Nothing.

He was about ready to physically blow on them, but obviously that defeated the purpose. He visualized more carefully, closing his eyes, but he snapped his eyes open barely a moment later because, of course, how would he know if it had worked?

The leaves looked unmoved.

He kept trying for he didn’t know how long, attempting every way he could imagine to use magic to move the leaves, but to no avail.

He felt disgusted with himself. What was he missing? What did he not know? Damn his parents for not even teaching him the tiniest bit. Was there a secret to it? Did he need a totem or token of some kind? Were there magic words you needed to know, like those listed in the star book? But then how would anyone have ever figured them out?

Suddenly he remembered the star map. He’d slipped it in his pocket in the library what seemed like a lifetime ago—it could still be there. Having survived that journey in his pocket would be remarkable, but he could hope. His hands and arms were hugged to his sides by the vines, but he squirmed his hand and felt the slight crunch of paper. By the ancients—it was still there. Perhaps that could help him figure something out if these guesses were fruitless.

But at the moment, tied up like a roast, guessing was his only option. He turned his head to face the woman and tried again to move the leaves.

After a while of trying, his mind wandered from its various visualizations of leaves moving. He thought of his mother’s whispered lessons to him, the few things she’d tried to tell him in precious, stolen moments on the garden terrace. He remembered her arms around him, when he was younger, looking up at the stars with him, whispering, “The stars, the moon, the sun, the very air—they are all yours, Son. All yours to breathe your will.” It had been important information, really, but it was also the moment his mother sounded most like what he imagined a mage to be. There was a hint in her voice of a lust for magic, for bending the power to your will. He sighed. It was a fine idea but sounded grand and silly when he couldn’t even move a leaf.

And then suddenly it hit him—move a leaf! Of course. That night his mother had whispered that the air was his, the moon, and stars. Not the leaves. Those—did they belong to this woman sleeping nearby? To his mother? And the dirt—that wasn’t his, either. Air, creature, earth. He could only control from the top of a leaf on up!

Feeling renewed, he focused again on the leaves. He took a deep breath. She seemed to be stirring, so he probably didn’t have much time. Another deep breath—focus on the air, focus on the feeling of it moving, in and out, back and forth. He centered his thoughts and moved them up from the leaves to the air above them. He imagined tiny particles moving, a breeze blowing from his head toward his feet, struggling to visualize the invisible air.

A leaf twitched. Another.

Excited, his mind immediately brought forth the idea of a gust of wind flinging leaves into the air—and suddenly up they flew!

He gasped in surprise. The gust stopped abruptly, unnaturally, and the leaves tumbled straight down. Several of them hit him in the face. He almost laughed aloud at it.

He had done it! He grinned like a fool in spite of himself. What should he try next—a tree branch? The brambles? Sparks from the fire! What would be hard and what would be easy?

In his excitement, he forgot he was not alone.

“Well, looks like you’re having a good morning.” Her voice cut through his grin, and he turned to see her eyeing him strangely. “I can’t imagine what you have to smile about.”

He said nothing and just looked from her to the fire and back. She didn’t answer his questions; he wouldn’t answer hers if she didn’t even phrase them as such.

She sat up, throwing off the furs and blankets she’d slept under. To his surprise, she’d slept with her boots on. Her bun had loosened, and she reached back and began to take it down. Locks of fiery red tumbled down her shoulders in a sudden rush, and he caught his breath. All thoughts of magic dwindled as he watched her brush through her hair with her fingers, toss it over her shoulder, and tie it back up. Luckily, he broke his eyes away before she noticed.

She stood up and stretched. Stiff as he was from not being able to move the entire night, he squinted his eyes and glared at her. She noticed and stared at him for a moment as if considering, and then she shrugged. She turned away and began rummaging in her pack, and he thought she was going to ignore him, but slowly the vines began to loosen.

They had somewhat untangled, but not completely. He was studying them when he realized she was coming toward him with a dagger. He jumped, but she gave him a look of disdain.

“You think I’d keep you alive all night just to kill you now?” she said, gripping the vines and taking the blade to them vigorously. She cut them from top to bottom in a gesture or two; he was glad it was the vines and not his stomach.

“Well, pardon me for not thinking clearly first thing in the morning,” he replied. He sat up as she headed back toward her pack. His stomach gurgled. Ah, to be in the kitchen at home—eggs, bacon, oats and milk and sugar. He doubted she had any of that in her pack. And the wondrous head cook’s sugar-dusted apple dumplings—that was definitely not in her pack. Would he ever taste them again?

He swallowed and watched carefully where she slid the dagger back into her pack. Perhaps that would come in handy later. But killing her was out of the question. Beyond the Code and the matter of honor, there was something about her. Instincts told him he would pay the gods if he wronged her. He had no desire to. No, he would have to focus on some kind of escape.

Miara tried to focus on choosing which of the two main roads the maps showed could take them most of the way to the Kavanar border. But something that morning flared the animal instincts in her, and she couldn’t help but feel the sense that she was being watched. Each time she checked for anyone who could be studying them, she found nothing, however. And if someone was indeed watching them, why hadn’t they acted after she made camp for the night?

According to the map, it looked like they could make it to a town if they rode a little farther east and then started heading south when they hit the main road. The towns would be larger than some she had passed on the way here, which would help her to fade into the background, but she hadn’t seen these towns before to know anything about them. It was hard to know which road would be easier. She hoped she was choosing well.

She turned her eyes to the forest around them, but she could find no sign of any creature. The treetops seemed empty. Could it be under the ground? There was only one way to know, although she dreaded meeting mind-to-mind with anything that watched her.