Grandpa and three of the other guards who don't smell very good take him to the big training room.

He takes a deep breath in, lets the energy burn and congeal inside of him, and slowly breathes out. Oily black smoke comes out of his mouth and nostrils. Using his flow, he pushes it into a roughly humanoid shape beside him.

He is tasked with moving the puppet around to dodge the flow blades and strikes of the guards. He manages to prevent his puppet from being touched by any of them. He's seen enough of the other guards' styles to know how they usually operate, and he can feel their flow with his own. It's not too difficult. Regardless, Grandpa smiles. It pleases him that he is pleased.

They return him to the cell, and he does his set of bodyweight exercises, eats again, uses the chamber pot, washes, and goes to sleep.

Pekksjempar Damjen kepsa Bajeste is the fourth and last child of his mother, Ksjempar, of the clan Bajeste. Their family is descended from the aforementioned Bajeste, one of the people who worked against the Cannibal Kings in the revolution. Most of their clan are strong eye mage doctors.

Given that the status of being a mage is passed down matrilineally, his family keeps rigorous genealogical records. Though the mother is the main source of variance in whether or not children become mages (a nonmage father with a mage mother has a fifty-fifty chance for each child, whereas the reverse pairing producing mage children is almost unheard of), talents can be passed down through both lines.

In terms of strength, Damjen's gift is the weakest of his siblings — it's thoroughly mediocre. But his aptitude for mind reading was evident even from when he was a toddler, and eye mage talents are often pretty strongly heritable.

So it was that his parents entered into negotiations with another good eye mage family and arranged a marriage for him at the ripe old age of five years old.

His family paid a steep bride price to bring the girl into their clan in the hopes that his talent could be passed down to their children, whether memetically or hereditarily.

It was not a very pleasant thing to be told that as a twelve year old. He started to refuse to do any of his anatomy and physiology studies and would hide from his parents and the servants and the instructors. Spiritual sight can pass through solid matter and is only blocked by spiritual energy contained by living things, and their urban townhouse, while having lots of greenery on the outside, did not have as much on the inside. He would take vines out of trellises and cover himself in moss to disguise himself, reading the minds of the servants from a distance to know where they would be planning on going and what they would be doing.

His parents got fed up with this behavior and sent him away to their inland rural estate, away from the distractions of the city. Now that he was sixteen, they were also concerned that there was a real possibility that he could elope, and that would be a disaster. Better to avoid that possibility until the marriage is done.

It's impolite for eye mages to stare at people's faces, since spiritual sight is involuntary. Not even closing one's eyes can block it, since an eye mage's own eyelids are transparent to their sight. Still, he would choose to just do it anyway to know what the servants were planning and what they were ordered to do. 

The servants and the instructors were given hats to wear coated with moss and leaves and flowers to prevent their minds from being read.

He learned how to read body language and facial expressions with mundane sight.

The move to the rural estate did not go as well as his parents had hoped. It was true that he decided to care more about learning, but he became even more unruly. He was big enough now that the servants could not just scoop him up, and the estate being in the middle of nowhere meant that, if he wanted to go for a very long walk, he could do so and not be interrupted or caught by the city guard and sent back. So he did.

The climate inland was more continental and less wet than on the coast. Colder. The differences in flora and fauna were interesting, and he would often spend time just observing them for long stretches. He realized that all this observation was inadvertently contributing to his knowledge of biology, but he was internally insistent that this was just for the sheer pleasure of beholding nature.

These walks would get very long indeed, but he always made sure to get back before nightfall. This was rural and inland, and there was a small but real chance that he could be accosted by a magical beast. His spiritual sight would let him spot it regardless of mundane light, but many of them have eye magic too, so spotting it means it probably spotted him too.

The dry season finally began, and with it, the days started getting longer.

Hedges and trellises are common sights in Narmjesa, not just for beauty, but to stifle spying by eye mages. The issue is that, while they might conceal what's going on inside, they don't conceal that something is being concealed. When he finds an old, dilapidated castle during one of his walks, he notices the suspiciously thorough and unlikely cover of vines on the stones.

He doesn't remember being told there was an old castle here. How old was it? Maybe it dated back to the era of the Cannibal Kings. He doesn't know enough about architecture to tell.

He circles the castle, trying to find an angle to peek inside. Some privacy installations operate too much with the assumption of right angle or horizontal viewing lines that they leave gaps in the coverage. He climbs a tree – easier as an eye mage since one can tell which branches will support one's weight. Not as easy as a flow mage though. They can just fly.

Damn. No luck. Whoever arranged the plants was good. Professional.

Well, he's not actually going to go inside unless he knows what's in it. There's a limit to his reckless and self-destructive behavior.

He writes a letter.

Honored Mother and Father,

I did not know that we had hired a new groundskeeper for the northern castle. Or is it being restored? I would like to meet them if it's the former, or watch the restoration process if it's the latter.

Your son,
Damjen

There are different people in the room. They seem important. The way the other guards and Grandpa move and talk around them makes him think so. He can hear it in their steps and in the tone of their voices.

They're going to be bringing him outside. It's been a long while since he was last outside. He is happy.

They will be flying to the destination. It's to the northwest. Grandpa goes first. He's supposed to follow him. He can see how the other guards are wearing harnesses with netted struts, on which the Important People sit on. They wait for him to go first.

He rotates in place, gathering his flow around him until it develops enough mass, then, in a single fluid movement, crouches and jumps at an angle. He rockets off, leaving behind a hole and a plume of dust behind him. He has enough acceleration to overtake Grandpa, but he puts his arms in front of him to slow himself down to match.

They fly-glide for half an hour, landing and jumping again at regular intervals every few minutes. It's much more efficient than fully flying.

There's a bunch of buildings with dirt roads between them. They stop about a kilometer away from the center of the village.

They brought food! They have five tins of canned meat. They say they want him to eat all of them. That's more than he's ever gotten at once. So he does. He is very happy.

They say that his mission is to destroy the village, as in, all of the buildings. He should try to do it as quickly as possible, and using as little spiritual energy and stamina as possible, but that he otherwise has no other restrictions on how he ought to go about it.

It sounds easy enough.

He decides to draw out half of his current spiritual energy out into smoke. It's taking longer than usual, which isn't surprising since he's trying to draw out more than he's ever done at once before. Can he make it go faster?

He typically times his soul burning to match with his exhalations so smoke doesn't pool in his lungs. If he burns too fast, then it accumulates and feels awful. He tries drawing it out with his flow, in the same way one could move air. He already knows how to shape his smoke using his flow, so it ought to work. He tries it.

It works! He's pleased. Despite his happiness, he can hear the alarm from the others. He doesn't understand why. But they don't tell him off from doing it. When he turns to look at them, the flow mages of the bunch — he can tell the Important People aren't mages of any sort — conceal their sounds with their own flow, and he can't hear them anymore.

Alright. Don't get distracted. Having drawn out smoke, he shapes four puppets and arranges them into a wedge formation, putting himself at the front.

He typically prefers to work with Grandpa's slow style, based around building masses of flow to create unstoppable blunt force. There isn't any sort of wall or barrier to be overcome though, and here, he was told to work as quickly as possible. So using the shredding style seems like it would be better.

He draws out some more smoke and gives each of his puppets, including himself, a smoke greatsword. He shapes the greatswords and imbues them with qualities of cutting and sharpness.

He hears the Important People make thinking noises. He can hear them writing things. Unlike the flow mages earlier, they sound pleased.

Initially, he thought to just go through in this formation and cut down all the buildings. There might be a smarter way to go about all this, though.

Despite trying to save his smoke in the beginning, he draws almost all the rest of it out and puts it into his puppets. Can he imbue the puppets with the quality of having flow magic?

He can!

Flow mages can braid their flows together to achieve effects greater than the sum of their parts. He's only ever practiced it with the slow blunt style, but conceivably, he could also try it with the shredding style.

He does a simple braid with himself and his puppets spinning around, with their steps tracing out a circle. It's actually easier than working with others, since he can intuitively feel his smoke creations and how their flow interacts with his, without need of music or singing or clapping or stomping to keep time and synchronize everybody.

He lets this continue for half a minute, then has everybody jump up so they all float in the air. They transition to a flying posture, holding the greatswords out in front of them. He probably ought to shaped a weapon better designed for this purpose, but transforming already formed smoke is lossy, and he already drew out almost all of his smoke.

The five of them adjust their flying postures rhythmically to push the circle towards one direction. It takes a while to get it right, and at some points the circle threatens to destabilize and send them all flying in different directions, but he manages to keep it together. He approaches the village.

Their blades slice through the buildings like butter. In half an hour, no building stands intact.

He returns, and the Important People sound extremely pleased, though they say nothing.

They go back to the compound without incident.

Damjen's father does not send a reply. Instead, he arrives in two days. They meet in the indoor solarium. Despite the glass walls of the place, it's the most secure against spying. He sees his father scan the room to ensure that none of the servants are staying behind to snoop.

"Hello, Father."

        "So, you know."

"Know about what?"

        "The compound."

"I know that there is a compound. I don't know what's going on in it. I didn't go inside." He puts on an indignant air.

        His father sighs. "I know you well enough to know that you aren't going to let this go. I'll tell you what's going on if you promise not to tell anyone else."

"I promise."

        "Really promise."

"Fine." He takes off his moss hat and lets his father read his mind.

He's not lying!

His father looks tired, and Damjen can see him get brighter in his spiritual sight, though he can't discern anything through his father's own cap. He gestures for the both of them to sit.

He explains that the compound houses an experimental black-flow mage supersoldier for the military. He was one of the collaborators in the project, though his personal contribution was mostly in the initial hybridization. They're renting the dilapidated castle at a good fee.

That explains why the coverings were so good. Also, wow, this is such a bad idea. He put his cap back on when he sat down, but he doesn't know how much of that showed on his face.

"Honored father, why do this? Isn't our whole family's legacy based around the fact that we deposed the Cannibal Kings?"

        "I understand your apprehension. But the enemy now aren't the black mages — they have already been dealt with. The issue now is the Federation. We need to make sure we can credibly retaliate if they start something."

He really doesn't like this. This seems like something primed to explode. Literally and figuratively. He was taught the sagas of the revolution in his youth, and he knows how difficult and chancy it was. Why create a stronger version of one of them?

"Are there any eye mages on the project?"

        "Look, I can't-"

"I am recognized by you and the whole family as being a mindreading prodigy. I've been learning psychology and psychotherapy. I could be useful. I can be useful. You know this."

        His father scoffs and looks away. It would be uncouth for Damjen to more directly restate the leverage he has. "I can't guarantee anything."

"I will be satisfied by you just talking to them."

Grandpa says that he did really well in his test, which is why he's getting a reward. They've gotten a boy of the same age as him they can talk to. He's confused at how this is supposed to be a reward, but whatever. He's pleased that Grandpa is pleased.

The interior of the castle is empty. Apparently the compound is underground. They go downstairs, to the dungeons. The walls are bare stone illuminated by electric lights. It looks profoundly depressing.

Damjen has an understated get-up: a dark blue robe with a moss cap with blue bellflowers. The guards have arranged a seat for him and move to the corners of the room.

Damjen looks at the guards. They're also wearing moss caps, so he can't read what they're thinking. Ugh.

"Can I get some privacy?"

        "No, safety concerns."

"Fine." He sits.

Kandrad stands at attention, his eyes looking at the distance, preternaturally still except for his breathing.

The new person smells interesting. Quite good, actually. But not in the same way as Grandpa. He can tell he's an eye mage.

"You can sit down if you want."

He's refraining from looking at Kandrad's forehead or eyes. That's how you read people. Instead, he's looking at his nose, or away from him entirely. It's considered becoming for eye mages to do that, moss cap on or not, though he doubts he knows the meaning behind this behavior.

"Yes, sir." Kandrad sits on the bed. He moves with extreme economy of movement, moving his body exactly and only in the ways that are necessary to bring himself into the required configuration, then coming to a complete stop, again, save for his breathing. It's simultaneously graceful and unnerving.

He does notice that Damjen doesn't look him in the eye. But indeed, he doesn't know what that means, or is supposed to mean.

Damjen has enough training not to let any possible unsettling show on his face. 

"Hello. I'm Damjen."

Kandrad doesn't see it from him, but he can hear it from him.

"My name is Kandrad."

"Well met. I haven't been here before. How have you been doing recently?"

"Good. I recently got to eat a lot of meat, and I destroyed a village with it. Grandpa and the others were very happy."

Uh oh, did he say something wrong? He's being so loud.

"I see. Who is Grandpa?"

"One of my trainers. He's not here right now."

That doesn't explain why he's called 'Grandpa'. Is he literally his grandfather???

Whatever, that doesn't seem important right now.

"So, I'm an eye mage. Do you know what that means?"

"Yes."

He was actually cleared to just read Kandrad's mind from the very start, but that isn't in keeping with professional ethics. He does not want to have to explain to the superweapon that he read his mind without telling him.

"Eye mages can read minds. Currently, I'm refraining from doing so. My job is to talk to people about things, mostly about things that mentally or emotionally upsetting, and perhaps read their minds about it. It's helpful in that they don't need to be able to verbalize their thoughts, so there's less of a barrier to understanding."

He already knew that.

"Oh, I thought you were already doing that."

"I can't turn off my sight, but I can choose where I direct it. You can choose whether or not I should read your mind, and when, and rescind or grant this as you wish."

That's a lot of choices.

"Yes, sir."

Damjen resists the urge to sigh.

"Is there something you wanted to talk about?"

Kandrad doesn't know what upsetting thing to talk about.

"No."

"Would you rather that I left? Or that you not have this conversation at this time, or ever?" Hopefully not, but, it is his prerogative. In a regular therapist setting, anyway.

"Talking is fine."

He's unsure whether to interpret that as 'good' or 'tolerable'. He might not have much of a choice, actually. Maybe his handlers will get upset at him for refusing. Damjen is obligated to write a report about Kandrad and his mental state after each session, so...it's plausible.

He will try to carry the conversation forward.

"I've been doing a lot of nature watching recently. It's very interesting to look at things with my sight. But you're a smoke-flow mage, right? I don't know what it's like to experience things with those senses."

Something about what Damjen said must have upset the guards, since they suddenly become noisy.

"You upset them," he says, matter-of-factly.

Them??? Who is 'them'??? Oh.

Right, talking about the outside is fraught since he's kept in here. That was stupid of him.

Perfunctorily, he says, "I'm sorry."

He feels the guards close themselves off with their flow.

Kandrad is silent.

This is going abysmally.

He decides to ask questions instead.

"What do you typically do, day-to-day?"

"I eat, use the chamber pot, then it depends. Sometimes they have me read things. Typically, I train. I go to the training center and they have me do different things, like make puppets or armor or flow braiding or other things. Sometimes they have me write things about what I read, or how the training went. Then, I eat, use the chamber pot, clean myself, and go to sleep."

"What do you typically read? Can you tell me?"

Well, he can. But he's getting kind of tired of talking.

"Is it fine if you just read my mind about it?"

"Yes. And, of course, you can tell me whenever if you want me to stop."

He remembers.

He can think about a bunch of the stuff he's read, weighted towards ones he thinks are interesting or are recent. There's the illustrated book of flow katas that Grandpa used as reference. He really likes the wilderness and survivalism manuals. A book of call-and-response protocol for identification. Geometry problems.

"I see. Do you want me to talk about books I've read?"

He wouldn't mind.

He talks about  a series he recently read where there are sometimes portals to an alternate world with fairies. The fairies have magic that allows, among other things, the conjuration of precious materials like gold. A child's mother travels to the alternate world to learn this, and they become rich, but one day, the mother's child doesn't return, because they were kidnapped. The way the fairies work is that if they learn your name, or if you eat food they made, you fall under their control, and they can command you to do things. The story then talks about the child's journey in rescuing their mother.

His wilderness and survival manuals did not talk about fairy portals! Though he's not at risk of having his mother get kidnapped, because he doesn't have a mother.

"The story isn't real, by the way. It's fiction. It's a made up story someone wrote for fun, to entertain others."

Oh. He didn't know there was such a thing.

Maybe he can arrange for Kandrad to get fiction books. His cell doesn't have any books in it. He's not sure why. Is it like, a risk? Is he going to tear out the pages with his flow and give everyone papercuts? He would have thought he would have been able to keep the books for reference.

Kandrad thinks hearing about made up stories sounds fun.

In that case, Damjen can while away the rest of their allotted hour talking about fiction.

He's scheduled to meet with Kandrad twice every six days. Their conversations mostly revolve around very mundane topics. Damjen successfully negotiates to get Kandrad fiction books. He isn't successful in getting the guards out of the room when they talk. But it's better than it could have been: even as Damjen reminds Kandrad at the beginning of every session that he can choose to rescind his getting to see his mind, he never does so.

He has the thought that he could have been coerced into doing so, but he's gotten familiar enough with his mind that he can tell that it's his unforced choice.

After a month, he's told that his next session is cancelled, and that he should come back only for the session after that. He does so.

"Hello again. I was told that the last session was being cancelled, so I only came now. How have you been?"

They had another external training exercise, he explains. He really likes it when he gets to go outside, so he's happy.

He wants to say, 'I'll try to ask them to let you outside more', but that seems like it would upset the guards, and unlike Kandrad, he has no way to convey that to him. The private communications are unidirectional.

He would have preferred to have had both the session and the training exercise, because he likes getting to talk to and be around Damjen. He likes him and he likes how he smells.

"What do you mean?"

If someone smells good, he knows that they'll be good to be around.

Ah. That must be a smoke mage thing. He knows it's tied to taste and smell. That is so interesting. He wants to ask which of the guards smell good and which don't, but he can't just ask that. He really needs to figure out some way to be able to talk to him privately.

"I see. I don't think my sight can do anything like that. It's hm, shallower, so to speak. But longer ranged."

He thinks it would be so interesting to have eye magic. It would mean he has all three magics at once. That would be so cool. He has no idea what eye magic is like, aside from reading about it.

"Likewise. But you could tell me what it's like to use your magic, even if I can't show you mine." At least, until or unless he somehow learns how to put eye magic on himself. Maybe it is possible. Before now, he didn't even know having more than one magic was.

Sure! He'll think back to when he destroyed the village, and the techniques he used and the feelings associated with them.

It's certainly very enlightening. It's also very depressing.

His thoughts stop. Did he upset him?

Out of instinct, he almost says, 'No,' but that would have been a lie. So instead, he says, "Kind of. But I don't mind. Please continue."

So he does.

"I have a gift for you. I pre-cleared it with the guards." It took a lot of finagling and negotiation and appeals to his father. One could argue Kandrad was influencing Damjen more than the opposite, since Damjen has started taking his studies more seriously. Entirely out of concern about his future, of course. Not because he wants to have more clout with his father to ask him to negotiate on his behalf.

It's a book of prints of various animals, algae, fungi, and microorganisms by an eye mage. Each print occupies two pages of a spread: on one page is the mundane appearance of the animal, and on the other, a copy but with diagrams of the spiritual energy flows in the organism and what they represent. When he petitioned Kandrad's handlers about it, he said that it would be helpful to his understanding of magic. Especially eye magic, which he lacks. Though really, he chose it because of its artistic value. If he can't bring Kandrad outside to look at nature, then he will bring nature inside for Kandrad to look at.

He passes it through the bars and sets it down on the ground.

The cover is very colorfully illustrated. "Thank you," he says. He makes a come-hither gesture and the book flies into his hands.

They look really really pretty. He has no words for it. But he doesn't need to have words for it because Damjen can just read his mind and know what he would have said, wants to have said.

He's never seen most of these before.

"Many of them are microorganisms. As in, they're very small and you need a tool to be able to look at them, called a microscope." He doesn't think he'll be able to finagle getting him a microscope, though.

"And many of them live in the ocean."

He's never seen the ocean before. He knows that it borders the coast and that you shouldn't drink the water from it, because it's salty.

"That's true. I used to live in a coastal city. I can tell you what the ocean is like..."

It goes on like this for a few more months. Damjen visits regularly, occasionally bringing a gift of some sort. Typically a book, since books are considered 'relatively safe'. He once tried to get a scale model of a boat to him, but it was rejected.

The second book he gave him was a Southeastern weather almanac, similar in format. On the left pages were illustrations of some weather phenomenon, on the right pages were the same phenomenon with annotated spiritual energy flow diagrams, as well as explanations about the correct interpretations and predictions to make about the weather given some formation. His family didn't specialize in weatherworking, but they held their holdings long enough to know some, and enough money to have books about it. He justified this book to the guards in that it still had utility to a non-eye mage, since they could still use the mundane pictures for weather prediction.

The third book he gave him was a book about plants, especially flowers, on an island preserve. It has fewer pictures, and the pictures are entirely mundane. They're photographs though, rather than prints. The text is denser with more jargon, intended at a nonmagical but specialist audience. The book explains that although island wasn't contaminated by the biological workings of the Cannibal Kings, the plants there have hybridized with mainland plants, making them of particular interest. He justified this book the guards in that it had utility for survivalism, given that they talked about which plants are edible and not, and which had useful aspects like medicinal effects or fiber that could be processed.

What are the Cannibal Kings?

He shouldn't be explaining that.

Damjen is silent.

Kandrad continues to think this question at him.

Damjen continues to be silent.

Did he stop mindreading him? He didn't relinquish his permission earlier, or at any time, really.

Can he please say if he still is?

"Yes, I've already read it. It's quite dense, I didn't know if you'd like it."

So he is. Why isn't he answering his questions?

Damjen is silent.

He can hear the tension and anticipation from Damjen. Hm.

Why? Why is it doing this?

Oh. It's one of those topics that will cause the guards to get upset.

"I'm glad you were able to understand what the book was talking about even though it was aimed at specialists. I had to consult a biological encyclopedia to make sense of some of the passages."

Talking to the child about his progenitors was probably the most unwise decision Damjen has ever made, and he has made many unwise decisions before. But he's committed now. Before, it had just been self preservation, but now, he's become attached. A very dangerous thing: attachment.

Is he really going to try to do this?

Well, if he puts it like that, it's a foregone conclusion.

He doesn't skip the lessons with his tutors. In part because he still wants to cultivate favor with his father in case that ends up useful, and in part because it would arouse suspicion if he returned to his old ways.

He uses all his free time to go to the castle and hide within the trees. He doesn't fear detection: eye magic is much longer ranged than flow magic. And he is pretty sure that the castle only has one entryway. At least, aboveground. He doesn't think there are any tunnels, though.

With a watch, he notes the times of the comings and goings of the guards. When they change shifts, how many there are, who they are. It's hard to make out faces from this far away, but he can discern enough of the broad patterns of their bodies' energy flows to distinguish them. If only he had a stronger raw gift. Oh well.

The guards consistently change shifts at 6am and 6pm, meeting inside to perform shift change. Ugh. It would have been easier if they did it outside. He needs to manufacture some distraction or stratagem to draw them all outside enough that he can sneak in and talk to Kandrad in private.

Could he create some sort of ball of living tissue and have it make a loud sound? No, flow detection doesn't work like that. How about lying and saying there's some spiritual contagion? It would work...but spiritual contagions can only attach directly to people, and they would want to be examined by him. So it would draw them away, but it would occupy him. Not helpful.

What to do, what to do...

...ah.

He was thinking like a mage. He was only looking at the things he could see, the things he could do with his magic. When there's so many things one could do without it. Why use spiritual sound when you can use mundane sound?

He can't buy any firecrackers — the nearest village is miles away, and it would absolutely arouse suspicion if he asked the servants to buy any on their grocery trips.

By dint of having more space, the library in the rural estate was bigger than the one in their urban house. Which meant it had more chemistry textbooks. And the storeroom had various chemical reagents to be used in medicinemaking.

pipe bomb

He makes several, actually, with fuses of different lengths, calibrated to be about a minute away from each other.

Since the shift change wasn't an opportune time, he decides to make his move at midnight. He drank a lot of coffee in the morning to be able to stay up late. He had to arrive at the castle before shift change to ensure he knew the number of guards that would be present. It varied from two to four, typically. Being an eye mage, he can still use his spiritual sight to navigate by looking at the grass and trees, whereas the flow mages will have no such advantage.

He's done testing with the fuse lengths, but not of the actual bombs. It's very possible none of them will work. It's part of why he made several. The other reason being that, if he times it correctly, then they would blow at around the same time, attracting more attention. He made his pocket watch visible even in the night by attaching tiny pieces of moss to the hands and the hour and minute marks.

He approaches the castle and lights each one in turn, keeping low in the greenery, watching to see the telltale silhouette of a human with his spiritual sight.

Once they're all lit, he scurries away, ensuring he still has a good view of the castle entrance — the vine antispying protections it has also make it very visible to spiritual sight even at night — and plugs his ears with wax.

He suppresses making a sound when the bombs blow. It wasn't perfectly synchronous, but it will be loud enough, he thinks. He calms himself as best he can with breathing exercises to make himself less loud in spiritual hearing. He presses himself low to the ground and waits, taking out the wax. He hopes that both of the guards will come out rather than just one.

He smiles when he sees two silhouettes exit. He rushes inside, boots clacking against the stone floor.

Oh. He didn't know he had an appointment today. His room doesn't have a window, so it's hard to tell when the days pass. The electric lights are always on.

He can hear the agitation radiating from Damjen, and the smell of sweat and dirt. It's very unusual, because he typically smells very clean.

"Hi, Kandrad. Do you trust me? If I say you ought to do something and that it will be for your benefit, will you believe me?"

Yes.

"I'm here to break you out. To free you. I've distracted the guards, but it won't last long. Can you break the bars of your cell?" He's assuming the only reason they have the ability to hold him is because of the guards, and not because of the metal bars or locks. They are entirely mundane to his sight.

He thinks so. Stand back, please.

He does so, and he also covers his ears while he's at it.

It makes a sound, but it isn't loud per se. He makes several slashing motions, and a rectangle appears in the bars, lengths of metal clattering to the floor.

He wants to keep his stuff. The books, mostly, but the clothes are good too. He is sure that it won't slow them down.

There's no time!

Fine. He takes off the bedsheet, puts the books and Kandrad's few changes of clothes in it, and wraps it all up.

Please hold on to it, and then cling onto my back. His thoughts are sure that he's strong enough for it.

Okay. Presumably this is flow magic he isn't familiar with.

He hops onto Kandrad's back, the bag with his stuff pressed between the two of them. He hooks his arms around Kandrad's neck and shoulders while his legs cling onto his stomach.

With a pull of his wrist, he opens the door. With a push from his foot, they rocket through it.