“What do you want me to do?”

Tayte takes out a notebook and pen. “I want to see what you can do with her spool,” Tayte advises.

I make circles with my thumbs and index fingers. “How do you propose I do that, exactly?”

He lifts a brow. “How do you activate your flame?”

“Which part of it?”

“Any part of it.”

“Well, for the emotion reading, I just get a sense of how people feel. I don’t technically do anything. It’s just there. Innate.”

He starts writing. “How does projecting your emotions work?”

“I sort of wrestle the emotion and pin them with it.”

“Your output is minuscule compared to your input. Projection happens when the emotion you feel is stronger than what you’re absorbing. The more powerful emotion wins out.”

I give him a chin lift in agreement.

“Can you manipulate how others feel, or is it more you just make them aware of your position?”

“I can manipulate it. Mostly, I only do that to calm people down.”

“Hmm.”

“Not to hurt anyone,” I add.

“Of course not.” He scoffs. “You simply have a curious mind. We have that in common.”

I scowl. It’s on the heavy side of disapproving. I am not like Tayte.

“So, your empathy allows for reception, projection, and manipulation. Can you hide your emotions?”

“Does indifference count as a shield?”

“It doesn’t, but that’s not entirely what I mean. Can you shut it all off? Like a switch?”

I run my hands through my unruly auburn curls. Chopping them off is a viable option, especially if we stay in this humid climate. The frizz was bad before. With the new curls? My head is spring loaded and ready for rapid fire.

“Focus, Sheyla,” he chastises, commandeering my spiraling thought train.

“I have an emergency shut-off switch,” I report. “Had. It hasn’t worked in a while. Maybe blew a fuse or something.”

“Alright, you can’t actively stop someone from reading your emotions, but you can incapacitate yourself.”

“Could.” I correct. “Usage is presently problematic.”

He underlines that in his notebook. “Were you perceptive to your surroundings in a shut-off state, or was it like you were somewhere else?”

“I was behind fireproof glass. I just pulled the emergency shut-off switch, went full-on blank stare for about thirty seconds, then blinked back to normal however long later.”

“It’s not an active ability. More a self-preservation tactic.” This he circles in the notebook. “What else can you do?”

I slide my hand into my pocket, sheathing Brody in my palm. He’s cool to the touch despite the heat coming off me. “How is any of this relevant to what you’re asking me to do?”

“Fact gathering allows me to theorize what you have the potential to do,” he reasons.

“I used to smell people.” Yeah, that didn’t come out awkward at all. Best I follow up. “Everyone had their own scent. Humans smelled sweet, Solathairs were floral spices, and Sumairs had varying scents, depending on what element they were converted from.”

“What do I smell like?”

I shrug. “I can’t do it anymore. Well, I can smell things but not people.”

“What can you smell?”

I sigh. “Emotions.”

Furious writing. “That’s your brain’s way of categorizing its experience. Scent is a strong memory motivator and, in your case, an identifier. What do the emotions smell like?”

“Fire.” I crinkle my nose in disgust. “This room’s been full of your curiosity since we started your game of twenty questions.”

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The smell intensifies, as does his writing speed. “What’s that smell like?”

“Candle smoke like after you blow out a burning candle.”

His eyes are wide as saucers. “What other emotions can you smell?”

“Fireplace for comfort, hot garbage for annoyance, grease fire for regret, electrical fire for confusion, dumpster fire for jealousy, charcoal BBQ for pride, house fire for fear, chemical fire for nervousness, bonfire for rage, and candle smoke for curiosity. There are probably more,” I blurt. There are definitely more, namely the one I purposely omitted, the most potent of them all. Burning flesh for pain.

He jots it all down. “I’m not seeing anything here relating to an active use of your ability. These things all happen innately without exertion from you.”

“I can create fire.”

“Yes, you can manipulate the element. I’m more interested in things you can actively do relative to it. Things making you unique. Not that what you are isn’t unique in itself, but your specialties are what I’m trying to unwrap.”

“Why?”

“Sumairs can’t use the element,” he points out. “We only have access to the specialties received at the time of conversion, and they rarely correlate directly to the creator.” He sets the pen down. Guess he plans to talk now. “For instance, I absorb energy, Matthew slows the energy drain, and my daughters…” He grimaces. “Let’s not discuss them. What I’m getting at is everyone has their own way of utilizing the energy given. With Solathairs, they have the active element at their disposal, as well as the specialty. Sumairs only have the specialty.”

I fake a yawn that turns into a real yawn. “Not hot news.”

“I’m interested in seeing if Gundy’s power will be mirrored when you use it or if it’ll refract into something else. Your specialties are the control in this experiment. The powers you consume would be the variables.”

“I can locate people.”

“How do you mean?”

“I can see where they are because of my familiarity with their emotions. The emotions are colors in my head. Outlines.”

He picks up the pen. “How does it work?”

“I just close my eyes and locate people by their emotional frequency. I get a mental picture of where they are and what they’re doing.”

“Does this only relate to people you’re familiar with?” He’s writing feverishly now. I’m lighting that notebook on fire at some point. I don’t want it subjected to the prying eyes of the Tribunal once Barry stops blocking their view.

“To my knowledge, yes.”

“Is there a distance limit?”

I shrug. “No notable distance to evaluate. I only just learned I can do this. Brody taught me.” I frown, squeezing my pocket rocket for support.

“Let’s get started,” Conductor Tayte changes tracks. My emotional shift made him uncomfortable. Point to Brody.

“I have an idea. I want you to close your eyes. Imagine the power you pulled from Gundy. Carefully touch a piece, become familiar with it, and understand how it’s different from your fire element.”

I close my eyes, envisioning the chest I placed the power spool into. I reach inside, feeling around for the end I tucked to keep it from unraveling.

“That’s it,” he coaxes. “Now, explore the thread.”

I tug on the end, the thread coming loose like accidentally unknitting a sweater. It doesn’t go anywhere, just sits in a pile next to the spool.

I open my eyes to Tayte frowning. “We need an accelerant. You need to use your fire to push it forward.”

“What if it burns through it?”

“We’ll know that won’t work next time,” he counters.

I close my eyes again, the energy pile still distinctly visible. I open the grates to my flame, dismayed by the lack of fire fuel available. Tayte only opened a narrow valve for release. Usually, containing the stream takes effort. This time, it takes effort to extract it. Opposite problem. Once I’ve forced out enough fire sludge to work with, I manipulate my flame into a single, straight line. A needle. I feed the end of the air spool through the fire needle eye.

Now I feel Tayte’s pull. He’s retracting the needle and thread. My body leans toward him reflexively.

“Take it back,” he demands. “It’s not working.”

I grab the needle. There’s a prick inside me like it jammed my thumb. My eyes snap open to a new view. Everything’s in grayscale. I look toward Tally, needing something to ground me. Only, Tally’s enhanced. She isn’t black and white. She’s sparkling green, the energy lighting her up like Christmas tinsel. I shift my gaze back to Tayte. He isn’t black and white. Nor is he shimmery. Surrounding him is a beautiful sapphire shell, solid in color.

“Can you see that?” I whisper.

“I can’t see anything,” Tayte grouses, “but I feel it.”

“It’s not the drunk feeling I expected.”

“No, it’s nothing like that.”

As I continue to marvel over the color gradients, the spool grows smaller and smaller. I’m using a limited resource.

“That’s enough,” he orders, slurping up my fire.

I blink a few times before my view returns to normal.

“Explain what you saw.”

“Lack of colors.” I squint, picturing it. “Everything was like an old television show. Black and white. Tally wasn’t grayscale. She was glittery green. You were a lovely shade of sapphire, only it wasn’t like Tally. The color didn’t shimmer, and it was outside. A shell instead of solid.”

He writes everything down.

I clench my fists at my sides. “Why did that happen?”

“When you threaded the power you took, you changed its trajectory. It obliquely passed from one medium into another and out again. The wave velocity was altered.”

“Refraction,” I reiterate. “The energy was neither perpendicular nor parallel to my fire energy, so it changed how it refracted.”

“Right.”

“Let me get this straight,” Tally decides to weigh in. “Gundy’s ability to manipulate the oxygen in someone’s blood produced an inebriating effect.”

“Correct,” Tayte confirms.

“Heh, you’re a buzzkill,” she taunts.

“I don’t get the joke.”

“The opposite of a distorted view is a clear one. You can see us clearly,” she continues. “Everything was in black and white but us. I was shiny and solid, while Tayte was dull and hollow.

I nod, resisting a derisive snort at the apt description.

“The colors matched our element?”

I nod again.

“This takes energy reading to a totally new level. Handy weapon.”

She’s right. It’s an ability any Sumair or Solathair would like to have in their arsenal. War isn’t Tayte’s primary goal. Not even the safety of his Rebels is his primary goal. As far as people are concerned, Tayte only cares about Tayte. His driving force is what can benefit him.

Bright side: the power I pulled from Gundy has a limit. It isn’t a replenishing spool. It’ll only last as long as there’s thread left. Bigger, better bright side: I feel the drain of my power. If I can feel it, I can control it. If I can control it, I can stop Tayte from sponging it and releasing it all back into me at a volume I can’t handle. What does that mean? It means I’ll be taking the leash he’s placed around my neck and choking him with it, but first, I need those departure stones.