Elayra scowled and crossed her arms tightly again at his complaint. “Shut up and concentrate, for starters. It’s a type of [i]energy.[/i] Think about the shield I had if you need a more concrete visual,” she suggested as Ghent exhaled, her foot tapping lightly against the ground.
	She fell silent, watching Ghent. Only the patter of the rain and the rush of a couple cars on the main road filled the morning silence for a moment. Elayra held her breath, not daring to hope he was having any luck. She blinked and uncrossed her arms as she had an idea; if he had difficulties feeling it directly in its plane, perhaps having an active bit of magic in theirs would help him.
	With a chill in the air, the first thing that came to mind was the flame. She raised her hand, palm toward the ceiling, and muttered the focus word for it as quietly as she could, the word lost in the whispers of the rain as she tried to avoid breaking his concentration. A small flame burst to life above her palm, and danced about excitedly without Elayra’s mental order.
	The flame burned for scarcely a second before Ghent thrust his hand out and nervously mispronounced the focus word.
	Elayra sighed heavily and let her hold on the flame drop, expecting nothing to happen with the mispronunciation. But the sound cut off in surprise when the world’s over-eager magic formed a ball of opalescent energy in his palm that would send an excited, untamed tingle over Ghent’s skin.
	Her eyes widened when the energy, not fully guided by Ghent, sucked slightly into itself. She dove over the table closest to her, sliding over its top as the energy burst forward in a series of bolts in every direction in front of Ghent, putting him in no danger. She ducked down beneath the table a millisecond before a buzzing stream of the energy shot over her.
	The bolts collided with any surface they could, bursting into a faint mist on contact with the concrete and tables and leaving scorch marks in their wake, some sizzling out into the rain until they found something to strike.
	Once all the bolts had shot off and the energy died away, Elayra cautiously poked her head up from beneath the table, and her gray gaze locked on Ghent.
	Slowly, a grin spread over Elayra’s face. Though it had ended rather disastrously, he had done it. Ghent had accessed magic. Finally, at least [i]something[/i] had gone right. Well, sort of.