Bechimo
Dock A
Theo frowned into her tea, pattern suffused with thought.
Anthora ate a maize button, and raised her cup, awaiting the outcome of thought.
“So you can see the operatives and Directors, and you can set the—the compulsion to leave Tinsori Light. All you need from me is energy—like a battery?”
“Exactly like a battery,” Anthora told her, putting down her cup.
“Will they stay away?” Theo asked.
“I believe that I may be sufficiently persuasive as to their danger that they will not be eager to return for quite some while.”
“We don’t want them to return at all,” Theo pointed out.
“These—no, we do not. We must prepare to receive others, I think—however! That is for later. Under consideration at the moment is the fact that I need, as Miri would have it—juice, in order to drive the present crop of Lyre Institute agents away.”
She paused, and leaned forward, looking directly into Theo’s eyes.
“There is something that you need to understand. This thing I am proposing—that you allow me access to your energy—falls into a grey area. Unscrupulous persons sometimes chain others to them, in order have their energy on draw. That is very bad form, and no person of melant’i employs these measures.”
“You’re asking my permission,” Theo pointed out.
“Yes. And I wish you to be fully informed.” She raised a finger.
“You and I are already associated through a previous Healing. That means there is no need to forge a new link. The existing link, however, may be made more robust by this sharing.”
Theo looked aside, and picked up her teacup.
“How’s Jen Sin?” she asked.
“It will not be a short healing, but not so long as I had feared. I think we may credit the leather for that.”
Theo nodded, put her cup down, and sighed.
“I give you permission to use my energy for this one occasion, in order to drive our enemies away. I do not give you permission to use my energy to kill those enemies.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Is that clear enough?”
“Most marvelously clear,” Anthora told her with enthusiasm. “You have been studying with Liadens.”
Theo snorted lightly.
“When do we start?” she asked.
Anthora took a brief inventory of her own, pushed her cup aside, and smiled.
“Now?”