Chapter 152

Abby

Imogen wanted the training hall at ten, with nobody in it.

“Nobody,” she said, when I came in and found her alone in the middle of the mats with her basket at her feet. “Not your Alpha. Not your brother. Not the healer. If you fall down, I’ll pick you up. I’ve done it before.”

She had swept the floor herself. The chalk circle from the full moon was gone, and the boards were bare and pale in the winter light from the high windows. Outside, across the yard, I could hear Ryan’s morning drills, the thud of bodies on the frozen ground and his voice calling the count.

“Sit,” Imogen said.

I sat on the mat, cross-legged, facing her. She sat down opposite with her knees creaking, and set a bowl between us. A plain white kitchen bowl, full to the brim with water.

“I want to see what you can do with a little,” she said. “Not a lot. A little. Fill that with light. Don’t spill a drop.”

I looked at the bowl.

“That’s all?”

“That’s a