystals becoming brighter and brighter until it threw dancing pink lights onto Jeremiah's serene face. Once you've done it once, and know the feeling to look for, it will become easier and easier to accomplish. You will be able to get in phase with the orb within seconds.

This morning her mind was refusing to quieten even a little. The platypus creature was swimming in the bay, its feet making loud slapping noises as it spun in the water, each splash grinding on her nerves. She tried to ignore it, and her brain instead began thinking about how bad she was doing at the exercise. The rising feeling of frustration grew and grew until it filled all the space behind her eyes and they sprung open. She leapt to her feet and kicked at the sand.

Salome was watching from a nearby rock. The cat disliked the feeling of walking on the beach and preferred to move around by leaping delicately from rock to rock.

"I once spent a decade in the Gobi desert searching for a lost mine. When the wind was high, the dunes would sing, and the air would become yellow and sharp with sand. I saw it suffocate a camel, filling its ears and mouth and nostrils. Do not kick the sand, it will only fly up and hurt your eyes."

"Not now, Salome. I'm really not in the mood today."

"Now, now. I didn't come solely to mock you for how badly your practice is going. In fact, I came to offer my help."

"I recall you saying that to use these orbs is an embarrassing admission of how little power or understanding humans have, and that we would do better to abandon magic entirely to demon-kind?" said Trix.

"That does sound familiar. I'm rather anxious to get off this sand, however, and Jeremiah seems to refuse to move until you're good enough to help him scry, so in my own interest, I decided to help. Hell knows we'll be stuck here forever if I don't. Jeremiah's teaching ability doesn't seem much better than his magical ability."

"We agree that he is a terrible teacher." said Trix. "All he does is tell me every morning that I need to let it happen, that he can't tell me what it is, and that I need to try harder to not try so hard."

Salome settled down onto her haunches. "Let me first explain what you are actually trying to do. The sphere will merely absorb your own power. It has none of its own. It is like a battery. You fill it with concentrated energy, then loose it all at once, allowing you to accomplish things that weak, human tainted blood could presumably not do, otherwise. Such a tool is unnecessary for one like myself, were I able to throw off this cat form and expand to my full power -- I would simply do, I would not need to save up, first. In fact, I never felt a limit on my power. I have always thought that if I wished, I could explode with unlimited power, perhaps burning myself up in the process, but never running dry. However much I took, there was always more available. Perhaps there is in truth no difference at all in strength between demons and humans, it is just that humans are too shy and unsure of themselves to do more than bend a spoon or make a pen wiggle back and forth, whereas we feel entitled to this power. Or maybe it is fear, holding them back. Fear of their fragile bodies being torn apart if they push too hard."

Salome continued, "weak users, like Jeremiah, will charge up their little orbs each morning and carry them on their person for use throughout the day. The power tends to leak back out. I imagine it will leak especially quickly from the ugly, lumpy pieces you made in a hole in the ground. Anyway, right now you are trying to do two things at once: access your power, and direct it into the orb. I think a better approach will be to first learn to access your power at will. Directing it can come later."

Trix put down her orb. "How?"

"Use it in the way it first appeared, allow yourself to reach out and peek at the intentions of someone. Observe how your body feels. Concentrate on your stomach, then let your awareness rise up all the way to your forehead."

"I promised I wouldn't use it on them —"

"It will only be for a second, and the rewards will be great."

Well not Wilbur, anyway, Jeremiah maybe, it's his fault I have to do this in the first place. She looked over to where Jeremiah was sitting near the fire pit, preparing a fish, and opened herself to his thoughts.

...gut this fish, wish I were gutting Salome, she will betray us for sure. When is that child going to get that orb working. Must hurry to return home. Andras, how is the school...

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

She tried to pull some of her attention back to her body, to pay attention to how her stomach felt. She felt her focus on Jeremiah slip, move, return to him with a thunk. He looked up suddenly, scanning the beach. Trix quickly pulled back, closing herself up to his thoughts. In that second of retraction she felt something like a strand, emanating from her chest. She imagined a tiny bead somewhere between her shoulder blades where it started. Jeremiah looked back down at his fish.

"I felt...something." said Trix.

"There, easy. You can do it quite naturally" said Salome. "Play with it now, turn it on and off, feel it extending and retracting. Get to know that feeling. For me, it feels like breathing from the diaphragm.

She left Jeremiah alone for now, not wanting to alert him again, and pushed her attention out to the others. Emma's head was delightfully empty and calm. Here she lingered for a while, enjoying the rest from her own fuzzy mess of thoughts. When she entered Dean's head she thought she saw two layers for a second, another set of thoughts below the surface, but too quiet to make out. His top of mind was full of worry and guilt and Emma. She quickly moved on, blushing. She tried the platypus creature, and got a vague medley of enjoyment of water, desire for food, excitement about smells and sounds.

She began to reach out to Salome and the cat's eyes snapped open immediately.

"I do not suggest you try." said the cat, and Trix pulled back.

Each time she extended and withdrew, the location and feeling of using the power became clearer in her mind. It was like flexing a muscle she didn't know she had. Trix turned her attention to the orb. It seemed obvious how to use it now, she could barely understand how she had failed before. She held the orb again, feeling out at it with the thread-thin line of power. She felt it slip inside and pool within. She could sense the reservoir building. She sucked the power back out, gasping as it flooded her mind all in one go, a great gulp where she had previously only sipped. She felt her own thoughts, reflecting back on themselves, pride and anger and frustration echoing and growing as they bounced again and again through the orb. She screamed and dropped the orb into the sand, trying to close her mind off to itself. Finally the echoes died down and she opened her eyes, realising that she had been lying on the ground with her eyes clenched shut.

Salome was perched on her chest, peering at her face. "While I truly I applaud your impatience, I don't think you are quite ready to use the orb. You still need to learn to control what you are doing when you reach out, separate the raw power from the function your mind intuitively uses it for."

Trix sat up. "Ok, lets try again."

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They had been in the bay two weeks when Trix told Jeremiah she was ready.

"Are you sure? You have been successful with the exercises? You were able to empty your mind for multiple minutes and focus your energy via the orb?"

"Yes", Trix lied. In fact she had not, but under Salome's guidance she was becoming better at untangling the thread of her power, sending it in different directions without it attempting to read the target's thoughts, avoiding the painful reflection of her own thoughts back at herself. Mostly, she was annoyed, and bored, and wanted to give it a go.

They sat opposite each other, orbs clutched in their hands.

"I will lead" said Jeremiah, "Clear your mind and see what I see, do not try and control where we go, merely add your own power. Once we are stable, let the power focus through your orb, and we will increase the range of our scrying.

Trix closed her eyes and opened her mind. She felt Jeremiah's power, a thread like hers, but with a different colour, a different feel. She felt her way toward it, touched it with her attention. A vision rushed into her mind. They were floating above themselves, looking down. Trix saw the top of her head as she sat in the sand. Jeremiah and herself were highlighted with a red glow that pulsed as they breathed. The vision was oversaturated and abstract, as though seen through a kaleidoscope. Each shape in vibrant primary colours, built out of angled diamonds, triangles and squares. The viewpoint floated further up, the shapes flowing and moving and reforming: She could see the whole beach now, but less clearly. She felt out with her power, linking up with Jeremiah's, let them flow together. She felt a tinge of his feelings, felt his concentration and focus, and quickly adjusted, trying to only feel out with the power itself, without directing it to do anything, without seeing his intentions.

The viewpoint shot back into focus. The water of the bay that had appeared as a single turquoise hexagon now drawn by a thousand shifting triangles, each a subtly different blue. She could see herself again, a tiny speck of red, bright against the sand. She could see the others, the platypus creature, the fish in the sea, she could see great dark blobs moving far beneath the deep water.

Higher again, their little bay barely visible next to the glow of the sea, each fish a pinprick of red that together lent it a speckled pink colour. A reservoir of life. Clifftown was visible now, a great jumble of writhing red dots. She felt Jeremiah twist their viewpoint, looking up and over the great, dead desert, then turning and looking back over the sea. She could feel him pouring more power into the ritual now, and taking more of her own. She felt a bead of sweat tickle as it rolled down her nose. Jeremiah focused across the sea. They did not move in that direction, instead, the distance collapsed, the world flattened, folded up to bring everything closer. Trix thought she saw a touch of pink in the sky out of the corner of her eye.

"Over here, down the coast" she murmured. Jeremiah turned their viewpoint again, looking down the coast the direction they had sailed when they left Clifftown. The black sky was tinged pink like the first moments of dawn on a winter day. Trix strained to see closer, and felt Jeremiah straining also.

"You must use your orb!" said Jeremiah, "we need more power to bring us closer."

Trix felt out for her orb, in her mind she saw her thread of power split in two, one part holding the vision where it was, the rest flowing into the orb. She trickled it in, filling it until it was humming and ready to burst, then she peeked inside, sipping from the power to make sure it was safe -- the horrible echo immediately sprung up in her head "HOW TERRIBLE TO FAIL AT SUCH A CRITICAL MOMENT" the thought spun and grew, escalating and splitting, filling her mind with terrible imaginary consequences. She slammed her self shut to the power from the orb, cutting it off and gritting her teeth until the echoes died out.

"Trix? What's happening? Are you ok, do we need to stop?" said Jeremiah.

"No! I'm fine." she slowed her breathing, oh forget the bloody orb she thought, all it's doing is storing up a bit of power and spurting it back all at once, right? Why don't I just...push a little harder instead.

She pulled or pushed or opened or flexed in what now seemed to her the obvious way, forcing her power to flow more quickly, sending it straight to Jeremiah. Her whole body thrummed. Their viewpoint clicked into sharp focus, space folded, a great angular shape appeared, thrusting out of the water, painted in silver and grey. At this distance one got little more than an impression of the place. She pushed harder and the shape became a naked mountain, covered in buildings. It crawled with red dots, a hundred thousand of them. A great gathering of life. Of people. Trix could feel emotions, she was reading a whole city at great distance, her power still twisting toward that intuitive ability to read people.

She felt Jeremiah scanning, looking at buildings, roads, landmarks, then the vision disappeared in a blink. She felt very cold and alone, cut off from the many minds she had been connected to seconds before. She blinked and looked around. Everyone was staring at her.

"It worked!" she said, "a great city, on a mountain, in the sea. Full of people."

"Trix, are you alright?" said Wilbur, "your nose is bleeding."