Rachel spoke the words, and the flame came to life.

Jason looked around suspiciously. “Is this some kind of trick?”

“No way. How would I make a candle spontaneously light itself?”

“I don’t know. It just feels like a trick. How long did it take you to learn this?”

“I lit the candle on my first try, after Drake described how. I’d seen him do it several times. My first time, it took a few seconds of pushing to get it right. Now it seems effortless.”

“Drake can do this too?” Jason asked.

“Yes. Although I’m already at least as good as him. And I can do some other things that he can’t. The charm woman said I’m a natural.”

“You truly have a gift,” said Chandra, stepping around from the other side of the wall. “I could feel the power in your words.”

“How long were you listening?” Jason challenged, embarrassed about his many failed attempts.

“I don’t make it a habit to eavesdrop on comrades,” she apologized. “Galloran felt Rachel speaking Edomic and sent me to watch. Drake told him about your talent, and he’s most intrigued.”

This was the most Jason had ever heard Chandra speak. “What do you mean he felt her speaking?”

“He could feel the effect of her words,” Chandra said. “The change her words were causing, the power she was mustering with her will. To a lesser extent I could sense it as well.”

“Do you speak Edomic too?” Rachel asked.

“A smattering,” Chandra replied. “I mostly know how to move things.”

“Like telling animals to move?” Rachel asked.

“No, I’ve never grasped the nuances of suggestion. I can’t work with intellects. I mean physically moving objects by command.”

“Show us,” Jason invited.

Chandra scanned the ground. “This place amplifies Edomic commands. You can almost taste it. The charged atmosphere, rich with energy. It must be why the old wizard chose to live here. You were tapping into a lot of power, Rachel, although you used only a small portion.” She extended her hand toward a stone block that probably would have been too heavy for anyone but Aram to lift. She sang a quick phrase, and it shuddered. She repeated the effort, and it rocked. Her face contorted with effort, and on the third try, her words tipped it onto its side.

“Cool!” Jason said.

“It’s normally hard to budge anything bigger than you can move with your muscles,” Chandra said. “I can feel that my Edomic has more clout than usual here.” She extended an arm forward and issued a command, and a stone the size of a hockey puck leaped into her callused hand.

“You spoke directly to the stone,” Rachel noted. “You didn’t call a force to push it. You just told it where to go.”

“Observant,” Chandra said. “I name the object or the material I mean to move, then tell it where to move by speaking a command and visualizing a trajectory. I can’t tell you why it works. My mother had the same knack, as did her mother as well. I’ve been doing it since childhood.”

“Can I try?” Rachel said.

“Be my guest,” Chandra replied, folding her thin, sinewy arms. “Do you need me to repeat the phrase?”

“I think I have it,” Rachel said.

“Then try to push something.” Based on her stance and expression, Jason thought that Chandra expected Rachel to have trouble.

Rachel extended her hand toward the same stone block Chandra had tipped, focused on it, and said the words. The block flipped end over end, tumbling heavily across the grassy ground, crashing against irregularities in the terrain before wobbling to a rest twenty yards away.

Chandra gasped, wide eyes darting from the block to Rachel and then back. “You were having sport with me. You’ve done this before.”

Rachel smiled self-consciously, clearly pleased and embarrassed. “I’ve been practicing other types of Edomic,” she explained. “But I’ve never done this. I pushed as hard as I could, because the block seemed so heavy.”

“Even in an ideal location such as this,” Galloran said, coming around from behind one of the walls, feeling his way with a walking stick, “you mustered significant power.”

“How could you tell?” Rachel asked.

“I didn’t see the stone, but I could sense the energy you brought to bear and perceive the force that shoved it. And I heard it roll. How long have you been practicing Edomic?”

“Maybe five weeks.”

Chandra huffed. “Unbelievable.”

“She hasn’t been in our world more than a few months,” Galloran reminded the cook. “Rachel, I understand you can call fire with considerable aptitude.”

“And I can give directions to animals. And I helped the charm woman enchant a decoy doll to fool the lurker.”

Galloran rubbed his lips. “I take it you have not encountered an Edomic phrase that you could not employ.”

“Not yet,” Rachel agreed. “There are limits to what I can do with any phrase.”

Galloran smiled. “We have a true adept in our midst. Rachel, your natural gift is the material from which wizards are made.”

“The charm woman thought so too. She wanted me to be her apprentice.”

Galloran nodded. “She could have taught you many things. Ideally, you would be apprenticed to a true wizard—one who could school you in the finer points of Edomic. Sadly, with Maldor representing the last of his order, no such teacher remains. Rachel, an innate faculty for Edomic is so rare that we may have found why the oracle wanted you here. Simply by mastering the limited phrases that have survived as a kind of folk magic, through practice, you could become formidable.”

“Why do you think I’m here?” Jason asked.

Galloran chuckled. “We already have our proof through your deeds, Lord Jason. You discovered that the Word is a fraud. That act alone makes your contribution incalculable.”

“Does that mean my part is done?” he wondered.

Galloran pondered the question. “You want to know if you can go home?”

“No,” Jason said reflexively, ashamed to look like a coward in front of a man like Galloran. “I mean, well, we had thought about it.”

“Ferrin knows a way to the Beyond,” Rachel said.

Galloran nodded. “As I have expressed before, I wouldn’t blame either of you for going home if you find a way. Nor would I have blamed you for staying there, Jason, had you done so.”