He felt that...

Felt what? Warmth on a smooth surface, pressure and movement, though the warmth itself remained steady. Lifting? Perhaps... Or nothing more than his imagination. However did one tell the difference? 

Focus, concentration and the reminder that he was not the imaginative sort encouraged him. Until he realised the warmth was fading, and whatever had been was gone. Aylen tried somewhere else, sweeping the floor with the vestiges of awareness left to him. There. Boards pressing together and easing apart. Something was moving above them, being supported by them, the miniscule shifts between the cracks gave them away. Moving quickly, somewhere else. No! 

It was the first sign he'd felt that he was not alone up here since his mind escaped its bonds. But what could he do with someone walking away? If they'd come so close and there'd been no contact, no quiet voice reaching through the space around hm, did that mean they'd forgotten him? That he was no longer needed? Or had he lost that ability when he left his prison? He reached after those footsteps, not knowing if they were human or beast, or even capable of hearing him. But no matter how far he reached or how loudly he forced his thoughts away from him, there was no response, and the footsteps kept moving away. But the stones nearby rattled if they were free and glowed if they weren't, some of his pent up frustration escaping as he shouted silently. The strength of his anger almost negating the weakness that defined his limits. But the final consequence was no slow pause of steps down the stairs or returning to the attic. Instead, the elemental managed the noncorporeal equivalent of slamming his fists against a table. Nothing truly significant happened, but the glass encasing his statue cracked. The line snapping into existence with the same snap of a twig underfoot, designed to draw attention, and then it spidered up the casing, crackling as it went.

Aylen didn't notice. Just as he hadn't realised that the hands he'd felt did not belong to the feet moving away. But after a moment, the stones stopped their rough display of irritation and the attic was quiet again. He'd need another way to win himself free...