Winnie's lesson started out more as a practice in sketching than using her power. She'd copied glyphs again and again. Usually, glyphs were simple to copy. Just lay a piece of paper over a glyph and trace it.

Unfortunately, Winnie couldn't trace the glyph she was drawing because Victoria was sitting on it. Her power was no worse than her eyes at this point, but it still meant properly sizing each line and curve, and there were so many. Again and again, she ended up cramping parts together causing the resulting glyph to look half melted.

At least her latest one was coming out all right. It was an Empathy glyph, the simplest one. After a few final pen strokes, she handed it to Victoria.

Victoria confirmed it was correct and handed it back. "Well? Does it work?"

Winnie concentrated. "No."

"Then try again."

"The glyph is fine. It's not working."

Victoria held up one of Winnie's lopsided glyphs. "I'm not convinced your drawing skills aren't the problem."

"How do you even know it works when you don't trace them. Why don't you try it?"

"Because I'm not the one who needs to expand my power. But that does give me an idea."

Victoria took the glyph out from under her. Setting a paper over it, she traced it. "I suppose I should have tried this earlier. My plaque replicator used to render nearly all of the glyph except for the last line. That one I would draw myself. It's the only one that matters." She'd finished all but one line. Tucking the aura glyph away, she handed her drawing to Winnie. "Draw that line there."

Winnie did so.

"Does it work?" Victoria asked.

"No."

"And you do have your master glyph on you?"

Winnie took hers out and placed it on the table.

Victoria sighed. "I suppose it was a long shot. Damn Paul. That man was always so difficult. Even when he gives glyphs to the world, he only trained his power just barely enough to do so." After a pause. "I want you to keep trying though."

Winnie resisted her impulse to complain. If there was any chance at all that she could remotely copy glyphs, she had to try. Both her and Victoria had seen that unknown glyph strapped tight around Alexander's neck, just as they could see the beguiling effect it had on people. Winnie wasn't too keen on Victoria having that power as well, but if Winnie could copy glyphs, it would mean she could copy shields too. The crew would be safe from whatever Alex was doing. And Winnie would have something besides Victoria's word to safeguard her own memories. She took another sheet of paper and started again.

"Continue on your own time," Victoria said. "I have something else I want to cover."

"Okay."

"Look at Alexander right now."

""I can't."

"Did you try trying?"

Sighing, Winnie visualized him. Nothing came up. She tried visualizing his office instead, where she knew he was, only to suffer the mental bite as something shut her power down..

"Nothing," she said.

"Which doesn't make sense," Victoria replied. "He doesn't have Naema's power."

"But he must have her right next to him."

"And by now you should already know what lesson I have planned."

"You're going to have my narrow my focus so that I'm only looking at him and I'm not seeing her at all."

"See? You're learning how to learn. I wonder why you haven't been practicing this already."

"Because I've been on the run from the law."

"Fortunately you're perfectly safe up here. So you'll have plenty of time to practice all your lessons. Hours."

"You said you only wanted to see me for a few minutes."

"I did. We're done. You'll practice on your own. Tell Tan to come see me."