“Get on with it, then!” Damien said eagerly. For a moment, he almost forgot that his instructor was an eldritch being. Henry just chuckled.

“Use your mental energy and envelop your hand with it. It doesn’t have to be pretty, just cover your hand. It’ll let you interact with the Ether,” Henry said. “Grab some energy and pull it away. For now, only touch the lines going into you. The others are harder to work with.”

Damien followed his instructions. After his work with the net, making a thin layer of energy around his hand wasn’t a challenge at all. He touched the line of Ether. It vibrated in response.

He wrapped his hand around the line and gave it a small tug. A mote of light tore away and came free in his hand. However, the line didn’t look any different.

“The Ether will dim if you take enough energy from it,” Henry said, guessing Damien’s next question. “It’ll regenerate based on how much energy you have. The more you use the Ether, the more your body will store.”

“Okay,” Damien said, memorizing every word that his companion said. “What do I do now?”

“To use the Ether’s energy to cast magic, you need to bring it onto the Mortal Plane,” Henry explained. “The Ether is actually a separate plane that is overlaid on your world. The barrier between the planes is very weak, so all you have to do is draw it into yourself. At that point, you’ll either be able to store it or use it.”

Damien closed his hand around the mote of Ether. Henry hadn’t said to, but it just felt right. What felt like a miniature bolt of lightning shot down his arm and into his chest. It settled around where his heart was, inside a strange sphere of dim energy that Damien hadn’t created. However, the shock wasn’t painful. If anything, it almost felt good.

“Good instincts,” Henry said. He slapped Damien on the back of his head with a small burst of mental energy. “Now stop using them. No experimenting unless you want to make a mistake and blow us both up.”

“Right,” Damien said, rubbing his head. “Sorry. Where is the Ether being stored? It looks like it’s in an orb of some sort, but I didn’t create it.”

“Don’t be sorry. Just do it right. And that is your core,” Henry said. “It’s overlayed with your heart. As you grow stronger, the Ether will travel through your veins and enter the rest of your body as well. Now, you’ve got a small amount of Ether. Extend your hand towards the wall at the foot of your bed. Let the net fall, then reach out to the Ether within you. Channel it towards your hand, but keep it restrained. Do not let it burst forth, but keep it at a slow stream. I will assist.”

Damien nodded, too excited to say anything. His heart was beating so fast that it could have outraced a rabbit. The lines of Ether faded away as he let his concentration drop.

He extended his hand and placed his palm a few inches away from the wall. The mote of Ether within his chest buzzed and hopped the moment he reached out towards it.

It leapt towards his hand faster than Damien had expected. A chill passed over him as Henry’s energy enveloped the mote of light, slowing it down to a crawl.

“Control it!” Henry snapped.

Damien swallowed and nodded, using more energy to keep the Ether from slipping away. Henry slowly released it until the Ether was fully back under Damien’s control. He inched it forwards, fighting the energy’s desire to escape, until it shimmered in the base of his palm.

“You are going to slowly channel it out of your hand. Focus on creating a sphere,” Henry ordered. “This is not a true spell, so don’t worry about anything else.”

He did as Henry said once more, allowing the Ether to edge forwards until it slipped out of his palm. A dot of dark energy formed in front of Damien’s hand. It started to expand and Damien narrowed his eyes, fighting back his excitement as he forced it to remain about the size of a small apple.

The ball hovered in the air before his palm, not moving. Damien swallowed and failed to keep the gleeful grin from his face.

“I’m using magic!”

“Barely,” Henry grumbled, but he didn’t sound very displeased. “Now, be careful. Because we didn’t try to control how the magic was formed, that’s essentially just an orb of destructive energy. It’s completely useless in a normal fight since there are so many spells that do its job better, but it works great for carving stone.”

Damien got the hint. He slowly moved his hand towards the wall, his body trembling in excitement. The orb let out a low whine as it melted clean through the stone. Damien pulled his hand back, revealing a perfectly carved furrow in the wall. He let out a whoop, and even Henry couldn’t keep himself from grinning within the boy’s mind.

Of course, Damien’s loss of concentration caused the ball of energy to splutter and fade away. His headache had grown a tad worse, but it was still completely manageable.

“That was amazing!” Damien said, pacing back and forth along the thin pathway between his and Sylph’s bed. “Let’s do it again!”

“I won’t stop you,” Henry replied. “The faster we get a training room, the better. Just don’t accidentally burrow into one of the other kid’s rooms.”

Damien winced at the thought of popping through Mark’s wall unannounced. The boy had been amicable enough, but that was a surefire way to get him on Nolan’s side.

His heart was beating so fast that he had to sit down on the bed for a moment, much to Henry’s amusement.

“Are you seriously winded from that basic little trick?” Henry asked, laughing.

“Of course not,” Damien replied, his mood too good to take the bait. “That was the first time I’ve cast a spell! I’m a little overexcited.”

“You are so lame.”

“And you’re an eldritch creature that uses teenager slang unironically,” Damien replied. “Between the two of us, I think you’re worse off.”

Henry grumbled at that, but he didn’t grace Damien with a response.